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"IN Chapter I he shoots at her five times. Ain't that grand?"

"Yes; but them novels are misleading, Mayme. There ain't no earnest love like that in real life."-Kansas City Journal.

Frankness

"DID that young man kiss you last night?"

Perhaps

"YES, sir," said the man who would not vote for a Republican, even though he was on a reform ticket, "I'm a Democrat. And so was my father and my grandfather and my greatgrandfather."

"Huh!" said the candidate, "and if your father and grandfather and great-grandfather had been horse-thieves, what would you have been?"

"Wal," responded the other thoughtfully, "in them circumstances I reckon I'd 'a' bin a Republican."-Everybody's.

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Opera at Home

OLETIMER "Is your married life one grand, sweet song?"

NEWLYWED "Well, since our baby's been born it's been like an opera, full of grand marches, with loud calls for the author every

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CAR MAKES 300 MILES AN
HOUR

EMILE BACHELET, a Franco-American electrical engineer, has announced an entirely new discovery in the field of electrical science that is believed to forecast a revolution in the high-speed transmission of mail and express matter and passengers.

He has built a small model of a railroad car made of aluminum and steel, which although without wheels or internal machinery, moves forward at practically any speed the inventor desires. The exact means of propelling it are held secret by the inventor. A speed of three hundred miles an hour is said to be easily attained.

The aluminum base of the car was one

half an inch from the surface of the rail during each of its trips over the thirtyone-foot section of track. This was accomplished, the inventor inventor explained, through the following means:

First, by raising and sustaining the car by means of electro-magnetic repulsion; Second, by causing the car so sustained to move laterally, at will, with great speed by means of electro-magnetic attraction: Third, by overcoming gravity while these

forces are operative, there being little friction except that of the atmosphere. Cylindrical coils of wire

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WHAT THE CAR LOOKS LIKE.

POPULAR SCIENCE

with solenoids (practically large charged magnets) furnish the magnetic lateral force, leading an amateur scientist to remark that M. Bachelet had "harnessed magnetism."

Between the two lower rails are "levitating coils."

As the car passes, the force in these levitating coils repulses the aluminum base of the vehicle, raising it one-half inch in the air.

The car is given direction by "brushes" which slide along in grooves in the lower

PYTHON FLESH FOR MEDICINE

471

THIS python was captured by some Chinese farmers in the hills near Foochow, in southern China. They beat it to death with hoes and clubs and then brought it to Foochow, where they sold it for four dollars, Mexican currency, or less than two dollars gold. The American who bought the snake wanted only the skin, so the Chinese kept the flesh and sold it again to some native doctors who use it in their practice. The Chinese have great faith in both the oil and flesh of snakes to cure diseases. This large snake, however, is not so highly valued for medicine as the smaller varieties. These are especially prized by the native physicians, who are evidently far behind the Western nations in the theory and practice of the healing arts.

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ALUMINUM CAR WEIGHING FORTY POUNDS THAT IS SAID TO HAVE LIFTED A GIRL WEIGHING SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS ONE INCH CLEAR OF THE RAIL.

rails. There is also an upper rail somewhat similar to the overhead feed wire above the trolley tracks. At each end, the car, in passing along, comes into contact with the solenoids.

It is by means of the brushes that the current is automatically cut off after the car has passed over that particular section of the track.

The model car used weighed forty pounds. To work the coils sufficiently to raise the car one-half inch from the track, 220 volts were found to be required for the purpose.

"I believe that a speed of 1,000 miles an hour for passenger trains is not beyond the range of possibility," said M. Bachelet. "That is because there is practically no friction."

This individual was thirteen feet one inch long, with a circumference of fifteen inches, and weighed 107 pounds. This species has no fangs but kills its prey, as do all pythons, by encircling it and crushing it to death. Although a fairly large specimen of specimen of a snake, others of still greater size have been killed near Foochow.

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This building represents the last word in the construction of heaven-towering skyscrapers. The task of the workmen looks extremely hazardous. Think, however, of the photographer who was obliged, in order to secure this series of magnificent pictures, to place himself above these men, at a still more perilous altitude.

So long as great buildings must be reared, men must jeopardize their lives. In

spite of various safety appliances that have been introduced in later years, the numerous perils to the structural steel-worker's safety have diminished but very little. As in the past, he must take his life in his hands.

GOING TO LUNCH BY A SHORT ROUTE.

These workmen jauntily take their lives in their hands. confident of their ability to look out for their own safety.

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