Word: corks
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Some years ago, Henry Ford established an experimental factory at Cork, but his calculations did not in-clude the local brand of corrupt politics. Abandoning the Irish base, he next tried Southampton but ran into the heavy handicap of red tape on the part of city officials. Simultaneously, he opened a small plant near Manchester, but has not found it desirable to expand his facilities there...
...different feather from mundane planes (which have wooden hulls, fabric wings, Liberty engines), this aristocratic bird has wings and body of duralumin-a new alloy, light as cork, strong as steel. It carries four passengers, has a special compartment for golf clubs and other week-end breakables. It will go 130 m. p. h., ten times as fast as the proudest, the tallest sailing yacht of bygone days...
...company of cork-droppers...
...origin dates from one November night In 1867, when an English comic singer landed in Manhattan, strolled down Lispenard Street, dropped into a "Free and Easy," sang songs for his supper, made friends. The friends threw dice for their drink but the Cockney showed them a better game: dropping corks on the bar and picking them up, the last man to recover his cork standing treat...
...cork game "took"; a company of cork-droppers formed. In 1868 the Cockney, Charles A. Vivian, presided over a meeting of "The Jolly 'Corks," now determined to organize a benevolent and protective society. What to call it ? Vivian remembered in England "The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffalos," but his comrades favored "Elks" when they discovered that animal described as "fleet of foot, timorous of wrong, but ever ready to combat in defense of self or the female...