Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/239

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Popular Science Monthly
211

The Latest Style in Handcuffs.

LAWBREAKERS may be nipped in the bud most effectively by the police nippers invented by John J. Murphy of Norwich, Conn. The police nippers or "leaders," as they are sometimes called, are clasped about the wrist or even the ankles of the arrested man.

The advantage of the new nippers is not alone in their effectiveness but also in the fact that they may be quickly and easily operated with one hand. The closing of the hand about the handle portions of the nippers causes the jaws to close. These are pivotally connected by opposed extending arms with a sliding tubular member attached to the T-shaped inner handle. This tubular member slides on a basic rod to which the outer T-shaped handle is mounted. It takes but an instant to clasp the nippers on the wrist of an offender.

It will be difficult for a thief to escape the clutch of the law if these new "nippers" are
adopted, for they can be quickly and effectively operated with one hand


Have You Eaten Your Cow?

EVERY man, woman and child in the United States eats, each year, a whole steer, sheep or hog, according to United States government figures, which show that one hundred million meat animals are slaughtered in this country each year.

Of one's beef, mutton or pork, however, one has to give up one and one-half per cent, on account of condemnation by government and city officials, for this proportion of the meat slaughtered is thrown out as unfit for use. The federal inspection covered, last year, fifty-eight million meat animals slaughtered, and condemned 299,958 whole carcasses, and 644,688 in part. This represents considerably more than that number of cases of ptomaine poisoning which government inspection saved Americans, but it also represents a considerable saving in other diseases.

Tuberculosis was the chief disease condemned, 33,000 beeves and 66,000 pork carcasses being entirely condemned and parts of 48,000 other beeves and 440,000 other swine being removed. Hog cholera was responsible for the next largest loss, nearly 102,000 swine being condemned entirely on this account.

It cost the taxpayers $3,375,000 for this protection, or four cents a head for the population of the country, which was paid for when they bought their beef, sheep or hog for the year. In selecting one's diet for the year one should bear in mind the additional fact that over half the number of food animals inspected by the federal government last year were hogs.