Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/60

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HERE is more than one way of impressing upon the public that at a given point refreshments are for sale. The accompanying illustration shows how one merchant frightened passing motorists into noticing that he had refreshments for sale by an adaptation of a railway block signal. His store is on the state highway of California in the cactus country between Burbank and San Fernando. Few drivers pass this point without glancing up at the "warning" sign, incidentally reading the words on the down board, "Hot and soft drinks."

This sign is made doubly effective by the fact that a few yards from it runs the main line of a prominent railroad. The driver proceeding along this stretch of road is naturally on the lookout for warnings.

N the village of Kenilworth, Ill., the people carry out commendable ideas in ornamenting public grounds. They employ attractive methods in hanging their street lights. One of the plans is to suspend a square frame around a shade tree. An electric bulb, strong and brilliant, hangs at each corner of the frame.

All signs and sign posts which the community finds necessary to place in the streets for the information of drivers and pedestrians are tastefully constructed.

In this village the plan of planting lawn trees in pairs and trios has been adopted. This is done to secure an immediate effect. Slender Carolina poplars are thus made to show considerable foliage in a very short time.

There is one big market and grocery store in this charming little Illinois town. The entrances to this building are banked with flowers.

POLITE request is often more effective than a peremptory order. Hence the board of park directors tried the scheme in a small park near Lake Merritt, Calif.

Instead of the usual order, "Keep off the grass!" or "Do not throw rubbish here!" a polite request reading, "This park is for your pleasure. Help us protect it!" has been put up on a small sign board. The directors of the park claim that it is much more effective than the old signs.

The same method is followed by the street cleaning department of New York city, where the ash carts carry continually changed signs urging the public to "Keep YOUR city clean."

GERMAN butcher has recently patented in this country a process for making artificial sausage skins from fibers of animal sinews. According to the inventor these fibers, which may be purchased very cheaply from abattoirs, may be cleaned more thoroughly than the intestinal skin. The sinews are digestible, and it will do no harm if pieces of the skin are swallowed.