Two elderly ladies meet at the launderette after not seeing one another for some time. After inquiring about each other's health, one asked how the other's husband was doing.
"Oh! Ted died last week. He went out to the garden to dig up a cabbage for dinner, had a heart attack and dropped down dead right there in the middle of the vegetable patch!"
"Oh dear! I'm so very sorry," replied her friend. "What did you do?"
"Opened a can of peas instead."
Rufus Henry GilbertBorn 26 Jan 1832; died 10 Jul 1885 at age 53.U.S. surgeon and inventor who played a major role in the development of rapid transit in New York City. After serving as a surgeon in the Federal Army in the Civil War, he became interested in rapid transit as a means of freeing people from living in the unhealthful, crowded tenements in the centres of large cities. Gilbert obtained two patents in 1870 on a pneumatic-tube system, and he incorporated the Gilbert Electric Railway Company on 17 Jun 1872, to build elevated lines in New York City. The cars were to be propelled by air pressure from pneumatic tubes mounted on the elevated structure. A financial depression delayed construction until 1876, and forced adoption of a conventional track with trains drawn by steam locomotives, which opened 6 Jun 1878. |
