Popular Science Monthly 



How You Light Your Cigar When 

 Traveling in Italy 



THE Italian sub- 

 stitute for the 

 neat and conve- 

 nient cigar lighter 

 found in every 

 American cigar 

 store is a long rope 

 lighted and placed 

 outside of the to- 

 bacco shop. It is 

 made of cheap 

 hemp, of rope 

 waste, and even of 

 rags twisted roughly 

 into shape and held 

 together by strings 

 of twine. The>im- 

 provised lighter is 

 made by the store- 

 keeper himself. 



A tourist making 

 his way down the 

 main street of. a 

 town in Italy will 

 find strings of these 

 ropes all along the 

 way. 



537 



on a heavy metal base mounted on rubber 

 pads so as not to scar or scratch a desk. It 

 consists of a metal framework, handle- 

 plunger, a com- 



Jrown and Dawson 



A slow-burning rope twisted from waste is 

 the "lighter" of the Italian cigar keeper 



Stamping Two Thousand Letters an 

 Hour with a New Machine 



GONE would be the stamp-licker and the 

 wet sponge were every office furnished 

 with this new mechanical stamper having a 

 capacity of two thousand let- 

 ters per hour. This machine 

 differs from others of its kind 

 in that it moistens the envel- 

 ope instead of the stamp 

 and in this way does away 

 with the possibility of the 

 stamps gumming and 

 thereby preventing the 

 successful operation of the 

 machine. 



The machine is built up 



Handle 

 Up stop screw 

 Contact roller 

 Roll of stamps 



Cwer hinge \\ 'fc9' stera,m Stamp renter 



Bring tack springs 



bined water-tank 

 and moistening 

 wick, a stamp- 

 counting register 

 and a platform on 

 which the envelopes 

 are laid to be 

 stamped. 



The back of the 

 framework is 

 hinged at the bot- 

 tom to open in 

 order to insert rolls 

 of five hundred or 

 one thousand 

 stamps. in ribbons, 

 one stamp wide, as 

 furnished . by the 

 Government. The 

 roll, slipped over a 

 pin in the hinged 

 cover, is .fed . for- 

 ward by a system of 

 levers operated by 

 the downward push 

 of the handle. Thus 

 the strip of stamps 

 is automatically fed out to a point beneath 

 the base of the handle-plunger and auto- 

 matically cut off at the proper perforation 

 just when it is affixed to the moistened 

 envelope. The system of levers is brought 

 back to its original position at each release 

 of the handle by means of several 

 small springs. 



A small rod attached to one of the 

 levers of the system is made to move 

 back and forth at each depression of 

 the handle and to operate 

 a register with a dial on 

 the front of the machine, 

 which dial indicates the 

 number of stamps used. 

 The stamp device may 

 also be locked, so that no 

 stamps can be removed. 

 By means of the register, 

 an accurate count of the 

 number of stamps can be 

 kept for any given time. 



To affix a stamp the 

 corner of the envelope is 

 shoved under a moistened 

 wick. The handle is pressed 

 down and then springs 

 back automatically. 



The corner of the 

 envelope is mois- 

 tened with water 

 fed from a tank 

 through a wick, 

 ending just above 

 the envelope plat- 

 form at the right of 

 the plunger base. 

 Then the handle 

 presses the stamp on 



