June i, 1903.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



291 



India-rubber, which is regarded very highly by the British, spe- 

 cifically advises the use of sulphur fumes in the coagulation of 

 the latex oithelfevea. The fact of traces of sulphur coming from 

 such fumes, used in coagulation, however, should not hinder such 

 rubber from being classed as crude rubber, pure and simple. 

 If it did, the presence of creosote from the smoke of the palm 

 nut used in curing fine Para rubber, the presence of alum in 

 the Centrals, or of uric acid in the Africans that have been 

 dried on the epidermis of the negro gatherers, should place all 

 of these kinds in the class of manufactured rubber. The cus- 

 tons decision of course will not be sustained, for to begin with, 

 the thought of the chemist is that the rubber has been com- 

 p)unded, and yet any manufacturer can prove to him that a 

 " trace " of sulphur would never suffice to cure pure Para rub- 

 ber. Had he found 10 per cent, of flowers of sulphur mixed 

 with the rubber, it would be altogether a different proposition. 

 In the meantime, it behooves the importers to deal gently with 

 the misguided chemist — indeed, to compliment him upon his 

 efficiency in examining every new type of rubber that comes 

 into the market, for the more he knows about such goods, the 

 less often is he likely to err as he has in this case. 



A TAIL HOLD AND A DOWN-HILL PULL. 



I|T* ROM Colorado Springs (Colorado) comes a report on a new 

 substitute for India-rubber made from the skin of the 

 " humble hog," referred to hereinafter as " h. h." According to 

 the Gazette oi the city mentioned, the inventor, a canny Scot, has 

 been "hailed by scientific men and manufacturers with open 

 arms, as his discovery makes less potent the fear that the 

 world's supply of rubber will disappear." The h. h. is appar- 

 ently the only interested party that has not thus hailed this new 

 revolutionizer of the crude rubber supply. Specific details are 

 not yet vouchsafed as to the process, except that the finished 

 product emerges from a hydraulic press which expresses all 

 moisture and air. The removal of last named element is of 

 prime importance, for were the squeal of the h. h. to remain in 

 product, it would give an embarrassing prominence to such 

 goods as it entered into. Imagine an elegant automobile racing 

 up the Fifth avenue, in New York, to the music of four plump 

 h. h. tires! The inventor says further : " This substitute you 

 will find will take the place of rubber, as it is more durable, 

 has the same elasticity, and is not at all prohibitive in price. 

 Much more compact and gristly than the skin of any other 

 animal it resists the severe attrition on a rough road in a 

 unique manner." [So does the h. h.] In fact the new sub- 

 stitute fairly "bristles" with value. 



The rubber industry in New Jersey is one of those upon 

 which the statistical office in that state reports every year in 

 much detail. From the official figures given on another page 

 of this Journal, for three years past, it would appear that there 

 has been an annual increase in the amount of capital employed 

 in the industry, in the value of materials used and of goods 

 made, in the amount disbursed for wages, in the number of em- 

 ploye), and in the number of days the rubber factories were in 

 operation. Presumably there was an increase also in the profits 

 of the manufacturers, though this is a point not covered by the 

 statistician. There is one respect, however, in which the improve- 

 ment made in recent years is beyond question — the reputation 

 of Jersey rubber goods. In times past many kinds of rubber 

 goods have been made in New Jersey. Certain factories were 

 operated for the purpose of placing on the market rubber goods 

 at a lower price than was charged for the standard products of 

 the leading factories elsewhere, with such results in the matter 



of quality in some cases as to justify the use of the description 

 " Made in Jersey " as a term of reproach. Ultimately, however, 

 the trade generally learned to appreciate that a legitimate de- 

 mand might exist (or different grades of rubber goods, at corre- 

 spondingly different prices, until the manufacture of cheap 

 goods was no longer confined to New Jersey. On the other 

 hand, the factories in that state found outsiders competing with 

 them in their own distinctive lines of production. Then the 

 New Jersey manufacturers began catering to the better classes 

 of trade, with such success that to-day no better goods are 

 made in any state, and no buyer now distrusts an article in 

 rubber because it is " made in Jersey," or accepts it without 

 hesitation because produced elsewhere. 



Attention is again being called to the unattractive lot 

 of the rubber gatherers of tropical Africa. There can be no 

 doubt that, left to their own choice, the Congo natives would 

 prefer to leave all the rubber in the forest. But since these 

 simple minded people either won't be or can't be civilized — 

 though it may seem a harsh statement of the question — their 

 choice in the matter doesn't count. So-called civilized na- 

 tions, however, owe it to themselves not to become parties to 

 a policy of killing these ignorant human creatures simply be- 

 cause ordinary inducements do not stimulate them to gather 

 rubber. As to the conditions in Africa, the world has heard of 

 them for years, through religious missionaries and the British 

 Aborigines Protection Society, for example, but nobody seems 

 to have proposed any practical means of reform. Meanwhile, 

 if Captain Burrows's book is to be believed, the situation is 

 working out its own cure. That is, all the rubber is becoming 

 exhausted, and many of the natives are being killed, so that, in 

 a few years, the " Curse of Central Africa " will be only a mem- 

 ory. 



BUSY AND CHEERFUL AT EIGHTY YEARS. 



IN a letter from Dresden to The India Rubber World, 

 Mr. L. Otto P. Meyer, whose celebration of his eightieth 

 birthday was noted recently in these pages, writes: 



" Does it not make you feel good to be in correspondence with 

 a man of eighty years, who does not think himself old ? I have 

 enjoyed good health all my life ; have never been sick since my 

 childhood, except that forty years ago I stayed eight days in 

 bed. And now at eighty I feel strong and sprightly as a man 

 of thirty, but my hair is pure white. I hope by the grace of 

 our Lord to live a good while longer, and you may probably 

 see me arriving some day in America. I am always busy with 

 one thing or another, and disdain to effeminate myself; it 

 seems I am well vulcanized." 



Mr. Meyer was a younger brother of the head of the firm of 

 Meyer & Poppenhusen, out of whose enterprise grew the India 

 Rubber Comb Co., and first came to America in 1848 in their 

 interest. Mr. Meyer mentions in his letter that fifty years ago, 

 when Mr. Poppenhusen settled at College Point, New York, 

 the present site of the largest hard rubber factory in existence, 

 the pla:e consisted of a single farm. 



John Muir, head of John Muir & Son, Leith, Scotland, while 

 lately at Colorado Springs, Colorado, made a statement which 

 has found its way into the newspapers of the United States 

 generally, to the effect that he had invented a process for tan- 

 ning pigskins so as to make them suitable for tires, and he 

 predicted that they would soon displace rubber for tire work. 

 He stated that he had sold his patent rights for the United 

 States, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. 



