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respirators which screen the air breathed; plasterers and motormen wear spectacles which protect the eyes from dust and flying particles; miners and sewer-excavators wear helmets attached to airpumps which effectually save them from all danger of breathing noxious fumes; chemists are ornamented with nosepieces to protect the lungs from corroding vapors; while air filters and pumps are shown in actual operation in a score of different industries. Belts and pulleys also are protected by screens so that no workman could get caught in them; miners wear patent lamps and helmets as they delve underneath the earth; and operators in cotton and textile factories are guarded by innumerable devices.

The Amsterdam Museum of Safety is supported by government appropriations, private bequests, and by an endowment fund. Since its establishment the records show that a more general adoption of safety devices has been made in the mines. and manufacturing plants of Europe. It

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COURTESY AMER INST. OF SOC. SERVICE

GLASSES TO PREVENT POISONOUS GASES AND VAPORS FROM INJURING THE EYES.

the co-operation of employers and employees in reducing the hazard of life in all lines of occupation. Centrally located, it is accessible to the great manufacturers of England, Germany and France. The movement started in this country to establish a similar, but even more complete, Museum of Security should add to the usefulness of the Amsterdam institution, for the two would mutually co-operate and broaden along. the same lines.

Backed up by the American Institute of Social Service, the employers of labor interested in the American movement to establish a Museum of Safety have made satisfactory progress toward their laudable ambition. The benefits to the state and society must prove immeasurably great. The burden of the maimed among

us is a drag upon civilization that impedes our progress mightily. So long as machinery is allowed to take an annual toll of thousands of cripples, the revolting sight of deformity and physical disablement must continue to torment us. As an inventive nation, the problem of eliminating dangers from all occupations is not difficult of solution to America. The inventor has done his work well, but unsystematically and often blindly. The manufacturer and employer must lend encouragement. Systematic arrangement and exhibition is needed so that the busy man may see at a glance what has been accomplished in his particular line. This is the aim of the Museum of Security.

Less difficulty. has been experienced with American workmen in any class, in overcoming prejudice against safety devices for their protection, than in some foreign countries. In this country, the grade of general intelligence in the field of skilled labor is high, and the men readily recognize the value of any invention which really protects. They will test anything that promises to. guard them against injury, direct or indirect, and if it proves itself to their satisfaction they will use it. Common sense rules most American workmen, though bravado sometimes creeps into such matters and makes difficulty. Few men, how ever, who know that they are daily facing danger of accidental death or of slow poisoning, will long refuse to adopt such means as may offer to shield themselves, and it will be found that the American Museum will be visited by men of many

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Special Cars for Live Birds

By Fred Haxton

RIVATE cars for the feathery travelers constitute a new development in the transportation field. Four hundred and fifty of these special cars for live poultry are now being used on the principal railroads, and several hundred more are expected to be built in 1907.

A live poultry transportation company operates the "traveling chicken-coops under the same system that other private car-lines are managed. The cars are rented by the company to the large poul

that they see the fowl alive before they purchase it, and shipments of dressed poultry have decreased.

The live-poultry car is thirty-six feet long, ten feet wide, and two feet higher than the ordinary live stock car. Built along each side of the car are eight tiers of coops, three feet wide and thirteen inches high. Partitions cut these into 128 sections, each of which will hold three dozen fowls of large size. A carload therefore contains from 4,600 to 5,000 chickens.

In the center of each car is a stateroom

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CARLOAD OF LIVE PIGEONS IN SPECIAL POULTRY CAR, READY FOR SHIPPING.

try dealers, the railroads having no direct interest in the transaction beyond collecting freight rates on the fowls shipped.

The poultry car business has developed within the last few years, and was given a tremendous impetus by the recent cold storage poultry scandal, when the city of Chicago confiscated thirty tons of dressed chickens that had been in coolers nearly a year. Consumers now demand

eight feet wide for the use of the man who travels with the birds, and an aisle twenty-eight inches wide extends the entire length of the car, for use in feeding the fowls. Each side of the car is covered with coarse-meshed wire netting. Feed and water troughs, constructed so as to be pushed in out of the way like a drawer when not in use, run along the back of each row of coops, and in the top of the car is a 300-gallon water-tank,

with hose connections to the troughs. Fifty bushels of grain may be stored in a bin under the floor, and the fowls may be fed and watered with ease while the train is rounding mountain curves at high speed. The floors of the coops slant to the outside, making them self-cleaning. Poultry is frequently shipped in these cars from San Francisco to New York, and at the end of the journey each bird weighs from a half pound to a pound more than it did when it started. The invention of these coaches was due to the fact that it was almost impossible to ship chickens long distances in crates in ordinary cars without great loss in weight, feeding being difficult because the attendant could not reach all the crates when they were piled high in cars. For this reason long shipments of live poultry resulted in considerable loss in weight and in the death of many fowls by suffocation.

Most of the shipments are made from Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and other states in the Mississippi valley, to Chicago and New York. A single dealer at Keokuk, Iowa, often sends a half dozen carloads-30,000 live birds-in one consignment. If he finds the Chicago market, when the chickens arrive, is not high enough to give the expected profit, he simply holds.

the fowls in the car and feeds them, perhaps for two or three weeks, until prices have advanced.

Shippers order the cars from their local freight agent, and the latter telegraphs to the traffic manager of the road; the order is passed along to the car company, and the nearest empty car is rushed to the shipper. The demand is so great, however, that a poultry dealer often has to wait a couple of weeks before he can secure the coach.

The prices charged for use of the cars. vary according to the length of the shipment, $10 being required for any distance up to 100 miles, $14 for 150 miles, $16.50 for 200, $20 for 300 miles, and greater distances proportionately, a 1.700 mile shipment costing $51. Three cents a mile is charged for each mile in excess of 1,700 up to 2,000, and a cent a mile for distances greater than 2,000 miles. Shipments from St. Louis to Chicago cost $20 a carload and from Chicago to New York $39, but the through rate from St. Louis to New York is $42.

In the last year the country dealers shipped 2,065 carloads of live poultry to New York City. Besides this, hundreds of thousands of fowls were shipped in "less-than-car-lot" consignments.

Whom the Gods Love

While still their feet upon Life's threshold stand,
And low the grape hangs purpling to their hand,
Hope springs eternal, Faith is ever true

And Love emparadises earth anew;
Before the gathered fruits to ashes turn
And Hope, and Faith, and Love to cinders burn,
Before their feet are weary with earth's years,
Before their eyes are blinded with its tears,
Hearing but wailing cries where laughter rung,
Happy are they the Gods love, who die young.

-ALICE L. BUNNER, in Scribner's Magazine.

How Good Is Concrete?

By Walter Loring Webb, C. E.

BUILDING material that will not rust or decay and that will not be subject to the attacks either of insects or of atmospheric acids; that will be fireproof and earthquake-proof and capable of supporting heavy loads over long spans―a material that has all these virtues and still is not prohibitively costly such a material would be close to ideal. And the material that most nearly meets these essential requirements and that is daily undergoing tests with credit is reinforced concrete. .

The usual building materials fal! far short of the above ideal. Wood, in spite of its many advantages, is subject to decay and the ravages of the teredo navalis, if it is placed in seawater; it must be frequently repainted and it is highly combustible. Steel, in spite of constant. repainting, will rust unless it is thoroughly protected by concrete. Unless it is thoroughly fireproofed, the heat usually developed by a conflagration is so great that the steel will soften and yield, thus causing the whole structure to collapse. Although stone in the form of building blocks has the great advantage of architectural beauty, it cannot withstand fire and especially the frequent combination of the great heat of a conflagration and the sudden application of a stream of cold water. The carbonic acid of the atmosphere will speedily affect marble and limestone fronts. Stone is useless for long spans except in the form of expensive arches which must have a considerable rise in proportion to the span and this renders its use inapplicable for all except a limited class of expensive structures. The recent destruction of San Francisco by earthquake shows how helpless the ordinary stone. or brick structure is under such circumstances. Brick has nearly all of the disadvantages of stone except in degree. A

good quality of brick will withstand fire far better than stone, and is unaffected by frost or the carbonic acid in the atmosphere, but its use is absolutely limited to supplying compressive resistance.

The very expensive method of floor construction, using steel I-beams with small arches of brick or hollow tile, which a few years ago was considered to be the only method which deserved the name of fireproof, has been found to be only relatively fireproof and in fact it affords but little protection against a hot fire. It was one of the compensations of the Baltimore fire that it furnished a very convincing test of the relative methods of the various systems of fireproofing which have been devised. The old-fashioned floors constructed of steel I-beams, connected by brick or by hollow tiles, provided little or no protection to a building against s almost complete destruction by the flames. On the other hand, the few existing floors of reinforced concrete were structurally unharmed during that trial.

In strong comparison with the qualities of the various building materials numerated above is the statement of the corresponding qualities of reinforced concrete. It is in no sense subject to decay and when it is used in seawater for the foundation of a pier or wharf it is unaffected by the teredo, which so quickly destroys timber. It is not affected by rust nor by the carbonic acid in the atmosphere. When properly constructed, it requires no maintenance charge for painting or for any other kind of protective treatment. The various tests, which have been made by the building bureaus of great cities, as well as by the involuntary test of great conflagrations, have shown that its power for resisting fire-and even a combination of fire and water is greater than that of any other known type of building construction. Although the lower layer of concrete will

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