A recent European invention that now is being brought to the attention of municipal authorities is an automobile street sweeping and watering machine says Harper’s Weekly. This device, which has been tried in Paris with some success, consists of a large automobile truck fitted with a tank having a capacity of 470 gallons of water. There is a twelve horsepower motor, which can use as fuel either gasoline, kerosene or alcohol and to which by bevel gearing is connected to a rotary brush fixed diagonally across the frame of the vehicle. The new machine can accomplish as much as six street cleaners and several horse water carts, and the use involves considerable saving in labor.

50 Years Ago, 1956

There was little question, in the minds of members of the Howard Irish family as to how Buckfield got its name. At 6 p.m., a 250-pound buck startled Mr. and Mrs. Irish and their two children by leaping through double and inside windows into their living room. The animal raced into the kitchen, toppling things in its path, darting back to the living room and headed into a large closet in back of the chimney. Showing rare presence of mind in the emergency, Mary Harriet, 12 year old daughter, quickly shut the door, trapping the bewildered animal. As it thrashed around, Mr. Irish notified Game Warden Harry Kearney of South Paris.

25 Years Ago, 1981

Mother Nature had a bitter cold New Year’s greeting for Mainers, with record-low temperatures ranging from minus 18 in Portland to a reported 41 below zero in Houlton. It was cold throughout the long weekend, but Sunday morning’s teeth chattering temperatures “just totally destroyed” the previous record of minus 2 degrees set in 1978, said National Weather Service spokesman Dean Gulezian.