People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1896 — NOVEL PATENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOVEL PATENTS.

Two Inventions by Men Who Have Sympathy For Tlielr Fellows. There are two persons at least in the world who entertain a feeling of sympathy for the man who blows out the gas and the man who cannot find the keyhole. They have shown their interest in a practical way by patenting inventions for the protection of the one and the assistance of the other of these benighted individuals. Of the two inventions the “jag” device is the simpler, and'probably will prove the more popular. It consists of a small searchlight, by .means of which a worthy but inebriated citizen may locate the keyhole in his front door. The light is a small incandescent globe, as big as the end of a man’s thumb. It is sunk in the jamb of the door, behind a small but powerful lens, whose rays are focused on the sometimes elusive keyhole. The lamp is operated by a small push button in the lintel of the doorway, so located that the wayfaring man, though exhilarated, may not fail to find it. One push lights up the keyhole, and the latchkey does the rest. The device for handicapping the gas blowing imbecile is delicate in its conception and no less certain in operation. It consists of a metal disk, suspended from the arm of the gas bracket, jjust behind the frame. The disk is delicately pojsed just in front of a metal peg. The disk and the peg are the two ends of an electric circuit, which is normally open, but when the man goes to blow out the gas he blows the disk against the end of the peg and doses the circuit, which automatically outs off the flow of gas-—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.