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Show JAPS' REMEDY FOR BORES. If an ingenious invention just made by a Japanese is adopted, long, dull speeches for "buncombe" purposes in the parliaments and ' other assemblies of the world will soon be a thing of the past. In the , Japanese and most other foreign parliaments the speaker must ad- j dress the house from a tribune or platform. The inventor proposes to have this platform balanoed on a sort of elevator arrangement. A small pipe runs from each member's desk to a point under the plat- , form, and if any member thinks the speaker has orated long enough all he has to do is to drop a leaden ball into this pipe and it rolls down into a hopper. As soon as a sufficient number of members have sent their bullets down the chute to trip the scales, a system of weights come3 into operation and the stage desoends into the basement with the tiresome speaker, and another is entitled to take his place. The beauty of the system is that in this way the members can express their opinion of the speaker without its being known by him or anyone else. A similar plan is proposed for registering votes, so as to avoid the delays of calling the roll so often. j |