Consul Mahin, of Nortingham, reports that a successful fire alarm has been invented in England. Experiments warrant the belief that it will prove of great value in preventing the spread of fires. He writes:

A new automatic fire alarm was tested in this city this week. In a large room of a hotel, where three of the alarms, small instruments, were attached to the ceiling, a quantity of waste on a tray was saturated with methylated spirits and set on fire. In twelve seconds a gong attached by electric wires to the instruments on the ceiling sounded an alarm. Only the raising of the temperature to a certain degree is required to cause the alarm.

50 Years Ago, 1955

Maine police don’t make enough arrests for traffic violations, an American Bar Assn. official said today.

James P. Economos, traffic court expert, told the governor’s Highway Safety Conference that more arrests would lower the accident rate.

He said national figures show that when there are 15 to 25 times more arrests than accidents in any area, accident frequencies drop.

Based on Maine’s 1954 accident rate, he said, that would have meant between 27,000 and 38,000 arrests. But the State Police took into court only about 15,000 persons on all traffic charges, including non-moving violations such as failing to produce registration certificates or illegal plates.

25 Years Ago, 1980

Detroit – Jacques Cousteau’s research team found nothing new when it explored the underwater wreckage of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank with its 29 crew members during a 1975 storm in Lake Superior, according to the French explorer’s son.

Two researchers from Cousteau’s research ship Calypso spent 30 minutes on the bottom of the lake of White Fish Pointe on Wednesday, the first divers ever to examine the sunken freighter.