Show GUYING THE SCIENTISTS i By JOSEPH MCABE British Humorist LONDON Dec 10 Scientific Scientific me meare men menage aye are not always busy examining the clouds which are sai said tobe to tobe I Ibe be miles away from from I Ithe the coal strike and the next bU budget I They do o occasionally withdraw their attention from those fascinating large salamanders which Mr H H. G G. Wells VeIls says lived and died a hundred mil mil- million million lion years ago They are not entirely absorbed in the dust of ancient Babylon Babylon Baby Baby- lon ion or the nerves of a flys fly's back leg or orthe the peculiar manners of the PauI Pau- Pau I or the Eskimo Sometimes U they ey glance ou out t of the windows of the laboratory or the ob observatory observatory observatory ob- ob I and notice what the rest ofus of ofus ofus us are doing Every year ear the s sneeze of the planet in the early winter disturbs their instruments and they rediscover the germ of influenza for us RESEARCH TRIUMPHS Cancer they have ha mastered a dozen times times times-or or are still hoping to master Old age has lately caught the tho microscopic microscoPic micro microscopic micro micro- eye and some day we expect to see ties Cup-ties of year olds versus versus versus ver ver- sus year olds A prospect for those who in the future will have to read or listen to the reminiscences of old men men But just now they see that weare weare we are agitated about ghosts g and one of them is going to settle the question for us Thomas A A. Edison who promises promise this is a mighty doer of things bu but t there ar are are times when he disappoints disappoint s us I was in New York in 1917 when he n America Americ was thinking of entering th the tho e war and a friend of Edison's Edison s told m me that V Thomas A A. had said All that tha t they are doing in Europe in prehistoric tonic Let me get at the Huns Huns' W We Wedo Wedo do not remember that the American America n army at St St. 1 Mihiel l did anything su- su su Moreover Edison is really less kee keeon keen keenon n on catching ghosts than he was o on n ld killing IIi ng Germans When he was a boy of 10 10 V he le se set t himself to tb to devour a whole library literally rally by the yard He began V a athe at atthe atthe t the bottom shelf which shelf which contained d td such tough knots as Newtons Newton's Principia Prin tand Hume and Gibbons' Gibbons Isis His tories of the Detroit Public library and book bool wormed his way through h fifteen solid feet of that sort of liter liter- ture Then he got mental indigestion tion and he has been a skeptic eve ever since SNARE FOR SPOOKS He is not likely ely to settle for those thos e er who find this world lacking in interest interest inter inter- r- r est just now the question whether rr r there is another world or not Probably he is going to make malte some som e improvement of the electrometer a avery avery very sensitive electrical instrument nt for registering faint The Idea seems to tn he ht that h he hA will put some very delicate registering registering registering regis regis- machine out of reach of the artful mediumistic hand and call spirits from the vasty deep to move the finger a point or two It would V not be conclusive for f or either side Mediums have beaten beate n cv every ery mechanism which earlier scie n- n title men like Har Sir W W. Crookes and W W. Varley have hive devised devise d and It is much easier today We can breed breed frogs without fathe fathers rs today We can make male toy dogs th that at will run about the room in whatever er direction you choose without anybody y touching them or any attachment nt or even an el electric current The only y conclusive proof that that- the dead return n yn will win be when a thoroughly reliable le man leaves a s sealed aled message messa e an and d comes conies comes back after death to reveal re i it t That tat has failed every time American scientific work worker er who seems to think we find thin things gs rather flat on mother earth just no now w is inviting us to have a grand shot Va atthe at wt t the moon To hit a a target et miles mlles aw awa away y will s seem em a tall order to the i infantryman but it would no not t require either as m miTch power or as much precision as he thinks Yo You u want only driving force enough to g get et the projectile out of the range of t the he earths earth's gravitation Some think th thour that at our shooting stars stars' were actually y shot out of the volcanoes of the moon moo yn n long ago POSSIBLY SOME POSSIBLY SOME DAY As to aim you jou ou do not not need to h hit is the bull bullseye seye The gravitation of oft the the l e moon would draw raw In a large projectile le that got anywhere in in its neighborhood neighbor- neighbor hood lood And if we could get off a pr projectile pro pro- o- o that would make malte a dece decent ont nt sm smoke cloud our modern telescopes es would spot it on the moon Th They ey bring the moon practically to with within in forty miles of of ofus us When Dr Huxley is put at th the l e head of of- an Old Age Sus pension Department Department Department De De- and a mans man's years ears of active ve labor run lun something like between en twenty-one twenty and we shall ha haa hava have hav a little leisure to take an Interest inte In Inthe inthe the m moon on and these other remo remote te places V l I entime many many of of of us qs s would lik like t e eer inert mert of science to come a little near nearer er than the moon and the Elysian fields field s. s There are a few little problems sti still ll to settle on earth From the WorldWide WorldWide World World- Wide Vide News S Service Inc Boston Doston n Mass |