Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1881 — The Electricity of a Young Couple Utilized. [ARTICLE]

The Electricity of a Young Couple Utilized.

Since the electric light has proved a success for the lighting of large buildings, it has occurred to a scientific man that electricity could be used on wheeled vehicles. He knew by experience that there was always more or less electricity wasted—for instance, when a young couple is out riding ; so he experimented. The scientist had learned that a certain young man had engaged a buggy at a livery stable for the evening; so he bribed the livery man to allow him to experiment on the buggy. The young lcientist put a small electric lamp on the sower part of the dashboard out of sight of the driver, and ran small copper wires to the back of the seat. It is well known to the student of nature that when a brunette young man and blonde girl, who act as the positive and negative—that is, he is positive he will put his arm around her, and she negatives the arrangement along at first, until after dark—there is a certain electric current established, small in itself, but of great power if properly husbanded. It is like your arm getting asleep or hitting your funny bone on the arm of a rocking chair. Well, this wire was placed so that the arms of the young people would touch it. Just as they were passing the toll gate, they began to snug up, and the little electric lamp began to throw out light. It went under the horses’ feet and lit up the road for several rods, and the young people were almost as astonished as the horse was. They thought there was somebody following them with a lantern, and they straightened up and the light went out. Every little while they would gel near together and kiss each other slyly and squeeze, and immediately the light would blaze up. The girl was real frightened and insisted on the young man sitting on his side of the buggy, and he was a little frightened the first few times that the light flared up; but as he had come out to hug, he was going to hug if it turned the night into day; so he went to lying to her about the horse being a phosphorus horse. He said there were some horses so full of phosphorus that when they got warmed up a little from driving they shed light all around. Then they gol nearer and the electricity again appeared, and for an hour they rode along in the evening by the bright light. The young scientist passed them a numbei of times in another buggy, and he is sc well satisfied with the experiment thal he will apply for a patent. The young lady was very much annoyed at the queer light, and while she cannot say that she did not enjoy the ride she has requested her escort to be careful nexl time and not get a phosphorus horse. The young man, when he got back tc the stable, told the livery man that thal was the lightest rig he ever drove, and he wanted a calcium light the next time he took his girl out. They will Know whal caused the light when they read this. It is going so there is electricity in everything.