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Show AID TO SANTA CLAUS At one of the desks in the United States patent office sits a young woman wom-an scanning a pile of drawings. They are odd-looking sketches, consisting of hundreds of dotted lines, big circles and little circles, almost all the letters of the alphabet, and shadowy forms of human beings and animals. She is Miss Alice Purinton, an assistant examiner in the patent office, and it is her duty to pass upon the patentability of children's chil-dren's toys. Hundreds of drawings and specifications specifi-cations of every toy imaginable find their way to her desk daily, and this material must explain exactly how the toys are made and operated. It is absolutely ab-solutely necessary that the toys work as the specifications state, and any skilled mechanic is supposed to be able to make them. If the description of a certain toy is not lucid enough for Miss Purinton to derive a clear understanding under-standing of the mechanism a model must be submitted. The submission of models -is being discouraged, however, as they only accumulate in the patent office, collecting dust and taking up space. One of the first and foremost requirements of a new toy invented is that it must have some new feature or improvement over an old and similar toy, or that it be a new and original idea entirely. Mechanical and electrical toys with action are the most popular nowadays, nowa-days, according to Miss Purinton. |