ant Invention One of the most interesting of recent arrivals in Shanghai Major H. W. 8. Husbands, 1c, 'Aumaice. He' haa' so, many' other ti aims to be interesting that one even can. afford not to emphasize his great ability 28 a raconteur. He is a railway engineer of very wide experience, he hada most dis tinguished' career' in the War, he spent, several years in Indi now he-is out here as engineer the Greyhound Association of China, with' the special task of wetting up the electric hare and ing. good his boast that not one of the long dogs will catch it whilst he is in charge, Anyone of a mechanical turn of mind, or who reads newspapers assiduously, will corroborate the statement that, for almost as long one can romember—no matter what his age—Governments, ra way directors, and the gener public in-all countries of the West have accepted the urgent. necessity and called for the speedy and comulaory installation of automatic couplings on all railway. vehicles. Tt is believed to be a fact that automatic couplings are in use on many railways toa certain extent, Dut nevertheless the world stil" awaits the advent of a design Wable beyond all dispute. 'That this 80 may sound remarkable, because almost every railway' engineer ever in practice, not to mention hosts of inventors in other of life, must have had a one time or anoth Yet, at the time of writing Feud in a technical article urge annual loss of life in coupling: ruulweay vehicles demands such an invention and a great saving of time and other economies are Major Husbands explaine the tatter by stating that the perfection of such a device largely philarthropie work, "involving the expenditure of more. money that fengincers can alford. Men have Invented apparently perfectly satis.
ry. designs and reproduced in models in wood or light reinaing then to make a me design and to have it tested under: actual working conditions, Which may cost several thousands of pounds, this, of course, being the Aificnlty both "from the point of view of the inventor, who cannot afford it, and the companies, who dare not risk so much on what may be a failure, Major Husbands himself has invented an automatic coupling which not got beyond the model stage, ite the fuct that it so Impressed Daily. Telegraph's!" technical expert that he wrote as follows:
"rhe invention is a universal central automatic buffer coupling for railways. There axe two heads which engage, the three jaws having extended horns to ensure alignment. On meeting,, the yg. turn the head's reacting after the hooks have passed, to interloel. The heads are mounted on a universal ball and. socket—joznt Aarvanged to rock in any direction without rotation, Uneoupling. is effected by a simple device that rotates one head. The various train pipes are carried to a central, boss ud coupled simultaneously. The model completely justified the inventer's dairiis and revealed the coupling easily and surely effected over a wide lateral and" angular range, giving a perfectly tight mechanical and pipe joint feee from back lash."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.