Show GOINGS ON IN electricity MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP or OF LIGHTING PLANTS if 3 francisco who has han devoted much attention to the question of municipal ownership of public corporations aptt antes tn 1 tes an is his conviction that the time ro or r municipalities to own find conduct commercial incle industries will not arrive until n III men are arc born into a world where politicians po itic ians and alderman protect tax bavers pavers bavers pavers and refuse boodle and where J political bo bomm alles and their hirelings who have no interest Inter cut in the ba business Kness except to draw their salaries can conduct it more cc economically than those men who have perhaps perhaps every dollar of 0 their fortune depending upon its lt size mic cess until that time comes catlen should confine their bu business inces to regulating and governing Rovern lne leaving commercial industries with their hagard hax ard and losses to individuals and private corporations po rations mr francisco says saya it Is only necessary to give alve the experience of cities which have tried the experiment to show the worthlessness of 0 the claim that municipalities can produce light at less lesa expense than private corporations As an illustration n the case Is adduced of a town in virginia chich recently installed a plant of 0 00 are arc lights to burn all might using steam power coal costing tl 1 per ton before thin municipal plant was waa established the local company offered to furnish any number of it lights that might be desired ne elred to burn every night and all night for per lamp per year interested persons in the town claimed that a municipal plant could be installed tor for this was afterwards atter ter wards raised to ekx and again to while the actual cost coat proved to be tl the advocates of municipal ownership represented to the tax pay ers era that the total cost of running four hundred are arc lights 1 if the city owned the plant would not exceed per year or vi per lamp the town put in the plant troubles came space apace soon eoon after stalling the armatures began to burn out and many lamps were taken oft off in the hope 0 of relieving the dynamo it soon became necessary to buy another dynamo and cut down the number of lamps on each circuit making six instead n of five the cost of maintaining the lights for one year irrespective of interest taxes insurance in and water rent was th ohp cost of running alone instead of being 1400 was we between and the authorities presently realized that it avol wp costing thern them per lamp per year tor for the same name light that thi the local company offered to furnish for 7 72 12 52 and the taxpayers tax payers would give a great deal to be rid of what they call their electrical white elephant IN or OF SOME POLICE SYSTEMS A statement sla lement made by police com commissioner in is andrews of new york has drawn attention to the inadequacy of the majority of existing systems of communication between policemen on the beat and headquarters fire alons etc commissioner andrews says with a perfect telegraph system every roan man would be kept constantly on his post ile he could communicate with his precinct whenever Ali enever ilia alto occasion required it with such a system there would be a ow saline ing ot of several hundred men it would be better to discontinue the appointment of men yearly early tor for a period 0 of several years cars 7 and establish such nuch a telegraphic system lie as I 1 have described this department part ment certainly requires it tile tha fault alth many police telegraph systems Is that although they are good as far as a they go they do not go far enough too few alarm boxes are used and the tha communication as a a rule does doci not extend beyond the station houses there should be a box on every muns mans pot post so co that he could send for assist once call art an ambulance or a tire lire en ell bittne or make reports without leaving mhd uig post and traveling to the station elation house there are now available sever bever A al systems w itoch would wom men meet all these vats the smallest salaried policeman costs collis a city much more than the most elpe ive alarm box and the latter Is 13 otten often tho the more needed ot of the two telephones AND fa 1111 ALARMS alara at the efficiency of many of 0 the london tire fire brigades has hajt been greatly promoted by the adoption of 0 a new system of loiis speaking telephones and posts and apparatus the principal apparatus consists of a call johnt or post for the street and an indicator and reply key tor for the tire fire station instead of the alarm by means of the ordinary electric bell sin nn electric hooter Is 13 used faed the alarm Is given by simply breaking brcak lne the glass or opening tho the door of tho the post but cannot be given either cither by the ear earthine thing of the wire for or otherwise or by contact with other wires this thin orran arrangement ran gement costs much less than the ordinary method and anini re azes the of 0 false calls calla the effectiveness of tills this system la Is much increased by a new method of placing filming fire stations in permanent telephonic communication with the men in charge of ire fire escapes at fixed street points on the single wire the call to tho the man in chargo charge of the lie escape I 1 la I 1 loud enough to wake him it if nal asleep e ep and it can be heard beard a considerable conel deraMa distance from hla his box bojc A curious illustration of the obverse of this earnest earliest striving to secure the best results in combining the telephone and fire station practice Is found in a letter from an italian correspondent in italy they despise the telephone and anathematize the are engine the telephone nan line never paid its way ani and the companies rive give the scantiest possible service and pray that the government mill bill buy their lines they are too poor even to put up tho the airm aleh h I 1 ch I 1 inevitably tie VI come down upon the first tall fall of snow so the tele telephone la Is diger edited and the people are out of patience with the electrical innovation which promises them so BO much and gives them so little the stone built houses of italy seldom catch tire lire but even it if the fire alarm telephone sen ice were perfect the engines are seldom ready and they generally reach the spot pt then alien the tire lira Js Is out the inhabitants make no secret of the fact that they would rather have the lire fire than tho the fireman as however light the anre 11 may be by the time that olli cial has had con completed plated his operations tile the hose has eff effected acted much more damage damado than might bo be expected from the lire fire SIGNALING THROUGH SPACE in further confirmation of the successful concluded last year in england in transmitting telegraphic messages over long distances without it hout wires an account lias has been received from scotland of the maintenance of communication by means of the same bame system between the island of mull and the mainland the 1 il 11 1 anglers antlers were decidedly put to a shift tho the six civile cable which usually kept them teem in touch with the other world had broken down and they were uncertain as to how long lon the interruption to communication muni cation would last A local electrician who nho had heard of sir mr Pree ces plan saw raw no reason why by it should not operate at oban just as well as anywhere else avid and lost no time in running rl gutta eutta vercha percha hire aire one and add one halt half miles long along alone the tha ground from molvern Mor vern fifteen miles fro from T oban and signa signaling ting through that whilst on tile the island of mull hull the ordinary 0 overhead ver circuit connecting two di distant a t va faces was made use of the distance intervening between the two parallel circuits was about three and one half miles A vibrator was used as a transmitter and a telephone as a receiver and the usual telegraphic traffie was carried on until the cable was repaired an account not so well ivel 11 authenticated comes irom from india of th the e completion tm by professor J C dose of 0 the tha calcutta presidency college Col leee or of some instruments by which extraordinary results are said to have been obtained certain phenomena ba have 0 been reproduced without any connect connection lon between beti veen the h transmitting and receiving stations signals in the irie forta form ot of light awl and sound ekuni have been passed panned along the ethela ether without any otner oilier apparent means ol 01 0 transmission and even solid walla wali wal i hav not interposed any anny obstacle to the pasi pas sap sage of these signals Bl nala I 1 THE hnat GIVEN OUT BY THI TH ELECTRIC LIGHT mr tesla says rays we are an fairly on thi I 1 way to the production of 0 light without heat but until that very desirable emi en clency of energy in 1 attai attained nod we hal provably prop ably have to make the best beat on 0 tha th coolest commercial light we have th present electric light this thin light though relatively cool acol still throws on fin an amount ot of heat that detracts host froze its usefulness under many condIt conditions tona captain exler of 0 the australian arnu has been making tests to what the degree ot of this heat beat 19 I 1 and hov ho it can bo be reduced A 36 candle powei incandescent lamp gives elver olt oft a maxi mail ma il mum temperature of 0 M U degrees C and alamp a lamp or of 25 candle candit degrees C two lamps raised the of a wooden receptacle in which they were placed to lo degrees C which decomposed explosives such as aa gunj gun powder etc bul without exploding them the da cle was filled with water which in fit if tween minutes was brought to tho the boll ing point it has been believed that thai electric lamps lampa would entirely any risk of 0 explosion in case of t th breakage brcak ago of the bulb in inflammable air captain exler pol points n is out the berj r ot of thin idea it if tile the lama lanini breaks in the vicinity 0 f gunpowder and and there la Is n no 0 ignition but ut the case Is different if an ceplo rive alve 5 mixture la in present so that although there kliore it ja less leso chanco chance of 01 at an explosion the danger Is not removed by the employment of 0 tho the incandescent lamp it as aa been proposed to find FL remedy in tho the use of 0 FL a double bulb with an intermediate closed space filled with air or water the heating 0 of the water would be voided by illa use ot of a retter voir having double communication with tho the external receptacle so that a con coni i sinuous steam could be maintained but this ihla would be clumsy captain ellerb way out of 0 the he difficulty dini culty of 0 lighting places where gas gaa or explosive materials aro are present Is IA to simply adjust 0 the incandescent lamp in a glass cyla der de closed at both ends by means of metallic cloth the current of 0 air would frea freshen licit the bulb and the slight beat ecat i ing of tho the air passing out would not amount alDIO to anything it if the bulb broke the combustion of the filament would earme only a slight internal explosion as in miners lamps incapable of trans tire lire outside TUB MOTOR 1 IN 11 agriculture farmers RF as a cliss class are arc not given to new fads but they have a quick eye tor for any invention that means mcana a 1 solid saving savine in work or money it Is significant that more electrical motors have been gold eold for agricultural purposes pur within the last nine months than in any pie year electricity ts Is now used on I 1 great numbers of farms for or lighting thoi buildings and driving machines of various kind and where manual labor la in usually scarce the advantage advant ace of such a ready and offic tent servant Is immense some doubt having favl been thrown upon I 1 the lie economy of using electric power for threshing instead of horses a farmer 4 has written to an electrical journal giving the results that hat he has attained ile he used to 10 lozeah nth three pairs of horses worked a machine of SOO 00 revolutions per rol the horses were wera changed four times a day lie ie now uses an electric motor lie finds to begin with will that his bl threshing machine Is saved aved an immense amount of wear and tear antis as lt working Is smooth and even formerly his six dx horsek threshed in one hour 4 si 23 tons tona of bar bari i ley now his electric motor lh th rehe 5 GG tons in the same name time lie he uses uz electric power tor for every operation on his form farm that it can be applied to and says saya he saves money every time |