Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/767

Rh

REATER love for children hath no man than the one who discovered that the lives of many, little children can be saved in certain emergencies, if they are held upside down.

Held upside down, the child's face is safe from the flames

When the clothing of children catches fire if a third of the child's flesh is burned, inclusive of its chest or head, it is very likely to die. Yet if the little one is held upside down immediately after its garments have caught fire, the child's life may be saved.

The three-year-old tomboy daughter of a United States Senator was playing a war game with some boys. They were gathered around a camp-fire when the wind carried an ember in her direction and set her clothes on fire. Corporal Hopkins, who had served in an emergency hospital, happened to be at hand.

He seized the little girl by her ankles and held her head down, not an instant too soon. The flames were just about to burn her bosom and curls. Flames have a tendency to rise and a child's face, hair, lungs, heart, and chest are the vital parts first endangered.

Another emergency which demands that the child be held upside down by its legs or feet, is when it swallows a fish-bone, a coin, or a piece of candy.

The coin tumbles out promptly

On the face of one hammer is a Maltese cross which is forced through the check when struck with the second hammer

Canceling Checks with a Hammer and Anvil

N Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, one of the largest and wealthiest counties in the Keystone State, the Board of County Auditors still uses an ancient method of canceling all checks given in payment of bills by the county treasurer and by the treasurer of the Board of Poor Directors. The apparatus, shown in the accompanying photograph, generations old, is composed of a block of oak, fourteen inches high and ten in diameter, and two ordinary-looking hammers. On the face of one is a Maltese cross which is forced through the check when struck with the second hammer.