WEATHER REPORTING BY LOOKING AT DOTS AND LINES ON GOOSE BONES

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, December 28, 1888.

HERE AND THERE.

   Happy New Year!

   The foreshadowing of approaching winter, as it is read from the dots and lines on goose bones, is not cheerful. There will be more wet and cold weather than the people of this latitude have experienced in many years, and the cold spells will be longer and more severe than usual. The bone is dark at both ends, which indicates a long winter.

   The insurance adjusters have paid the Cortland Wagon Company the full amount of [fire] insurance on their buildings, $25,000, and allow full insurance on stock destroyed, less $400 saved in south building. The loss on machinery has not yet been adjusted.

   The E. C. & N. R. R. Company are putting the Martin Anti-Fire Car Heater in all their passenger coaches.

   John T. Barnes, Esq., has sold his handsome residence on Railroad street to Mr. R. R. Hibbard. Consideration, $6,300.

   The Cortland Corset Company has shut down for the holidays. Work will be resumed with the opening of the new year.

   Superintendent of the Poor elect Cutler has appointed Dr. E. A. Didama, of this place, to be physician to the County Alms House.

   Remember that at all the entertainments in Cortland Opera House, hereafter, the curtain will rise promptly at 8 o'clock. Doors open at 7:15.

   The post-office employees and the employees of the express offices in this village were kept busy Monday and Tuesday, handling and delivering Christmas presents.

   Miss Covil will begin her winter term of music the first week of January at her studio, Wickwire block. Those wishing a thorough course of instruction will do well to call.

   Leroy, the six-year-old son of Mr. Augustus Lines, of Homer, accidentally ran the tine of a pitchfork into his nose near one eye last Saturday, and died on Wednesday morning from the injury.

   A good audience attended the performance of "A Grass Widow," which look place in the Opera House last Monday evening. It is a very laughable performance, and gave excellent satisfaction.

   Prof. Palmer, the optician, will be at the jewelry store of Clark & Nourse from Saturday morning, Dec. 28th, until Saturday night, Jan. 5th. His practice here last week was the largest and most satisfactory of any he has been favored with.

   Christmas services were held in all the churches in this place, last Sunday evening. The exercises were all very enjoyable, and reflected great credit on the Superintendents of the several Sunday schools as well as the pupils who took part.

   A perfect town is that in which you see the farmers patronizing the home merchants, the laborers spending the money they earn with their own tradesmen, and all animated with a spirit that will not purchase articles abroad if they can be bought at home. The spirit of reciprocity between man and the mechanic, tradesman and laborer, farmer and manufacturer, results every time in making the town a perfect one to do business in.—Exchange.

St. Mary's Church.

   The "Months' Mind Mass" for the very Rev. B. F. McLoghlin was solemnized at the above church, Thursday morning, December 20, Rt. Rev. P. A. Ludden, Bishop of Syracuse, pontificated; assisted by very Rev. J . S. M. Lynch, V. G. as High Priest, Revs. Peter O'Rielly of Clinton and Jas. F. Hourigan of Binghamton, Deacons of Honor, Rev. J. J. Kennedy, of St. Lucy's, Syracuse, Deacon of the Mass, and Rev. P. Beecham, of Baldwinsville, Sub-deacon, Rev. P. F. McEvoy, chancellor and secretary, of the Diocese, First Master of Ceremonies, and Rev. W. Dwyer, of Binghamton, Second Master of Ceremonies. Nearly forty Priests were present.

Grace Church Items.

   Christmas day was most appropriately observed in the parish. An early service at 8 A. M. was well attended. At 10:30 A. M the service consisted of morning prayer, sermon and holy communion. The church had been adorned in texts of red letters, and evergreens and smilax tastefully arranged. Large evergreen festoons and suggestive symbols, in and about the chancel, made the general effect very pleasing. In short, on entering the church the eye was impressed at once with the outward tokens of Christmas joy, and the evidence of the day's true significance.

   The service was heartily participated in by a good congregation. As a matter of course the musical program was exceptionally good. Solos and duets in the Te Drum and Jubilate were especially fine. As usual the program will be repeated next Sunday.

   The event of the day was the new pulpit, placed and used for the first time, as a memorial to the late James A. Schermerhorn and wife. It is of black walnut and brass, the ground plan apsidal in form, with wood base, and panels of open brass-work of appropriate design. It is a massive, costly piece of furniture, fitted with adjustable manuscript rest and gas fixture. It was made by R. Geissler, the well known church furnisher of New York. On the front face near the top, a brass plate bears this inscription:

In Memory of

James A. and Sarah M.

Schermerhorn.

Erected Christmas, A. D., 1888.

   The pulpit is placed by Mrs. Dr. Milne and J. R. and A. M. Schermerhorn.   The rector made fitting allusion to the gift in his sermon from St. John 1, 1 and 14.

   The S. S. Festival was held on Christmas Eve. After a short service and the singing of carols a very instructive and interesting address was delivered by Dr D. E. Smith on Christmas customs, their origin, etc. A very pretty Christmas tree was then illuminated and each child received a remembrance and box of candy.

   The rector conducted a service and preached at Zion church, McLean, on the evening of Christmas. The singing was excellent and a large congregation participated.

Testing the Sprinklers.

   Since the disastrous [Cortland Wagon Company] fire of December 4th, by which so many thousand dollars worth of valuable property was destroyed, our citizens have been looking to their safety in the possession of efficient fire extinguishing apparatus. With this view Supt. M. C. Pierce, of the J. C. Mackay Automatic Sprinkler Co. of Syracuse, was called to Cortland by the Hitchcock Manufacturing Co., to test the system in their factory buildings to which has been added an electrical appliance.

   The main building is divided into three sections, each section being furnished with thousands of feet of piping for the conveyance of water which is supplied to them from two ten thousand gallon tanks at the top of the building. Distributed throughout the building are about one hundred sprinkler heads and sixty live thermostats.

   The system works in this wise: The thermostats with electrical connection are not over twenty-five feet apart and if a fire is started anywhere the heat soon reaches 155 degrees at which point of temperature the soldered cap of the thermostat melts off allowing the pin to drop which makes an electrical connection with bells in the office and the engineer's house and opens the gates in the pipes filling them with water instantly. By the time the water is in the pipes the caps on the sprinkler heads have melted off, dropping the plungers and the water is issued therefrom, driven by the immense hydraulic pressure and is thrown nearly twenty-five feet in each direction from each sprinkler head.

   Everything works to perfection and there is no possible chance of any failure. The electrical connection in the engine room drops a lever at the end of which is a forty pound weight, and with all this power the water gates must open; and having opened the rush of water from the sprinkler heads cannot fail to have the desired effect. The test seemed to meet every requirement and the Mackey system was voted a success by all who saw it in operation.

RECENT LEGAL DECISIONS.

The Rights of Street Railway Companies.

   The General Term, first department, in the case of the Broadway and Seventh Ave. Railroad company, plaintiff, against the Mayor, etc., of New York, defendants, recently laid down certain propositions affecting the rights of street railways, which as winter is now here are of peculiar interest to the city authorities and the public. It is held in this case, that street railroad companies cannot use the streets so as to ignore the rights of abutting owners, and to obstruct, impede and prevent the use of other parts of the streets in keeping open their tracks for the purpose of passage, and no such right is conferred upon them by the provisions in their charters that the railroad shall be run as often as the convenience of passengers requires it. Again, that a street railway company cannot, because it is necessary to remove the snow from its tracks, put it upon other parts of the streets where it becomes an obstruction to the use of the street by the other passersby, and that it has no right to control or use, or in any manner interfere with any part of the public street except that actually included within its tracts.

   That under the duty which is imposed upon the city to remove obstructions from the streets and keep them in condition for travel, it has a right to forbid or regulate the use of snow plows and sweepers which pile up the snow upon both sides of the track, and prevent the use by the abutting owners or public in general of the other parts of the street.—Binghamton Republican. 
   This decision is an important one and especially to the citizens of this village and Homer. The attention of the board of Trustees of this village and the Highway Commissioners of the town is especially directed to it in the hope that they will perform their respective duties in the premises. The Homer & Cortland Horse Railway Company have heretofore ignored the rights of the citizens owning property on the line of the road and when spoken to about their transgressions have insultingly asked, "What are you going to do about it?"

   The Horse railway company do not own the earth but they have put on as many airs as though they did. Last winter the highway along the line of their road was rendered almost impassable by the snow that was scraped and thrown in heaps at the sides. Certainly property owners have some rights that this corporation is bound to respect.

Cortland Fire Department.

   At the annual meeting of the Cortland Fire Department, held at Firemen's Hall Dec. 26th, the following officers were elected:

   Chief Engineer—John W. Phelps.

   1st Ass't Engineer—Floyd Hitchcock.

   2nd Ass't Engineer—Geo. W. Cleveland.

   Secretary—C. E. Thompson.

   Treasurer—A. Sager.

VIRGIL.

   One day last week while John Priest was cutting some paper in school, his knife slipped striking Pearl Rounds in the eye cutting it quite badly.

   We have had a few very nice days and sleighing has been very nice for Virgil.

   The Christmas entertainment held at the Presbyterian Church by the Good Templars on Christmas eve was a grand success, the tree being loaded with costly presents.

   John Terpenning and Miss Eva Oaks were joined in wedlock on Christmas eve. at the house of the bride's father.

   Christmas passed off very nicely with several family gatherings. Among the gatherings was one at Mr. Andrew Steele's where there was gathered kin to the number of thirty, all of whom seemed to enjoy themselves wonderfully, and wished each other many a merry Christmas, wondering where they should gather on the next Christmas day.

   It seems strange that an energetic, thriving merchant would ask for a mortgage on a widow's real estate which is not encumbered, for the paltry sum of ten dollars.

   There is some agitation on the question of voting to work the roads by contract, instead of by the tax payers gathering together for a picnic, when their time is worth more to them at home than on the road and thereby have better roads with less time and less tax.

   George Seamans has traded his colt for a pacer, so now look out for him, boys, you are liable to get left.

   Why is it that our tax collector always goes by Cortland to reach State Bridge [Messengerville], when he collects there; is it through fear of the roads or of being robbed on his way home?

   CUMMIN. [reporter's pen name]

                                  NEIGHBORING COUNTIES.

   TOMPKINS.— A part of the machinery for the "Dryden Mitten Works" has been moved from McLean into the Lester building.

   Charles A. Maley, accountant at the Ithaca Glass Works, sustained a fracture of the left arm by falling on an icy walk on Tuesday.

   One year ago last week Wednesday, Paul Layton was murdered at his home in Dryden and not the slightest clue has yet been obtained as to the identity of the murderer.

   Nearly fourteen thousand pounds of poultry was brought into Freeville from off the I. A. & W. railroad, and sent south by express on the Southern Central, Tuesday evening. It was hustled onto the Southern Central train in about thirteen minutes. Nineteen thousand pounds of poultry was similarly transferred one evening just before Thanksgiving.

   Last Thursday, Milton Horton, an employee in the foundry of the Bridge & Manufacturing Co. in Groton, met with a serious accident. He was engaged in making green sand cores, used in making the piles for the Fortress Monroe wharf. One of these, weighing about 700 pounds, was raised on tackles and Horton was engaged in taking off the collar, when the screws pulled out, letting the core strike him on the right leg, midway between the knee and hip, breaking it in two places about four inches apart. The fractures were reduced by Dr. M. D. Goodyear.