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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1903. 



tain, was likely to be followed by such a vigorous 

 complaint as arose in the house of the Liverpool draper, 

 with the risk involved of a judgment for $4000, chemists 

 in a small way or a large way would refuse to handle such 

 goods if not guaranteed by the maker, and the makers 

 would not dare to send out bottles without first testing 

 them thoroughly. And with this new condition of affairs, 

 a similar course might follow in respect to garden hose, 

 fire hose, tire inner tubes, and, ultimately, every class of 

 India-rubber goods designed for holding or conveying 

 liquids of any kind. 



One further note to be made — for Mr. Justice Walton's 

 decision may yet become of interest as a precedent— is 

 that his Lordship held the hotwater bottle to be a techni- 

 cal article. That is, something which the ordinary pur- 

 chaser could not be held to be a judge of, as one might 

 be expected to judge for himself of a market basket or 

 clothespins, and in regard to which dependence upon the 

 vendor was necessary. The sale, therefore, of such an 

 article for a given purpose implied a warranty, even if 

 none was expressed. Let this rule once be applied to rub- 

 ber goods in general— for few persons can judge them by 

 appearance— and the sale of inferior goods will come to be 

 classed with arson and other like things, the commission 

 of which suggests courts and penalties. 



THE WORLD'S DEPENDENCE ON RUBBER. 



W/K doubt whether there was any thought of India- 

 '' * rubber in the mind of Lord Kelvin when, at a din- 

 ner in London some time ago, in honor of Mr. George 

 Westinghouse, he paid a high tribute to the American in 

 crediting him with the widespread benefits which had re- 

 sulted from the development of the railway air brake. Yet 

 without the short pieces of India-rubber hose which link 

 together the air brake apparatus of the several cars in a 

 train, these benefits would not exist. The railway systems 

 of the world represent an investment of capital vast almost 

 beyond comprehension, and upon their successful working 

 depend the lives of so many people and the safety of so 

 much property, as to be at some time or other a matter of 

 concern to almost every civilized being. In improving so 

 many of the conditions involved, the air brake has proved 

 of such great service that Lord Kelvin rightly declared it 

 to have revolutionized the business of transportation by 

 rail. He might have added that it is the few dollars' worth 

 of rubber in the equipment of each train that has lifted 

 railroading out of its primitive stages 



Not less marvelous than the extent of the steam railway 

 systems is the great and multifarious development of the 

 applications of electricity — involving thousands of millions 

 of dollars in the means of transmission of intelligence, 

 light, power, persons, and goods. Think of a single fac- 

 tory making and laying 37,000 miles of submarine cables 

 in three years past ; of the power of Niagara Falls being 

 used to operate factories as easily as if it were only a toy 

 mill race ; of costly street railway systems in every city ; 

 with no end of other important electrical undertakings. 

 But without insulating materials, at some point in every 



plant or system, all the electricity would be as uncontrol- 

 lable as the lightning in the clouds. And here the chief 

 dependence is India-rubber, including the closely related 

 substance. Guttapercha. 



To speak of smaller applications, lately the automobile 

 has compelled attention on every continent — a vehicle 

 which never would have been practicable but for rubber 

 tires ; without modern fire fighting apparatus the modern 

 great cities could not exist — and rubber hose alone makes 

 these possible ; tne world's growth in intelligence is en- 

 hanced by means of cheap printing paper, which calls for 

 rubber rolls in its manufacture ; certain important chemi- 

 cal results and invaluable surgical operations might still 

 be unknown without the aid of rubber. The list already 

 is too long to record here, while invention continues busy 

 with additions to it. 



Rubber is thus a necessity to man in a sense in which 

 there is none more truly so among industrial materials, 

 though the use of some others may exceed it in volume 

 and money value. There is no need, therefore, for mis- 

 givings as to the future of the rubber goods industry, or 

 as to the coming demand for the raw material. If the 

 past is any earnest of the future, there is no industrial 

 field which offers more promise to the beginner in life 

 looking for a career. There never was before so great a 

 demand for men who understand rubber and how to utilize 

 it, and every decade finds the field less crowded, relatively. 

 Men who are living to day can remember when shoes were 

 the chief product of the rubber industry, and when at 

 times means had to be taken to prevent over production. 

 But more rubber inventions are patented now every week 

 than in a year, half a century ago, and doubtless as large 

 a proportion of them proves of value. There have been 

 novelties in rubber developed recently which have yielded 

 more profit in a year than Charles Goodyear netted alto- 

 gether from his epoch making discovery, and there is no 

 sign that the last invention has been made in this field. 



THE MAN WITH A RUBBER SECRET. 



HE appears almost every week, and is usually clothed in an 

 air of mystery that instantly impresses the beholder 

 with the enormous vaiue of his discovery. In the beginning he 

 is most reticent, but after a little the need of sympathy unlocks 

 his lips, and he lays bare his thoughts, hopes, and aspirations. 

 The first part of his confession is very apt to relate to the se- 

 cret machinations of the " rubber trust," which had attempted 

 to secure his process for its own upbuilding and with no ad- 

 vance payment of the large moneys that the use of his product 

 would mean to them. This is the time to wax sympathetic. A 

 little damning of the trusts, considerable appreciation of the 

 inventor's astuteness, together with a look of whole souled 

 honesty, never fails to bring forth a sample of the mysterious 

 product. It is usually an evil smelling compound which mayor 

 may not have a certain use as an adulterant, but which rests 

 wholly on the rubber added to it for value, and yet to its crea- 

 tor's mind is better than rubber. After having seen it, as a 

 rule, one's spirits fall, and the thought of escape obtrudes itself. 

 A sense of fairness, however, acts as a restraint, while the in- 

 ventor quizzes for information about compounds, about rubber 

 factories, individually and collectively, regarding purchasing 



