The St. Charles herald. [volume], April 14, 1917, Image 2

About The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993

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SHELLMAKING AS
SEEN BY NOTED
: BRITISH AUTHOR
Arnold
Bennett Describes Visit to
One of Many Projectile Fac
tories in Britain.
WOMEN WORKING WITH MEN
•Ix-lnch and Nine-Inch Death Dealera
Are the Product—Present Output
la Monument to Brains and
Energy of Country.
London.—Here is an article written
by Arnold Bennett, with the approval
«C the ministry of munitions, with the
object of Inspiring the British public
(to still greater exertions in the manu
(facture of munitions of war. The ar
ticle, entitled, "N. P. F.: A Working
Hxample of the New Phenomena," fol
lows :
By ARNOLD BENNETT.
You see these letters on the doormat
of the office. They stand for National
Projectile Factory. I know not how
many N. P. F.'s there are in Britain.
Perhaps Mr. Montagu, the minister of
munitions, knows. This particular
factory is a very large one. It has over
11 acres beneath a single roof. A
farmer can visualize a ten-acre field,
but to the man in the industrial street
an acre is a mere term. Imagine an
area of one mile long by a hundred
feet broad. That is roughly the area
•f the factory, though naturally its
chape is much nearer a square. Over
*000 "hands" (the more spiritual Rus
•luns would say "souls") are employed
'there, and of these very considerably
•over half are women, of whom a large
Part are young or youngish and
attractive, gnd possess husbands in
the army.
Now, you can observe a N. P. F. in
■various aspects. There is the human
aspect of its picturesque adjuncts. For
Instance, the canteen (under its own
•eparfkte roof, with a prodigious
weranda for the al fresco), surpassing
town halls in size and supplying all
the diverse cooking and eating accom
modations which young women who
know on which side their bread ought
to be buttered require. There are the
women's dressing rooms and lavatories.
—I never saw before and do not hope
to see again so many white faience
basins with hot and cold water, rows
end rows and roWs, and scores in a
sow. There is the ambulance station
Ln with every device, and a nurse always
(waiting in the secret expectation of
j* "major" case and rarely getting any
thing bettèr than a scratch or a cut
/ There are the women in the roof con
trolling the overhead traveling elec
tric cranes that command «very foot
«f the floor space. Each has a rope
to slide down by in an emergency, and
for practice sake she is obliged to slide
down that rope at least once a week.
There are the other women who drive
' the electric carriages on the floor it
#elf—-miles of line—sitting in a sort
of easy chair and tickling levers. (Six
Inch and nine-inch shells are not to be
lightly thrown about The latter
weigh more than a man, and it takes
wither electricity or two men to shift
them to and fro; electricity does 90
per cent of the shifting).
There are still other women in peg
4op trousers. These last piquant crea
tures start with two minute points
«ear the ground and very often finish
«ear, the top with an elaborate white,
lacy corsage or a flowing, glowing
•carf. The phenomenon looks queer
In a factory. It ought not to look
queer, it ought to be far more preva
lent I liked to see a girl checker deli
cately rolling a nine-inch shell over
with her fashionable glace-kid boot
that peeped out beneath the yellow
overall. These things, happily, wlfr
peep out So will the vase of flowers
and the strange personal belongings in
the wire cage cupboard of which each
machinist has one near her machine.
There are the long queues of women
flu variegated street attire at the pay
desks. ("Pay from 6501-7020" is one
«f the signs.) There are the war sav
ings desks—astutely placed next to the
pay desks. "War Savings Certificates.
They are 'subscribed today in THE
section. Are YOU subscribing T". Well,
SH a rule, she was.
The Manufacturing Aspect
So I ndght continue with the human
picturesque aspect but I must turn to
the manufacturing aspect; for, after
all, this fast rumbling maze of wheels
and women and men exists for shells.
And, like the men, all these women,
however nice and happy, are conscious
ly engaged la the preparation of the
means of destruction and slaughter.
Steam Is at the bottom of this affair
—a row of boilers and furnaces. Step
flnslde the power house and, behold, the
«team has been translated into elec
tricity—three units of 750 kilowatt*
«ach and three more of 480 kilowatts
«ach. A little further, and much of
the power 1ms become hydraulic. You
«an see the huge hydraulic accumula
tors rising and falling according as
the creation of power here overtakes
or |a overtaken by the dissipation of
power in the factory.
Having grasped this, you zaay enter
(he factory. You there discover an or
dinary railway wagon behind a row
«d forges. The wagon is full of steel
which have made a long jour
#te f. They are craned out--they
weigh three and one-half hundred
weight apiece—and put into the forges,
and when they are white hot they are
dropped into a hydraulic machine
which both pierces and shapes them
and from which they emerge, after a
pressure of 750 tons, In the shape of
nine-inch shells.
That is the first operation out of
more than a score of quite separate
operations. Then the rough carcass is
"centered," its nose is bored, its cav
ity is bored, and the screw-thread is
milled In the cavity, the beautiful
"slnk-and-wave" channels are cut in
to go, the base plug is fitted (and no
mortal power could unscrew that base
plug once it is screwed in), the inside
is polished and varnished and the var
nish dried, the base is "faced."
Then comes the copper-bnnd busi
ness, which resembles in Its finish the
Jeweler's craft. The copper band is
jammed on by Incredible main force, but
after It is on it is treated with the
most astounding finesse, and the shell
leaves that series of operations gleam
ing with its cut and carved bangle.
You see it next in the painting room,
where everything and everybody is of
a yellowish-brown color and where
there Is not such a thing as a brush ex
cept the floor sweeper. The paint is
sprayed on to the shells as they hang
In rows and thus the painting is ac
complished with an evenness, a pre
cision, and a celerity which would fa
tally shock house-painters. A few
yards further, and the shells are dried
In gas-heated cupboards and out of
these cupboards they are wafted into
an ordinary railway wagon and they
disappear from the factory forever.
They are not yet truly shells. They
are only shell-cases. They travel every
where to be filled. Therefore yon do
not witness either the beginning of the
work (the steelmaking) or the end of
It. The metal, as far as you are con
cerned, springs from one mystery and
vanishes away into another.
its
in
in
a
lately Infernal complexity; the mere
vanishes away into another.
Men Able to Endure More.
I have catalogued by no means all
the operations, and I have given no
hint of the Important differences in
the two nevertheless similar processes
for nine-inch shells and for six-inch
shells. I have offered only a general
indication, and space will not permit
more. It should be added that some
of the operations are done exclusively
by men (such as forging) and some
exclusively by women (such as paint
ing) and some equally by men and
women. For example, there are four
"bays" of nose and body-boring ma
chines, two bays for each sex. I was
told that In the briefer operations de
manding close concentration the wom
en rivaled and perhaps excelled the
men, whereas in the long, tedious op
erations (not demanding physical
strength) the men easily beat the wom
en, whose attitude was apt to be : "Oh,
bother! I've had enough of this ex
asperating dullness!"
Another aspect of the colossal or
ganism is the checking and testing
aspect. If yon examine this long
enough you will become obsessed by
It, so that you will arrive at the stage
of thinking that the manufacture of
shells consists chiefly in checking and
testing. Every shell, as soon as it has
cooled from the redhot condition, is
provided with Its biography, which it
bears on a card in its cavity. Every
where on the walls are tabular state
ments which are continually being add
ed to. At every corner stand girls
and men writing down figures in note
books.
Every shell is gauged for all its dl
menslons. It is also weighed, for a
shell may be right in dimensions and
yet wrong In weight, in which case
it won't do. Every gauge is periodi
cally tested by experts in the gauge
testing room. And a certain percent
age of shells, when they are almost
finished, are deliberately sawed to
pieces again, and samples of their steel
turned into bars of a given diameter,
and these bars are fractured—or rath
er pulled in two—by machines of a
given power, and the quality of the
steel thus laid bare for inspection. In
the fracturing room on shelves are
thousands of fractured bars vftth their
jagged ends exposed, and in them you
can see how steel differs. Under the
terrific Influences of the pulling ma
chines the finest steel behaves rather
like stale bread. . - '
Finally, lq -addition to the factory
tests am) the government tests within
the factory, there is the government
outside test, for which some shells go
into, the sacred bondroom, where no
unhallowed person may enter and
whence the chosen shells are removed
for realistic trials In distant spots.
When that is over all has been done
that can be done to furnish the ar
tilleryman with an . utterly reliable
shell-case.
Product of Creative Brains.
And lastly there is the esoteric as
pect and unless you have eyes to see
this aspect you will never get the
National Projectile Factory in a true
perspective. I mean the aspect of
the creative brains, invisible and yet
omnipresent In the organism. These
men and women are wonderful and
praiseworthy and very clever. The
machinery which they manipulate is
marvelous. But every machine has
been slowly evolved and perfected by
some brain or brains. Not one proc
ess ont of hundreds of processes bat
has sprang from a creative brain.
Everything has had to be devised.
The electric torch by which women
peer into the cavity of the shells is
beautifully thought out. So is the
overhead trolley railway, hand
worked. on which the shells pass
dangling through the painting room to
the railway wagon. The exquisite de
tails can be counted in thousands.
Then consider the architectural plan
ning of the factory, a matter of abso
a
pladng of the machinery, the inter
working of the cranes. A hiatus or an
overlapping of one foot over all the
expanse of these 11 acres would put
a young woman out of her stride and
bring wasteful friction and perhaps
«T'stoppage into the organism. And
consider also the affair of linking up
the shifts, where the women work
In three shifts, but the men in two
It might well have taken 20 years to
perfect the N. P. F. How long did it
take?
The proposal for the factory was
made on July 8, 1915, and sanctioned
on August 17. The land on which the
factory now stands was then chiefly
a dumping ground. Part of it being
subject to inundations, part of the con
struction had to be founded on piles.
The ironwork was started on Septem
ber 25. By March 26, 1916, the power
was installed, and much of the ma
chinery had been manufactured in Brit
ain. In the first week of June 127
shells were made. Within a year of
the sanctioning of the proposal 48.549
shells had been delivered. The output
Is now over 10,000 a week, and they
are big shelis.
How was it done? It was done in
principle by putting a big armament
firm In charge, but this firm supplied
only two men direct, though it gave
foremen a fortnight's course of train
lng in its own shops. The manager
was brought from India. There was
no difficulty about female labor, but
the skilled male labor had to be In
vented, created, conjured up out of
nothing, for when this N. P. F. was
first thought of the country was sup
posed to have been swept clear of the
commodity, and it practically was.
TO TEACH WOMEN TO SHOOT
'
I
!
Miss June Houghton, a champion fe
male shot, has been engaged to teach
New York society women how to
handle a rifle and how to shoot. This
is part of the general wave of pre
paredness that is sweeping over the
country.
Included in Miss Houghton's list of
pupils are several members of the ex
clusive Colony club.
clusive Colony club.
REDS FLOCK TO BE MARRIED
Chippewafc in Large Numbers Obeying
Justice's Order That They Must
Be Legally Married.
Deer River, Minn.—This village was
visited by a large delegation of young
Chippewa Indians of both sexes from
the Bowstring country, who came here
to be married by Justice Ed Cahill.
The Justice a week ago declared he
would give them a week in which to
get married, subsequent to many ar
rests made by the sheriff of Itasca
county on-*complaint of the Indian
agent at Bena that young Indian
couples are living together without be
ing legally married.
It is not the intention of the depart
ment, it is said, to interfere with the
marital rights of the older natives, who
married years ago under tribal laws,
but It is the younger members, and
in most cases the well-educated ones,
some of whom have college educatibns,
the department officers are watching.
INDIANS BUILD
A MODERN CITY
Los Angeles, CaL—Pala, the
first modern Indian city in the
United States, is celebrating the
completion of a metropolitan
sewage system. Pala has been
built on the Indian reservation
near Oceanside, and all the city
officials, from mayor down, are
Indians. The houses are all
piped with water and an irriga
tion system has been installed
for ranchers in the vicinity. Of
the 250 residents only three are
white men.
Cow on Long Journoy.
Portland, Me.—C. C. Rounds of West
Baldwin, Me., has an adventurous cow.
Having bought the animal he put her
out to pasture. She left her new feed
ing ground, wandered through the
woods to the Saco river, swam across
the swift current and continued on her
course rejoicing. The owner finally
found her at South Hiram.
I
an
the
put
up
to
it
the
of
in
In
of
FARM LOAN ACT.
VI. Its Social and Economic
Effect
(By Frank R. Wilson, federal loan bu
reau, Washington, D. C.)
The main points of the federal farm
loan act have been set forth in the
preceding installments. The reader
will readily see that this act is a new
thing In this country, and is liable to
lave an important effect on our social
and financial life.
Let us briefly suggest some of its
possible effects:
The rapidly increasing cost of living
has of late given American thinkers
a great deal of uneasiness. The fact
is everywhere recognized that our city
population has been Increasing more
rapidly than the rural population. Ev
ery day there are some more mouths
to feed, but there is only a slowly In
creased acreage upon which this food
is produced. Two Important facts are
therefore patent:
First, more farms must be established
to provide homes for more producers,
and, second, the land under cultivation
must be farmed more carefully and
with more and better equipment to
meet the growing demand for food.
The farm loan act will have a strong
influence toward a realization of both
of these ideals.
Will Reduce Tenantry.
Farm tenantry is a curse whose
worst effects are lowered fertility and
inefficient farm methods. The tenant
is not a normal farmer. The transient
nature of his living makes maximutn
production impossible. He is often
not a meat producer, because b« is
not on one farm long enough to build
up a herd of live stock. He is a grain
farmer, and a grain farmer is a sapper
of fertility. He is engaged In the past
time of hauling the fertility of his land
lord's soil to market. With approxi
mately one-half of the farm lands of
the country in the hands of tenants,
America Is cashing in her land fertil
ity at an amazing rate.
The farm loan act has for one of
its important purposes the placing of
land into the hands of owners who
will farm It with the inspiration that
comes from ownership. The owner of
land treats it so as to conserve its fer
tility. He^is a permanent fixture in
the neighborhood. He markets his crop
through his live stock, returning the
fertility to the soil. A nation of land
owners means a nation with a con
stantly increasing capacity to produce
food for its people.
But the farm loan act will do more
for agriculture than merely supply
ing cheap money. The act actually
specifies how the money borrowed
shall be spent. It says that unless
used to pay debts, it shall be spent on
things that will contribute to more
production on the same acreage. So
the farm loan act means a higher and
better type of agriculture, t
Will Stimulate Co-Operation.
But some students of the act be
lieve its greatest contribution will be
the stimulation to the practice of co
operation. Co-operation is its basic
fact. Farmers are required to get to
gether into groups to secure its bene
fits. When they put their mortgages
together for the sake of getting cheap
er money, they will also form the habit
of co-operating in other problems of
common interest. Who knows but that
these co-operative associations may be
come the business and social units of
farm society?
The financial saving to the farmers
of America would alone be enough
to Justify this enactment On a vol
ume of four billion dollars our farm
ers are paying now nearly 9 per cent
annually, all of which is a tax on all
the peopft .because it limits consump
tion by handicapping the producer. If
this rate should be reduced by 4 per
cent it would mean an actual annual
saving of $160,000,000. But this esti
mate of the money to be saved does
not take into consideration the fact
that tue normal volume of farm loan
business will greatly increase with an
advantageous interest rate.
The success of the farm loan bank
ing system is now up to the farmers
themselves. They have been given
the co-operative machinery to finance
themselvs without profit to any indiv
iduals. They have been given the ma
chinery for governing their own finan
cial institutions and maintaining con
trol of them. So carefully is their
ownership guarded, no matter who
buys stack in the federal land banks,
that eventually none but the farmers
may have voting power.
Yes, the federal farm loan act is
somewhat revolutionary. It upsets all
past practices in farm finance. It puts
the interests of the majority above the
Interest of the few. It gives the under
dog a chance. It writes "Humanity
First" across the ledger of modern
business.
Frankly Admitted.
"Do you enjoy grand opera?"
"I might," replied Mr. Cumrox, "if lu
talking about it I weren't oblige« to
use words that I can't pronounce and
don't understand."
Faint Heart.
"She had a hard time finding a piece
of mistletoe to hang in her parlor."
"Gee ! She is too pretty and charm
ing to need mistletoe!"
Sure she is. It's the fellow who
calls upon her that needs it."
More Pleasure to Give.
Baker—How did that box of cigars
I gave you affect you?
Eger ton—Made me générons.
"How so?"
"I gave all of them away bnt the
firat one I smoked."
$
cut
by
to
BANDITS' TREASURE
SOUGHT BY NEPHEW
Relative of the Younger Brothers
Seeking to Locate Hoard
of $63,000.
Tulsa, Okla.—Scout Younger of Tul
sa, nephew of Cole and Bob Younger,
early day bandits who were with Jesse
and Frank James in some of their
raids in this country forty years ago,
is trying to locate a box said to con
tain $63,000 in money and treasure,
and to have been buried by the James
band In the vicinity of Tulsa many
years ago.
Scout Younger, from the description
furnished him by Cole Younger while
on a visit to Tulsa shortly before his
death, believes the treasure is buried
In the Lost City Canyon, six miles
northwest of Tulsa, on the bank of the
\\
m
Js.
Is Trying to Locate a Box.
Arkansas river. Cole Younger was un
able to give exact location owing to
the cutting of a new road In that di
rection, which does not follow the cat
tle trail of border days.
One of the last statements of Cole
Younger as he lay on his death bed
some two years ago was an injunction
to Scout Younger to continue search
for this buried treasure until it was
found.
It is said that Frank James, who
died a few years ago, was anxious in
his declining days to search for the
fortune which lay buried near Tulsa,
but ill health forbade him undertak
ing it.
STOLEN KISS COSTS $100
Shopgirl's 8uit Upheld on Appeal in
the County Court of New
York.
Rochester, N. Y.—It was a costly
kiss that Alfred Pye of 359 Melville
street forced from the unwilling lips
of Marie Becker, a pretty little shop
girl employed where he was foreman.
She had him arrested for assault, third
degree,
Pye was convicted in police court
and fined $50. He appealed to the
county court from that decision anf
County Judge J. B. M. Stephens has
Just filed his decision. He upholds the
decision of Police Justice Gillette.
Counting the attorneys' fees, the cost
of trial and other incidentals, Pye's
stolen kiss will cost him more thaï
$ 100 .
BABY BURIED ALIVE
TO GET A. FORTUNE
Atlanta, Ga.—Little Tnxle
Adair, the baby-girl of mystery
who was found burled aline in a
country graveyard near Adairs
vllle, Ga., last spring, just in
time to save her, will inherit a
fortune.
She has been adopted by a
wealthy man and his wife, who
recently paid a visit to the or
phans' home in the suburbs of
Atlanta and were charmed by
her appearance. They have no
children of their own, and as
sured Superintendent Hawkins
of the orphanage that the child
would receive $50,000 when she
becomes twenty-one years old,
and as their adopted daughter,
would be their sole heiress.
NEGRO CAUGHT IN CHIMNEY
"For Gawd's Sake, Mister," He En
treats Grocery Proprietor, "Don't
Start No Fire."
Des Moines, la.—"For Gawd's sake,
mister, don't start no fire. Ah'm in dis
hyar chimley and 171 smother to death."
This frantic prayer In a sepulchral
voice greeted a grocery proprietor
when he started to mak,e a fire in his
place of business the other morning.
When the base of the chimney was
cut away, William Gaines, a negro, was
taken out, half-dead from fear and suf
focation. He had been standing,
jammed in, for several hours. Police be
lieve he intended to enter the grocery
by way of the Santa Claus route and
miscalculated his size.
FOR SICK CHILD
«California Syrup of Figs" can't
harm tender stomach,
liver and bowels.
Every mother realizes, after giving
her children "California Sjrup of
Figs" that this is their Ideal laxative,
because they love Its pleasant taste
and It thoroughly cleanses the tender
little stomach, liver and bowels with
out griping. , ,__
When cross, irritable, feverish, or
breath is bad, stomach sour, look at
the tongue, mother! If coated, give a
teaspoonful of this harmless "fruit
laxative," and in a few hours all the
foul, constipated waste, sour bile and
undigested food passes out of the bow
els, and you have a well, playful child
again. When its little system is full
of cold, throat sore, has stomach-ache,
diarrhoea, indigestion, colic remem
ber, a good "inside cleaning" should
always be the first treatment given.
Millions of mothers keep "California
Syrup of Figs" handy; they know a
teaspoonful today saves a sick child
tomorrow. Ask at the store for a 50
cent bottle of "California Syrup of
Figs," which has directions for babies,
children of all ages and grown-up*
printed on the bottle. Adv.
A Monument to Pioneer Cowboy.
The memory of James (Kid) Wil
loughby, pioneer Wyoming cowboy,
who died in Los Angeles recently, will
be perpetuated by the frontier days
committee, which will erect a monu
ment in Pioneer park to commemorate
his early deeds. The memorial will
be paid for by popular subscription.
Already subscriptions are pouring la
from pioneer plainsmen, former asso
ciates of the noted cowboy.—Cheyenne
State Leader.
ANY CORN LIFTS OUT,
DOESN'T HURT A BIT!
No foolishness! Lift your corns
and calluses off with fingers—
it's like magic!
Sore corns, hard corns, soft corns OB
any kind of a corn, can harmlessly b«
lifted right out with the fingers if you
apply upon the corn a few drops of
freezone, says a Cincinnati authority.
For little cost one can get a small
bottle of freezone at any drug store.
Which will positively rid one's feet of
•very corn or callus without pain.
This simple drug dries the moment
It is applied and does not even irri
tate the surrounding skin while ap
plying it or afterwards.
This announcement will Interest
many of our readers. If your druggist
hasn't any freezone tell him to surely
get a small bottle for you from hi*
wholesale drug bouse.—adv.
Airship Losses In Europe.
An official recapitulation In Berlin
of the statistics of airship losses dur
ing the year 1916 indicates that the
Germans lost 221 machines and their
opponents sacrificed 784. The bulk of
the losses on both sides was In the
West, where the Germans lost 181
airships and the English und French
739, It Is declared.
GREEN'S AUGUST FLOWER
Few persons can be sick who use
Green's August Flower. It has been
used for all ailments that are caused
by a disordered stomach and Inactive
liver, snch as sick headache, constipa
tion, sour stomach, nervous indiges
tion, fermentation of food, palpitation
of the heart from gases created in
the stomach, pains in the stomach, and
many other organic disturbances.
August Flower is a gentle laxative,
regulates digestion, both in the stom
ach and intestines, cleans and sweet
ens the stomach and whole alimentary;
canal, and stimulates the liver to se
crete the bile and Impurities from the
blood. Try It. Two doses will relieve
you. Used for fifty years In every
town and hnmlet in the United Stated
and in all civilized countries.—Adv.
Postal Surplus In China. S
The Chinese postal department
shows a surplus of $500,000 gold for
the year 1916. The postal adminis
tration was first inaugurated in China
in 1896, and operated at a loss until
1913, when the net surplus amounted
to $125,000 gold. Since that time the
Increase In surplus has grown each
year.
A NEGLECTED COLD
la often followed by pneumonia. Be
fore it Is too late take Laxative Quint
dine Tablets. Gives prompt relief in
cases of Coughs, Colds, La Grippe and
Headache. Price 25c.—Adv.
Tire of Steel Wire.
Of German invention Is a bicycle
tire made of steel wire that Is closely
colled.
The OoinlM That Dom Not Affect The Heed
Became of lu tonic and laxative effect. Laxativ»
Bromo Quinine can be taken by anyone wltboni
rlrwintf in the head. Tham
__ _ _ JMJ taauu uy auyuuo niwo«(
Matin, nervomnemor^ln. Ip
1« only one "Bromo s»«-—
dgntara is on eub box# mo.
Pneumatic boxing gloves have been
Invented by a Philadelphia sportlug
man.
Dr Peery'a "De** Shot" not only expel»
Wonne or Tapeworm but cleans out th»
mucus In which they breed and tones u*
th* digestion. One dOM sufficient. Adv.
A busy man talks but little A busy
body never stops talking.