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f This Diagram Ululate* W hal Happens in New York on a Smoky. Foggy Day. The Particles of Soot and Smut Cast C|. by .the Chimneys t ollec Eatery Vapor Thus Forming a Thick Fog. At the Same Time 1 here Is a Constant Fall of thd) Heavier Irritating Particles of Earth. The Heavier and Poisonous Gases of he Smoke Sink Also to the Level of the Streets, and Gases and I articles Are lnhaled> But, Curiously Enough, School Chil dren Are Best Behaved and Most Studious on Dark, Wet, Gloomy Days. They Are Most Mischievous and Unruly When “Tonic,” Sunshiny Weather Follows a Period of Overcast. The Clear,. Healthy Lungs All His Life on a Farm, important, there is also very probably some stimulating or irritating quality in clear, dry, sunshiny weather. Dr. Dexter assumes this, though he does not ascribe the stimulating quality to th & dryness, but to the increased electrical potential of dry air. Pupils are stimulated on clear, dry. sunny days, hence they are more active, aggressive and enterprising, but like wise more restless, high strung, emo tionally unstable and therefore also more mischievous. A superabundance of yen- ergv and not a state of enervation pre disposes - to childish pranks and nervous explosions. An increase of vitality and nervous tension upsets the unstaple equilib rium of the predisposed offender, gives him a false sense of strength, and an exaggerated idea of self-importance— often paranoia-like in its intensity and hence he becomes more aggressively criminalistic. The gloomy days do have a bearing upon crime and suicide, however, it would appear that they foster dark thoughts, ideas of violence, dark pas sions and despair. The saving clause is that the same weather which breeds these evils in the mind is so devitalizing that the thinker hasn’t energy enough to carry out the impulses. He simply broods. Nevertheless the seeds have beeD sown. In a normal person the advent of a vitalizing, clear day clears the dark thoughts away. But the exhilarating qualities of the tonic atmosphere gives the potential suicide just the courage he needs to take his own life, the courage which he was unable to muster when the deep thoughts of self-destruction came to him. In the same way the criminal finds the energy when the gloomy time has passed to put into execu tion the evil he has inculcated. Equally aston ishing as the con clusions regarding the weather are those concerning the effect of smoke in the air we breathe. The average adult consumes about 30 cubic inches of air in each in halation, or pos sibly 864,000,000 cubic inches every day. It does not seem an exagger ation, therefore, to say, declares the report, >that more persons are devitalized, dis abled and pois oned by the im- ,. ,, .... , . , purities contained ot a Man Who Lived jn smoke poilut- Away from Smoke. ed ajr than by the noxious ingre dients in food and water. , The solid and vaporous ingredients of smoke-begrimed air — noxious copv pounds of carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, chlorine and bisenic—irritate the sens! tive membranes of eyes, nose, throat and lungs and thus aggravate or cause inflammatory diseases of these organs, . or increase their susceptibility to the bacilli of bronchitis, pneumonia and sub acute phthisis. Irritating, acrid goot particles and poisonous smoke compounds may become factors in causing premature decay, un timely death, exaggerated fatigue, fre- quent sickness, instability of attention, malcontent, irritability, lessened self control and possibly psychic disequilib rium. It is also probable, Professor Mallin finds, that there go§s on a gradual proc ess of absorption by the human sys tem of the poisonous products of im perfect smoke combustion. This insen sible intake may not give rise to any definitely recognizable dcute disorder or specific disability. But the process of poisoning may insidiously eat away like a mild canker at the vital tissues and thus in time deplete our potential re serve, thereby making it impossible for body and brain to function at their points of maximal efficiency. With an impaired brain the mind cannot reach its highest levels of creative insight and constructive achievement. “It has often been a matter of com ment.” says Professor Mallin. “that peo ple who have lived in relatively smoke free cities after coming to live in a city like Pittsburgh have experienced a dis tinct disinclination to w r ork or a source of chronic ennui. “A Pittsburgh man writes that people coming to Pittsburgh to reside notice a great depression; likewise many resi dents of Pittsburgh, on visits, find they feel infinitely better, and business men, working for periods in cities where there is not the same smoke, find they can do twice as much work. “These are not isolated cases, but the result of a very genera! inquiry which I have made for a number of years. People very frequently remark on the depressed impression, not only on the workingmen of Pittsburgh, but they also observe it in the clubs. “Is it possible that the low - es teem in which Pittsburgh is held in the world of productive scholarship—a mat ter of qccasional remark among medical men and other scientists—is due to the fact that the air which its scientists must breathe is polluted and poisoned by smoke?” The smoke pall causes an increased use of artificial light and harmful eye- strain. Not the least detrimental effect of the dark smoke strata is the fact that they intercept the blue and ultra-blue rays of the sun, w'hich either check the growth or exterminate harmful bacilli. Fewer diseases are found during sunshiny than foggy or cloudy w - eather. The death rate increases during fogs. As for the aesthetic effects of smoky cities, the conclusions are depressing. By causing decay of interior paintings it tends to restrict the furnishings to the more sombre hues—with corresponding effect upon the mind. Housewives In smoky cities are inclined to keep doors and windows shut. This may be aesthet ically commendable, but is not hygienic. Moreover, the great amount of extra labor required to keep the houses clean robs the women of leisure moments which might be used for pleasure and im provement. Smoke also tends to foster habits of personal uncleanliness. The children playing in the streets in grimy cities be come so used to soot and smut that “they learn to glory in grime and revel in grease.” Finally, says the report, nice people try to get away as soon as possible from smoky cities, and won’t visit there un less they have to. ehave Better on Cloudy, Smoky Days. Astonishing Researches Into the Effects of the Weather and Smoky Cities Show That Crim inals Are More Active on Sunshiny Days and School Children More Mischievous VERY mother knows bow she dreadH dark, rainy day^ when the children ■ J “have to stay in all day," because she realizes that as the hours wear on he children will grow more and more un ruly and boisterous. She excuses their Conduct on the ground that “it’s the weather.” Similarly literature pictures the police as unusually alert in gloomy, stormy weather, because tradition has it that hen criminals an at their worst. There is hardly a story writer who doesn’t pick out the dismallest sort of day or night for the perpetration of his villain’s most atrocious crimes. Both these generally accepted Ideas, among others, are overturned by the re port. which Professor J. E. Wallace Mal lin, Director of the Psychological Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh, has just trmde to the Mellon Institute of industrial Research and School of Specified Indus tries connocted with the university. Pro fessor Mallin whs assigned to investigate the influences of smoke, smoke caused weather, and, incidentally, plain weather, upon morals, body, mind and conduct. His astonishing discoveries are set forth in a monograph “Psychological Aspects of the Problem of Atmospheric Smoke Pollution." From this report it appears that chil dren are not “had’’ on rainy days be cause of the weather. Far from it. They are worst on clear, sparkling, sunshiny days. Their behavior when skies are overcast is due solely to the irritating effects of continued confinement. Nor are criminals at their worst in at mospheres of gloom. That, the report finds, is when they are safest. But when the sun is shining the air Is full of life and snap, the little birds are singing and all the world is glad, then the police must prepare for business, because it’s just the kind of day to inspire tho criminal to assault, robbery, dynamiting and murder. Researches by the distinguished psy chologist, Dr. Edwin Grant Dexter, into the relation of conduct and the weather are quoted by the Pittsburgh report to bolster the assumption that smoke is an immediate factor In human behavior. “Because of its sinister influence on the w - eather, aside from its intrinsically pernicious qualities.” Dexter's investigations were made upon a large number of child and adult offenders in Denvei and New York City. The data which he studied included rec ords of misdemeanors in schools, peni tentiaries and hospitals for the insane, arrests for assault and battery, for sui cide and murder, records of death and bank errors and strength tests. The weather states tend to de plete vitality, low er the vital re serve and aug ment the death rate, while the sunny “Tonic” tends to stimu- late, invigorate, irritate and in crease the ner vous tension. C o nformabl ,v with this classifi cation Dr. Dex ter finds statisti cally that clear, tracing conditions Increase all the data which are of the nature of of fenses. The traditional view is that most suicides occur on cloudy and not on clear days. Ville- amalr claimed that nine-tenths of all suicides took place on rainy and cloudy days, while Dickens L stage their tragic climaxes on cloudy days. Statistical evidence, it seems, does not support those popular notions. The records of suicide and attempted suicide during a period of five years in New York City indicated that suicides were 31 per cent more frequent on dry than on w - et days; 21 per cent more fre quent on clear than cloudy days. Likewise, statistics show that clear and particularly excessively dry days increase the number of arrests for in ebriety, although in the international Journal of Ethics if is said that humid ity increases drunkenness. On the other hand, school misde meanors were reduced on humid, rainy, snowy and possibly on cloudy days and days with high temperature. School misdemeanors in Denver were increased 200 per cent on fair and dr.v days, and on days with high winds Criminals Are Most Active on Clear, Cool Sunshiny Days, and on Bright Days When There Are High Winds. On Gloomy Days They Brood Over (’rime, but Have Not the Energy to Carry Out Their Evil Ideas. hub uiuneuis, _ . ytton and Pope ' * 1 ‘‘ Soot-F tiled, Smoke-Stained Lungs of a Man age their tragic Who Lived Most of His Life in a Smoky City. in the same city, days with low humid ities (iu degrees and 30 degrees), they likewise increased 200 per cent. In New York City they increased 33 per cent with a humidity of between 50 and 55 degrees. Adult assaults, murders and disciplin ary cases in penitentiaries and institu tions for the insane were also reduced on excessively humid days and increased on clear days. On foggy days more bank errors were made in New York City—a finding in harmony with the practise adopted by the Bank of England of requiring clerks to work at less intricate and less im portant problems on foggy and depress ing days. On dry days perspiration is Increased and therefore there is more demand for liquid refreshment. But. what is more The New“Skyscraper Hats” and Other Horrors in Headgear Paris, Dec. 10. HE very newest, weirdest creation In hats is the “sky scraper,” the invention of one of the famous French millinery ‘ateliers.” The “skyscraper” gets its name from its resem blance to the terraced and towering buildings that make New York famous, but its inspiration was really in the headgear of the ladies in Joan of Arc’s time. These have been revived in the elaborate production of “Joan of Arc” ir London, and the 'skyscraper” pr omptly followed. Others horrors from the same source are in its train, with more, no doubt, to follow. , The “skyscraper” at Its smallest measures fifteeu inches from base to tip of feather. Its usual height, however, is twen ty-eight inches, and there are a few creations— that’s the right word for it, too—which measure as much as thirty-six inches. The usual form is in terraces, like a pagoda. Turbans, for instance, tower in tiers two feet or more high, and then are surmounted by an aigrette and sometimes with a long black feather. Aigrette and feather look all the world like a tower or skyscraper with a flag waving from the top. The social problems caused by the "skyscrap ers" are many. For in stance, the proolem of what to do with them in automobiles. The long feathers of this Fall are bad enough, but feathers will bend. The big mass es of fabric la the hats won't bend. In a limousine there isn’t much room be tween the roof and the head. It would seem that the new models would have to have hatboxes built into their tops, or else woman will have to do all her riding leaning far forw - ard. Even the ordinary vehi cles do not permit the rider to sit upright ip one of these enormous hats. And so it is predicted that woman will once again have to “change her fig ure.” Manifestly a gown built for sitting uprigln won’t do if the waist of the wearer is bent double a good part of the time. And so the two and three foot hat will create a brand new gown and walk to match it. But other horrors are to follow. There is already- showing its head a hat that looks like a skyscra per split through the mid die and falling on each side. If this becomes pop ular women will not be able to ride in public con veyances at all, or else will have to buy three seats at once, one for her self and one for each side of her hat. The Whiskers Head Dress, Another Parisian Honor. Copyright, 191?- by the Star Company Great Britain I; ,:hts Keser ti i he New “Skyscraper” Hat: Tier Upon Tier of Fabric Piled Nearly .1 Feet High.