ITEMS OF INTEREST April 30, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Efforts to abate the bill-board nuisance are still being made, and some progress is noted. Massachusetts men are making another effort this year. The supreme court of Illinois has affirmed the right of the police to censure immoral posters. In Montclair, N. J., and Cambridge, Mass., women are refraining from purchasing goods advertised on the billboards, and Worcester, Mass., is exercising rigid oversight. Various federations of women have entered the field and have been particularly active in Cincinnati. The San Francisco Real Estate Board has been conducting a determined crusade. Washington, D. C., has begun an earnest effort to rid the rational capital of offensive boards. The corporation counsel of Seattle has recommended that the Legislature be urged to amend the law in such way as to bring the right to use property for bill-board advertising within the eminent domain power of municipalities, thus granting municipalities the power to condemn such rights.

Peter Cooper Hewitt of New York, an electrical inventor of note, has been granted the patent right by the United States court in a contest with the General Electric Company for priority of invention for a device which does away with the present transformer of electric currents. The new apparatus, which is exceedingly simple in construction, is capable of converting an alternating into a direct current by passing the alternating current through an exhausted glass or metal chamber having simple electrodes at one end and a small quantity of mercury at the other. This case has been in the courts for six years.

The interesting announcement has been made by Secretary Knox that an international court of arbitral justice—the much-discussed "peace court"—is practically assured. Contrary to the opinion which gained currency several months ago, that the note sent by the United States to the Powers had been received indifferently, it is now stated on good authority that several nations are favorable to the plan. Reports so far received justify the expectation that a court of arbitral justice will be established before the meeting of the next conference at The Hague in 1915.

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