The San Francisco Call and Post from San Francisco, California • Page 25

FLASHING DICTURES AROUND THE WORLD. SCIENCE'S latest promke is that we will poo- be able to i around the world. And not only is promised, but it is almost an assured sue- cess. In fact, a concession for exhibiting a "distance-seer" apparatus has been granted for the Paris Exposition in 1900 and there are millions of dollars behind the promoters. The instruments have been tested and there is no doubt that everything will work perfectly.

When the big exposition opens this preatest wonder of the century will be on public view so that all may see at so much per head. That it will draw a crowd goes without saying. It is the intention of the promoters to reproduce in Paris BCenes from other parts of the world. Wherever wires can be fixed there views can be taken and conveyed instantly to Paris. Then the visitor, seated comfortably In an opera chair, can look upon the smoking heights of Mount Etna and a moment later be watching an ascent over the ice and snow of Mount Blanc.

Street scenes in all the big cities will bf faithfully reproduced, and should the opportunity present itself real battlescenes will be thrown on a screen and be perfect all but the sound. But it is thought that even this latter can be reproduced by apparatus that is now in course of construction and will be Bomewhat on the pattern of the phonogrraph. The apparatus that is to convey the actual reproduction of distant scenes has been christened the "teleleetro- Fcope" by iis inventor. This man bears the non-pronounceable name of Herr' pantk. He is a Gallcian by birth, and a year or so ago was school in a small country town.

It was all he could do then to keep body and soul tos-ether, but now he can draw on many millions of dollars promised by deeply interested who firmly believe he has discovered "the biggest money maker yet found." Herr Pzczepanik calls his apparatus the "telelectroscope" because it renders objects visible In their natural colors nt a distance by means of electricity. The manner In which this Is effected is somewhat difficult of clear explanation. From tho Inventor's representative In London the following particulars have been gathered as to the method of transmission: Roughly speaking, the pipture is broken up Into a number of points. Each point is reflected in mirrors, and the reflected ray of light Is converted Into an electric current, which can be transmitted any distance. At the receiving end the current is again transformed into the corresponding ray of litrht.

This ray of light is reflected in mirrors and the reflection thrown upon a screen. Now, it follows that if all the points of a picture are taken in very rapid succession the resultant reflection on the screen will be the entire picture. In greater detail, it seems that there are two mirrors at the receiving end and two more at the transmitting end. Each mirror has its surface coated with pome opaque substance. Across this opaque covering a straight-lined scratch is made with a needle or knife, fo that only a narrow linear strip of reflecting surface is exposed.

The purpose of this is that only a single line of the object under observation may be exposed to the reflective influence of the mirror. The mirror (the first one in which the object is reflected) is fixed on a pivot, by means of which (with the aid of an electro-magnet) it is continually oscillating, so that the lines of the object under observation are continually changing. Each of these single line pictures Is broken up into points by means of the Fecond oscillating mirror, which is placed at right angles to the first, so that its reflecting line is at right angles to the reflecting line of the first. As two lines intersect each other in a point, it follows that only a single point of the reflecting line of the first mirror will appear in the second mirror, and therefore only the reflected ray which corresponds to this point will be reflected in the second mirror. The two mirrors oscillate synchronously.

This ray of light, which corresponds to a certain point in the picture, Is converted into an electric current by employment of an electric battery with a selenium cell. The property of a selenium cell is that its electrical resistance varies with the color of the light to which it is exposed; it is energized in different degrees by different rays. A blue ray, say, will have a very powerful effect upon it, while a red ray will set up a very weak current. This electric battery is connected by wires with an electro-magnet at the receiving end, -where the electric currents are to be reconverted into rays of light. The electro-magnet will accomplish this by moving in sympathy with the electric current sent out from the transmit- ting apparatus, and its movements will necessarily correspond to the nature of the ray reflected.

A blue ray, for instance, wculd move it a considerable distance, while a red ray would only slightly deflect it. Now this magnet is made to move a prism, which is placed in front of a strong white either the light of the sun or an electric light. The action of the prism will break the white light up into its seven prismatic colors. These colors are spread out in a spectrum. The prism being moved by the electromagnet, it will necessarily revolve just so far as to bring the required color into view.

This color will now be reflected In one of the two oscillating mirrors at the receiving end. And just as the action of the other two mirrors was analytic so the action of these two is. Each point of the picture is reflected on a screen, and as the points follow- one another in very rapid succession indeed, the eye of the observer will take in the impression of the entire picture as if its points were all presented to it simultaneously. The picture can be made to last as lang as may be desired by constantly reproducing the effect, and at such a speed that the observer is unconscious of any break in the process. It is no more difficult to reproduce a moving picture than a still one, for the inventor explains that "it is the actual picture which is reproduced, and not a mere record as in the case of the kinematograph." Another point claimed is that there is practically no limit of the distance which the apparatus can be used.

With the possibility of a telephone wire 1000 miles long, such as that between Chicago and New York, the Inventor thinks that the telectroscope wires might be of any length. Such an instrument, of course, opens up a wide field of possibilities. Scenes of foreign travel, battle fields during action, and the eclipse of the sun are only a few of the things we might have seen recently, while sitting comfortably at home, had Herr Szezepanik had his machine well established a little earlier. As It is, the question arises, has not this Galician genius done away with tne necessity of visitors actually going to Paris in 1900? Like most other inventions that are for the reproduction of any kind of vibration the telelectroscope seems to have one or two weaknesses. A number of scientific men who were given a private view of its workings, while surprised and pleased even beyond their wildest expectations, stated to the editor of a London paper that "the invention seems to have been inspired by the kinematograph, and it is said that the images resemble to the kinematographic images, and are shivering like these." Again, "Thence follows that the image does not appear in the natural colors, but in the corresponding spectral colors, and the colors in which the image appears are not quite clear." But such a slight objection at such an early hour after the invention can surely be overcome in a short time, possibly before the opening of the Paris exhibition.

After the Paris exhibition it is the intention of the promoters of the telelctroscope to exploit it in all the big cities of the world. Of course San Francisco will be included, and when that time comes you can step into the place when the apparatus is on exhibition and see what your friends are doing in some of the THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 1898. big cities over a thousand miles eastward of us. The most remarkable feature of the invention of the telelectroscope is the inventor himself, because he proves in his person that Inventors are like artists born, not made. Jan Szczepanik is an Austrian Pole, and only 24 years of age.

He was so poor that he was forced to quit the university and become a schoolmaster in hia native village. Three years he apnlied, in a crudely written letter, to the Austrian Ministry of War for assistance in patenting his "Fernseher." But Austria is a country where inventors proverbially go a-begging, and nothing might have come of the young man's discovery had he not been taken in hand by a Vienna banker, Herr Ludwig DREARY WORK OF A LAUNDRY GIRL One Week's Experience of a Woman Among the San Francisco Laundries to Ascertain How the Girls Work, How They Are Treated, How They Are Paid and How They Live. MONDAY morning: I applied for work at the San Francisco Laundry and pot "on," as they say. Nine others had applied, two quite young girls in short dresses. I was to receive $10 a month, board and room.

I was taken to the mangle room. I hung up my hat and coat and began to earn a living at laundry work. My first task was to fold towels, piles and piles and endless piles, hot from the mangle. As I made the acquaintance of the San Francisco hotels by the quality and color of the towels, I wished to look about, but with the eye of the "forelady" on me I attended strictly to business and folded "two times twice" and "three times over." After countless hours I was told to "come along," and I went. At another table I shook out wet pillow-slips and piled them up, hems all one way, and tried to keep out of the way of an old man, who trotted about with piles of wet linen.

He whistled at me and told me to "get along there," and when I did not get along sufficiently quick he threw my pile of pillow-slips in a heap and swore, and defiantly said, "What are you going to do about it?" Perhaps 100 men and girls were crowded into the room. The steam from the wet clothes in the hot mangles went to meet the steam from the washers and rolled about in clouds. The machines slopped suds on to the floor, where the water stood in puddles. With my feet wet and the hot mangle at my head, in the awful atmosphere where an occasional kindly breeze, strong with ammonia, cloaked the continuous odors of soiled linen, I only wondered what girl could stand it for five years. The overseer came through occasionally and looked sharply about, and the forewoman was With a tongue in place of a lash she told this one to hurry up and that one to "be lively there." Woe to the girl caught talking! She was reminded in no mincing words that "it was not to talk she was hired." A shrieking noise, the dinner whistle made me drop a pillowslip on the dirty floor.

This did not escape the eyes of the "forelady," as she checked the girls till their work was left in order. The backless wooden bench, where I found a place to sit at the long dinner table seemed a God-given luxury after standing for five hours. A pretty little girl who sat next to me, just 14, helped me to forage. a ive me some bread," and Nick, hurry up with that meat," while a handsome young man in his shirt sleeves flew about and. waited on 100 hungry girls.

Half an hour for dinner with a few minutes off in the beginnin- is not a hurry eVery ne was in a For supper only twenty minutes are allowed and then it Is a rush indeed to blows rk When the thistle rJfLt waded through the water on the fSv" 00 1 tO set out t0 dl Every one worked steadily, scarcely Kleinberg, who may virtually be said to have discovered the Edison of Europe. Indeed, it is confidently predicted of this stripling that he will leave Edison far behind. He is said to possess very little technical knowledge; but in spite of this fact he was able, the moment he set eyes on a silk-weaving loom, to hit upon an idea revolutionizing tlie manufacture of Gobelins, which, means of an electric. 1 process, can now be produced at one-twentieth of the former cost. The hai just been sold to a ring in England for $250,000.

Pictures of any dimensions can be produceJ in silk within a quarter of an hour, and thes have the truth of photographs as well as the artistic value of a steel engraving. iooking up, as if each were engaged in a neck and neck race. I saw no one loitering. As the hours went by and the shadows cr-pt farther out into the washroom the faces became more and more tired and drawn. The whole room was alive with machinery, and the whirling wheels and belts and the deafening noise made me dizzy as I walked between the machines to where I was to help shake out bedspreads, pile after pile, as fast as I could.

Wet bedspreads are heavy. My head ached. It was as if time had forgotten to go on and I was a machine. An old man came in, walked about and looked sharply at everything. As he stood rubbing his hands, gloating over the piles of linen and noisy machines, and men and women, counting his profits, a feeling of rage came over me that he could hold us there in slavery that weak, old man.

To him went the profits, to us the deadening toil. I wondered that one hurt him, but none seemed even to notice him as he stood there. The white, unhealthy faces of the girls told their own tale of working fr.om 7 a. m. to 9 or 9:30 at night, as they were doing until some weeks ago.

Then the girls sent word to the Commissioner of Labor. The hours have been shortened since, but it has been a duller season. Soon the summer will increase the amount to be got out and then? Only in the mangle-room, however, have the hours been improved. There unremitting vigilance keeps the girls at the highest tension for sixtytwo hours a week at the rate of about 4 cents an hour, and at work which makes them worn-out, old women at 20 years. In other departments we found working seventy-one hours' a week.

Everything is arranged with a view of profit to the corporation from the artesian wells to the regulation whereby one who earns 35 cents per day receives 15 cents if she work half a day and loses 20 cents irrespective of which half she may work or lose. The sick list is an eloquent commentary on the system. Girls are always absent for sickness, losing their pay Those who work after hours receive no extra pay. The room allotted to me as my sleep- Ing room received its entire supply of air for three through a transom over the door into the hall. Two beds nearly filled the room.

No springs under the filthy mattresses, no pillowcase on the dirty straw pillow, and the bedding in a condition indescribable, made me decide that I would go home to sleep, as very many of the employes do. There are not rooms enough for all, although the room and board are included in the wages. The room was furnished with two chairs, no tables, no bureau, no closet. An old man has charge of the oil with which to fill the lamps, but his frequent absences are so many cents on the right side for the company. So nothing is said, and the employes either buy their own oil or sit in the dark.

Men and women take care of their own rooms and even make their own bed linen when they can get it, which is not always. I asked Mr. Biggy of the United States Laundry what they counted as the cost per capita to board the employes. He told me $5 a month, and at the United States it is optional whether the employe has or has not board. If he boards himsflf a difference of $5 is made in his wages.

Not so at the San Francisco. Nearly all of the girls have homes which they help support out of their slender wages, and this $5 or a third of their entire wages, would be a great help at home. The quarters of the men are adjacent to those for the girls. There is no discipline, no restriction put upon either; and such an atmosphere cannot but be deteriorating to a young girl whose sole home is an airless room during the Sunday hours when she Is not at work. In not one Instance did I see any provision whatever for the comfort or convenience of the employes.

In the entire laundry there Is not a chair, though in other we found girls sitting at their work and doing it quite TELECTROSCOPE RECEIVER IN NEW YORK. By This Wonderful Instrument the Scene in Paris Can Be Reproduced in the Most Minute as quickly and as well. If the girls are ill they are in their rooms, and If friends will carry them food, all right. Everywhere the smaller mangles are heated by gas, and being exactly In front of the operator's mouth she must breathe this hot air all day. In one laundry only we found protectors; they can be put on at a very small cost.

One man I found, who was a pathetlo example of the system. His voice was quite gone, and to any observer It is but too evident how nearly his days are done. It was all right; he had nothing to say against the laundries. People were willing to work twelve or sixteen hours a day and glad to get the chance. When folks are compelled to work, they expect to work.

In one breath he told me it was a frequent thing for a man to lose his hand or part of it, and he was lucky if he could get back to work when the injury had healed. Scarcely had he finished the Bentence when he took it back and said the laundries were all right. When he got stronger he expected to go back and would not hazard his chance of employmen not to save the lives of all the rest of the world. It seems very unfair that laundries like the La Grande, White Star and United States should have to compete with the sweat shops, and yet none of these seem to be in danger of immediate bankruptcy. Their employes have reasonable hours, get good pay and are healthy-looking, in great contrast to the white, drawn faces and bloodless lips at some of the other laundries.

Mr. Biggy is the vice-president at the United States and the superintendent. The girls there are healthy, not worn out and can get their work finished and be home at a good hour, for there are no girls in the boarding-house attached to this We found Mr. Biggy the hand of a girl who had been injured. Her expenses and salary were paid during her absence and Mr.

Biggy hopes to be able to have the hand as good as ever. The girl works a few hours a day, receiving full pay, although the accident was her fault and caused by wearing a ring, contrary to rules. The Electric should come under notice of the Board of Health. The St. Nicholas was quite as bad.

It was a peculiar place, tumble down and illy ventilated, with a toilet room without water, off tie room where the girls work. The manageress tried to impress us with the fact that it was a small paradise, and that her dear girls scarcely worked at all. and were well paid for overtime. The girls told the same and her pay roll was a thing to admire. Later I went upstairs, and Me.

Green of the Labor Commission talked to the girls without her, and they declared it was a common thing for them to be working at 11 o'clock at night. Never did they receive any extra pay when they signed the pay roll. I have visited many of the homes of the girls, and have seen how indispensable is the pittance earned, where small girls are supporting sick mothers or fathers and small children. It is pitiful that these young heroines are not protected by the same law which would be quick to find them if they transgressed. I went home with a woman whose face had attracted me in one of the places where I worked.

It was only a short distance from the laundry and was much cleaner than the appearance of the girl had led me to expect. As we went along, looking into the uncurtained windows at the family groups, Nora's steps quickened. In one a man was rocking a baby to sleep and smoking a pipe, while a woman sat near mending, her feet on the hearth of the cook stove. Nora said It always made her feel wicked when she went home at night, empty handed, to her babies, who were alone all day, for she must eat at the laundry, and she earned only bought enough to keep them all alive and clothed. The children sat quietly on the floor, waiting for her to come and give them supper.

The room was dark, except for a street lamp. They were very glad to see their mother. The small boy had his share of the caressing, too, but he remembered something, arjd was In a great excitement. "My Minna can go, my Minna can go," and he pulled the tiny girl to her feet, where she balanced alone. Then he ran to the other Bide of the room and held out his hands to his sister, and sure enough she walked straight off to him, but her pride and excitement were too much to be carried by the little legs and down she went.

Then such a praising and petting and hugging as the girlie had! On the floor were scattered a few toys is the corner a box of sand TELECTROSCOPE TRANSMITTER WORK IN PfIRIS. The instrument can be placed in any position where the desired view can be obtained. By starting a clockwork mechanism the entire scene is received on selenium plates and sent to the receiver hundreds of miles away. was the little one's playground and the only ground they ever saw except on Sunday. Three chairs, a table, a bed, a cradle and a cooking stove made all the furniture.

On the floor, a pillow, dented and soiled, with a nursing bottle beside it, told how the little ones rested in the long hours they were alone, for Nora could only run home a moment at noon. In a few minute 3 she had their supper ready. "Corn mush seems more satisfying than anything else I can get," and with a little milk and sugar the children seemed to think so, too. After the little ones were in bed Nora got out some sewing and worked by the light of a candle. I was tired to death and went to bed and it seemed only a few minutes when Tommy climbed into bed and woke us up and Nora said we had overslept and must hurry to be at the laundry in time for work.

Breakfast was the same as supper. Nora had taken out a small quantity of the yellow mush, and, to my inquiring look as she placed it back on the table well ouv of the children's reach, she said: "Tim might come, and he'd like a bite to eat, for he'd be down in the mouth and ashamed, and me away. Oh, I known I'm a fool, but you see well, Tim's Tim. Maybe you'll have a man of your own some day and you'll know how Jt is." St. Joseph, to whom she prays, must be indeed deaf and dead if he does not hear this poor "washer lady" and take care of Tim and send him back to the overburdened mo- ther.

This woman works eleven eighteen hours a day and receives $13 a month. As we walked along Nora told me of a girl who had worked with her. it troubled her much thinking of her own lassie at home, but she could see no way out of It. Lilly's parents had come from Denmark. Her father had been able to earn a good many comforts for his family, and at his death his wife owned her home and a little money besides.

Lilly had hoped to get a g-ood education, but when her father died she had left school and gone to work at the laundry. Like most children of European parents, every cent she earned was carried home, and the mother could spare little of the scanty $10 a month for the girl herself. Two years past she worked every day from 6:30 till 10 at night, for her duty was to be there to dampen the shirts ready for the lroners at 7. Like all young things, Lilly saw only never-ending grind of her labor; no time ever except on Sundays, and then her one desire was to He and sleep. She earned so little she could have nothing herself of the pleasures girls live for, and saw no hope but to become worn out at 20, as the other girls were.

One morning Lilly did not go to work. Nora tried to find her. She knew how the girl would need a friendly word, and to her own family she was worse than dead. Aa Nora said: "Well, God, he konws." At another place I had met the mother at the laundry where she had gone to take something to her daughter who worked there. Such a sweet old face.

She said she was sorry that she had troubled me. She had cried when I spoke to her and told me that her eldest daughter was at home very ill and that as at home she never dared cry and relieve her feelings, so she always left the house when she wanted a good cry and couldn't keep her tears to herself any longer. She asked me to go home with her and see her daughter. It was a bright room with the air home. A few plants, some few prints adorning the walls, some sort of savory mess cooking on the stove in the corner, and the sunshine flooding the room and brightening the girl who lay on the couch with her eyes closed, made it hard to realize what the woman had told me.

"She was such a strong girl, but she began to work before she was 14. You see, my man died and there was six little ones and we had to do the best we could, not what we wanted: and she was the oldest. At the laundry she earned $7 50 a month, and as the girls were old enough they went there too. They have to work and do not know how to do anything else, and the wages are so small they never have anything left, so they just have to take what comes. "One of the girls goes to work at 5:30 and has worked till sometimes 11:30 at night.

The others begin at 7 and work till often 8 and 9. and it is just killing them. Mattie will never go back again I know, but it just breaks my heart to see the others going the same way. They will all break down sooner or later, and there seems to be no hope." HELEN GREY. ANOTHER BALLOON ASSAULT ON THE NORTH POLE.

AN expedition directed by M. Varicle, a French engineer, who has made a specialty of aerostatics, will soon leave for Juneau, tak- ing along a flotilla of aerostats, of which the Alaska will be the pilotballoon. The project has been carefully studied by M. Varicle, who has recently made several trial trips in company with M. Terwange, a distinguished traveler, who has received the degree of Doctor of Laws; M.

Besac, an engineer, and M. Richard, an expert mechanic. All these trips gave satisfactory results except the last, made from the French city of Lille, when, the release being made before the captain gave the order, the balloon, called the "Fram," failed to clear the houses and was brought back to the starting place too late for the ascent to be made that day. Previous to that M. Varlcle had made the Journey from Paris to Dieppe, tack- Ing constantly toward the west by means of the sail he had Invented and using the guide-rope as a point of support.

time he went from Paris to Hamburg, remaining in the air for twenty-four hours. But the most conclusive trial was the journey from Paris to Tours, which lasted thirty-four hours, during which there were three landings by which M. Varicle's son and Captain Mallet were set down en route. This last ascension gave ample proof of the efficacy of the "auto-lesteurs," or automatic ballast-lighters, as anchors, another Invention of M. Varicle's which was suggested by the cone anchor and permits of a descent without loss of gas.

Imagine a sort of large funnel provided at its small end with a large sack of some stout goods. The funnel is allowed to trail on the ground, the edge scraping the surface and, raking up earth or snow, which passes into the sack. Presently the load thus collected attains sufficient weight to stop the progress of the balloon, and by pulling In the rope the balloon can be brought back to earth. 1 This "auto-lesteur," which has given good results in France, is made of a new metal, as light as aluminum and as strong as steel, called "partinium," after, its Inventor, M. Partin.

The areonauts rely for success on other circumstances in addition to their tacking apparatus. i In the first i place, 1 on the constancy of the winds i the region where they are going to operate, which," at the time they will make the i ascent, blow regularly in a favorabledirection and on the fact that" they will travel i at a short distance above the land between the two chains; of mountains which form the Cnilkoot Pass. 25.