Past In Review from 04-11-2002
100 years ago
April 12, 1902
THE CARE OF THE PIANO
“We are nearly driven crazy with work,” said a tired-looking piano tuner. “Everybody wants the piano tuned for a musicale, and most people forget about it until the last moment.”
It always surprises me what poor care most people take of their pianos. Let a man buy an expensive watch, and he’ll treat it as though it were a live thing. But people don’t seem to realize what a delicate piece of mechanism a good piano is. Pianos are not so much affected by heat or cold as they are by dryness of dampness. Of course if you stick one end of a piano up against a stove, or a heater, or register, and let the other end come near a cold, leaky window, it’ll raise Ned with it, but most persons are onto that. The trouble is the piano is too dry.
You know the sounding board – the life of a piano – is forced into the case when it is made, so tightly, that it bulges up in the center, or has a ‘belly,’ as we call it, on the same principle as a violin. The wood is supposed to be as dry as possible, but, of course, it contains some moisture, and gathers a lot more on damp days and in handling. Now, when you put a piano in a dry, over-heated room, all this moisture is dried out ant the board loses it’s ‘belly’ and gets flabby and finally cracks. Even if it doesn’t crack, the tone loses it resonance and grows thin and tinny, and the felt cloth and leather used in the action dry up. Then the whole machine rattles and everybody kicks.
How can you prevent it? Easily enough. Keep a growing plant in the room, and so long as your plant thrives your piano ought to, or else there is something wrong with it. Just try it, and see how much more water you’ll have to pour on the flower pot in the room where your piano is than in any other room.”
Pepper’s Music Magazine
75 years ago
April 14, 1927
Nearby Towns
DELAWARE CITY
The state filing fee of $3 was abolished and no substitute was left in its place through the adoption of a bill in the closing hours of the State Legislature Saturday morning. The fact that the filing fee had been abolished did not come to light generally until several hours later, and there are still some who insist the payment of the fee has not been wiped off the State books.
The repeal of the filing fee was included in the House bill concurred in by the Senate to create a new bi-partisan State School Tax Board.
Doubt was expressed by men interested in the State Tax Department Saturday as to whether the bill as passed really abolish payment of the filing fee, inasmuch as it does not repeal some sections of the present State school tax law that mention the filing fee.
Secretary of State Grantland expressed the opinion that the bill does abolish the filing fee. He says Article 5 of the bill eliminates Section 19, Article 3, of the income tax law, which provides for payment of a filing fee.
Section 19 of Article 3 of the State school tax law, which is repealed by Section 5 of the bill, follows:
“Section 19. Upon filing the annual return provided for under Articles One, Two and Three of this Act, the taxable shall pay to the Tax Department a filing fee of three dollars. The Tax Department shall not receive and file a return until said filing fee is paid, and the offer to file such return without paying such fee shall not be construed to be a compliance with the requirement to file a return and shall not relieve a taxable from the penalties provided for failure to file such return.”
It has been intimated that a legal question may be raised to determine whether or not the filing fee payment is abolished.
The graded income tax bill, which also contained a provision abolishing the $3 filing fee, died in a Senate committee. The vested tax bill, an amendment to the school tax bill, also died in Senate committee.
This means the present income tax law, without a filing fee being required, will prevail.
50 years ago
April 10, 1952
Local Persons Column
Those Who Entertained and Have Been Away
Mr. and Mrs. J. Lemont Jones visited Mr. and Mrs. James B. Tyler and family in Wilmington on Sunday.
Miss Jean Hawthorne, of Drexel Hill, Pa., spent several days this week with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas T. Donovan.
Mrs. E. Woodrow Gonce, of near Townsend; Mrs. Jane Nichols and Mrs. Leroy E. Mahle were Dover visitors Tuesday.
Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Vaughan and family, of Radnor, Pa., spent Saturday with his father, Dr. Edward M. Vaughan and Mrs. Vaughan.
Mrs. Mary Cochran hart was the week-end guest of her son and daughter-in-law, Lieut. And Mrs. George M. D. Hart and family, in Norfolk, Va.
Mr. and Mrs. Prettyman Willey and two sons, Allen and Steven spent Saturday and Sunday with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Faulkner and son, Robert, in Clayton.
Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Bendler, Jr. entertained Saturday evening in honor of Mr. Bendler’s birthday. Their guests were Mr. and Mrs. William Pinder, of Elkton; Mr. and Mrs. John C. Diehl, of near town and Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ford, Jr., of this town.
Miss Ruth E. Hutchison, a student nurse at the Delaware Hospital, Wilmington, spent the week-end with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ceil Hutchison, near town.
