lacking his observatory apparatus, found it necessary to improvise for his hand camera a mount which would enable it to move as the comet moved, during the

somewhat protracted exposure necessary for this kind of photography.

He contrived the novel and ingenious expedient of strapping his camera to the wheel of his bicycle. He then turned his bicycle upside down, propped it erect with a bit of wood, and passed the strap around, the camera and through the spokes of the rear wheel. By moving the prop he secured the lateral adjustment he needed, and by moving the wheel he obtained the motions required to follow the progress of the comet across

conductor to leave the car and carry it around, is in use in the main station of a street railway company in Los Angeles. The traffic in this depot is very heavy, and trains of three cars are in common use

on the princi

these served him as finder.

It is evident that, by

keeping the field
glasses centered on
the comet, the im-
age on the sensi-
tive plate in the
camera would
remain con-
stant during
the exposure.
A good pic-
ture resulted.

TROLLEY REVERSER FOR

STREET CARS

A DEVICE that

reverses the trol

ley of a car without re

this automatic reverser. In

cidentally, the danger to conductors, who would otherwise have to reverse the trolley on tracks in frequent use, is eliminated.

The arrangement of copper sheathed grooves, shown in the photograph, indicates how, by the use of a Y, the trolley can be swung around by reversing the car.

IMPROVISED CAMERA MOUNT By this means an astronomer photographed a comet

"W

OF UNFORTUNATE

HEN Jim was here," said a woman in Washington State to a neighbor the other day, "it took all I could rake and scrape together bending over my tub to feed us and buy whisky for him."

This frank information was not news

the sympathetic neighbor, whose heart went out to the unfortunate, hardworking woman. Well did the neighbor know of Jim's shiftlessness, the thing that had led him into wrongdoing, and later within the portals of the penitentiary.

"But since the law sent Jim to prison I have been able to lay a little by. That's because there is no whisky to buy. Besides, the small pay he gets working in the prison jute mill I am saving to help us get started again when Jim comes home. And now that the State is to help us.' the good woman went on, as tears of gratitude trickled down her pinched cheeks, "and with the prison officers keeping

Jim steady at work and teaching him that he can do without drink, surely we can be respectable again sometime."

Just how many other unfortunate women, the country over-wives, mothers, and sisters of convicts-have given voice to some such pathetic words no one can tell. At any rate the telling would not be pleasant reading. Newspapers chronicle the sad tale too often-the old, old story of how innocent women and children are punished to permit the relentless State to take its pound of flesh as recompense for violated laws. There are considerably more than half a million persons in this country numbered today in our prison population. Sentences range from one day to life terms. The average, perhaps, is more than two years, a long time for whimpering babes to be without father or perhaps, alas, mother. On a conservative estimate, at least half of the number of con

THOMAS CORKERY

The deputy prosecutor of Spokane County. Washington, is in charge of administering the pension law. which provides for destitute moth

ers.

victs are persons of family, giving a multiple of something like three persons to each prisoner, usually a wife and two children. Figuring the matter this way, we have then a million and a half of helpless dependents suddenly thrown, ofttimes without warning or preparation, upon their own resources.

es

The unfortunate offspring of criminals are not the only victims of this woeful lack of human wisdom and benevolence. The dependents of the insane. suffer much the same sort of outrageous treatment. They cape only the stigma of vicious acts committed against law and order. There are nearly two hundred thousand insane in the United States confined in asylums. That means there are enough mentally de

ranged people to populate a modern metropolis. The figures, furthermore, do not include the helpless, non-productive insane kept in homes. Again, there are more insane males than females. That, too, means that the asylums house a large percentage of breadwinners, leaving behind the women and children to slave for subsistence, or to accept pittances from the grudging hand of charity.

But in the State of Washington, at least, there is to be an end to this sorrowful, sordid story and the dawn of better things has come.

Not only is Washington devoting attention to the families of criminals, but the State is likewise interesting itself in the families of the insane. There the fathers of families know, in the absence of a clause in life insurance policies covering the possibility of insanity and insuring against it, that in the event of such dread misfortune their loved ones will not want. There should be, and there is, solace in that sustaining thought, especially when a mind is tottering toward its fall.

In Washington it is the duty now of every county to provide an amount of

money sufficient to support women whose husbands are dead, or are inmates of a penal institution or an insane asylum; also to care for women who have been abandoned by their husbands, or whose husbands have been totally disabled, when such women are destitute mothers of children under fifteen

years of age.

The allowance to each of such women is not to exceed fifteen dollars monthly when she has but one child under fifteen. When there are more than one child under fifteen, the allowance is fifteen dollars for the first child, and five dollars for each of the other children un

der fifteen. The children over fif

JUDGE A. M. FRATER

Judge of the Superior Court of
Seattle, Washington.

teen are presumed to be of some assistance to the mother, and to protect such children while laboring for others. a minimum and maximum wage law has been enacted. The allowances to mothers are made by the Juvenile Court of each county, and there are very few conditions for them to meet in order to enjoy the benefits of the law.

Many leading jurists of all time have now and again acknowledged that social conditions are more or less directly responsible for a large percentage of crimes. This being true, it is surely the duty of society to make reparation for its faults as far as possible by caring for the deserted dependents of criminals and insane persons, as well as other unfortunates. That is what Washington has set out to do-to be the guardian of the deserted and the defenseless.

Unexpected developments arose when the pension law first went into effect. There were more than one hundred applicants during the first five days in the Seattle Juvenile Court. Business became so congested that the officers were compelled to turn away applicants with request that they present their petitions. later. Many of the applicants were

PRISONERS IN THE WASHINGTON WALLA CLEARING AWAY

STATE PENITENTIARY AT WALLA DEBRIS IN AN OLD BRICK YARD

divorced women, a class unprovided for in the law. Nearly all the divorced women were mothers seeking aid for their children and themselves. It is probable that the court will take up the cases of these women and make an effort to have them included in the pension law on purely humanitarian grounds.

As the law stands now, women who are not mothers are in no way benefited by the legislation. Childless women, it is to be inferred, are capable of looking after themselves in adversity, a conclusion that cannot be looked upon as unjust, inasmuch as it would be saddling unnecessary burden upon the State to look after women not hindered, in fighting for sustenance, by offspring or bad health.

No payments were possible under the Washington pension law for destitute mothers until August, 1913. Time had to be allowed to meet the requirements of the law in each individual case. The Juvenile Court of Seattle, which has, of course, the handling of the majority of the business under the law, was not able to take up and consider applications before the middle of July. This meant that warrants were not issued before early in August to those awarded pensions. County auditors issue the warrants and the procedure for delivery is the same as in other payments. It is expected that it will take the courts a year to get the law working on a normal basis and to the satisfaction of all concerned.

Z

thousand, the Mississippi is now undergoing a stretching that will give it a new terminus and considerably more usefulness.

For practical purposes the Mississippi has till now begun and ended at St. Paul. Between that point and St. Louis five million tons of freight, worth nearly thirty million dollars, go over the river each year. But, if the steamers could go only a few miles farther, to Minneapolis, they would get a lot more freight and incidentally finish out what seems to be a natural trade route. Only small

navigation. The dam, now under construction at a point near the mouth of Minnehaha Creek, will be five hundred and seventyfive feet long, and will ensure a depth of nine and one-half feet of water up to the Washington Avenue bridge in Minneapolis. The river boats need only from four to six feet, but the extra water flow will generate fifteen thousand horsepower of marketable hydroelectric power. A power house will be built on the north side. The lock is already completed. It is four hundred and forty-one feet long