OCR Text |
Show PENNY-IN-THE-8LOT HABIT. (Should the automatic machines ovor rebel Berlin would suffer most for they have reached such a pitch there that If corybody left tho city It could almost go on running Iteolf Ono gots oven nowapapers there from automa-"- machines. When your train roaches tho railway station and you find it raining outside, 2 shilllrs and a penny dropped in a machine brings you an unbrella , on which you got Is Sd back if it is roturnod within two days. If a lady finds herself In disarray disar-ray at the end of a Journey a penny-in-tbe-nlot machine provides hor with rouge, powder, eyebrow pencil and lip salve, and to tho unmarried ladies of Berlin the automatic machlno provides pro-vides portraits of their future husbands. hus-bands. In New York automatic machines ma-chines delivor Insurance policies, and in Paris there Is an automatic doctor. Then thoro arc the automatic restaurants, res-taurants, which In Berlin and Paris hac attained a scalo no elaborate that It is possible to got a complete sovon-course dinner from thorn, with what-cver wines are required. Some of thorn have even a battery of va- ' cuum flasks from which customers may obtain hot dishes Londoners, 'again, will recall the automatic buffet in the Victoria Embankment dargedsn Tn Wostminstor some time ago the Crosvonor Dairy company established pnny-Ln-thc-slot milk delivery machines. ma-chines. On inserting a penny and pressing a handle, half a pint of milk ran out of a tap. This dovicc has tho advantage that milk can be obtained at hours when the shops are shut. Then, again, a number of Gorman villages havo a pennv-In-tho-slot system sys-tem of nocturnal illumination. At Jocketa, near Plauen, In Saxony for example where they go to bed early, the lights aro all out at 11 o'clock But a timid lato-goer, bv dropping a penny In the box at the foot of one of tho electric light standards, can illuminate illu-minate half the village. A socon'l penny lights up the other half. At Zarkau, In Silesia, they havo a similar arrangement, A penny lights up tho whole rqadwr(v from the station throughout, the village for twelve minutes, min-utes, In this country the spread of automatic auto-matic machines has sometimes run the Royal Mint Into a comer, owiug to tho locking up of vast stores ot pennies. In the bprough of Neslon nlone thirty-two ton's of pennies wero put in tho slot gas meters last year. These meters, indeed, are utilized by tho thrifty people of Lancashire and Yorkshire as money boxes, wheroiu money may be saved. They nely on tho gascolloctors to return them the excess coins when they visit the meter and apparently this is done. In Wigan tho custom has become a regular institution One year's harvest har-vest of excess coins from gas meters hero yielded 5 sovereigns, 10 half sovereigns, i half crowns, 46D florlnB, 502 shillings, 134 sixpences, 250 threepences three-pences and 334 half-pennies. Loudon Lou-don Standard |