* * * * * CHLOROFORMING DURING SLEEP. The possibility of chloroforming a person in sleep, without waking him, having been disputed in a recent murder trial, Dr. J. V. Quimby, of Jersey City, was led to test the question experimentally. The results were presented in a paper before the section of medical jurisprudence at the meeting of the American Medical Association a few days ago. Dr. Quimby made arrangements with a gentleman to enter his room when he was asleep and apply chloroform to him. He did this with entire success, transferring the person from natural to artificial sleep without arousing him. He used about three drachms of Squibb's chloroform, and occupied about seven minutes in the operation. The second case was a boy of thirteen who had refused to take ether for a minor operation. Dr. Quimby advised the mother to give the boy a light supper and put him to bed. She did so, and Dr. Quimby, calling when the boy was asleep, administered the chloroform and performed the operation without awakening the boy. The third case was a boy of ten years suffering from an abscess, and the same course was pursued with equal success. Two important inferences may be drawn from these cases, Dr. Quimby said. Minor surgical operations may be done with perfect safety and much more pleasantly than in the ordinary way, and, secondly, a person somewhat skilled in the use of chloroform may enter a sleeping apartment and administer chloroform with evil intentions while a person is asleep. Hence the use of this drug in the hands of a criminal may become an effective instrument in the accomplishment of his nefarious designs. * * * * * IMPROVED WATERING DIPPER. A convenient vessel for watering plants, sprinkling floors, and for other similar purposes is shown in the annexed engraving. It is simply a dipper of the usual form, partly covered at the top by a shield, at the center of which is fixed a sprinkler spout. The utility of this improvement will be recognized without further description. It was recently patented by Mr. R. Harrison, of Columbus, Miss. [Illustration: HARRISON'S WATERING DIPPER] * * * * * IMPROVED ELECTRIC LAMP. The lamp shown in the engraving will be recognized as an Edison lamp, the vacuum globe and the carbon horseshoe being the principal elements. Mr. John H. Guest, a well known electrical inventor of Brooklyn, N. Y., judging from his own experience in fusing platinum with glass in the manufacture of thermostatic fire alarms, concluded that the principal trouble with the Edison lamp would be the entrance of air around the wires passing through the glass of the vacuum globe, devised a simple plan of sealing the joint between the wires and the glass by means of mercury, thus interposing an effectual barrier to the entrance of air at that point. [Illustration: GUEST'S IMPROVED ELECTRIC LAMP, Fig 1 and Fig 2]