J88 



Popular Science Monthly 



Subduing the Cow's Tail with a 

 Simple Wire-Clip Device 



NIGHT after night 

 Arthur J. Thomp- 

 son, of Argyle, Mich., was 

 flogged by cows' tails. 

 He milked two cows, 

 which stood side by side. 

 When milking the out- 

 side cow he got but one 

 tail in his face, but when 

 he milked the inside cow 

 he got the combined 

 swishes of both tails. 

 Needless to say, this an- 

 gered him. So thoroughly 

 tail-flogged was he that 

 he decided then and there 

 to subdue the cow's tail. 



Taking a piece of wire 

 and a pair of pliers he 

 worked for two hours on 

 his subduer. His first 

 model completed he tried 

 it on the cow "and got a 

 crack on the head," as he 

 tells us in a letter. But 

 he did not stop. He 

 worked another two hours, improved his 

 model, tried it on the cow for the second 

 time and lo ! it kept the tail where it 

 belonged. Several months later the 

 Government issued him a patent. 



His device is a simple U-shaped wire 

 loop loosely fastened round the right 

 leg of the cow, with the exterior side 

 bent and twisted so as to form a 

 clip to hold the tail. When placed 

 in the clip end of the loop, the cow's 

 tail can not be moved, nor can the 

 cow kick with that foot. 



The cow's tail is fastened in the 

 clip end of the U-shaped loop 



Each pocket of the pool table is provided 

 with a V-hinge baseplate at the top. 

 Electric contacts are held on the ends of 

 both of the halves of 

 these baseplates. The 

 contacts lead to dry bat- 

 teries and an electromag- 

 net in the spinning de- 

 vice. Thus, when you 

 succeed in starting a ball 

 towards any pocket, the 

 weight of the ball as it 

 passes over the baseplate 

 forces the hinge arms to- 

 gether and closes the 

 circuit. Instantly, the 

 armature of the electro- 

 magnet is sharply pulled 

 down. By means of the 

 ratchet-and-pawl ar- 

 rangement at the end of 

 this armature, the hand 

 on the spinning device is 

 set whirling around in 

 front of the score dial. 

 The number at which the 

 hand stops is the num- 

 ber of points which your 

 pocket scores. While the 

 scored will depend solely 

 skill is always required to 

 start the hand going. 

 The device also aids 

 in keeping the score 

 without individual 

 calculations. 



number 

 on your 



thus 

 luck, 



Combining Luck with Skill in a New 

 Game of Pocket Billiards 



TO win in the game of pocket billiards 

 devised by William Heffley, of Penn- 

 sylvania, you will have to be lucky as well 

 as skillful. His invention adds to the age- 

 old game an electric spinning device which 

 is operated by the ball entering into its 

 pocket. The spinning device is likely to 

 score you almost anything, so that a 

 closely matched game can be made not only 

 a matter of skill, but one which is in- 

 tensely exciting. 



Heffley *s device can be attached to any 

 pool table without altering its construction. 



The weight of a ball traveling towards any 

 one of the pockets closes an electric circuit 



