THE WIZARD OF MENLO.

NZ Truth, Issue 79, 22 December 1906, Page 5

THE WIZARD OF MENLO.

THOMAS A. EDISON'S BOYHOOD. The Small Beginnings of a Great Inventor.

Thomas Edisdn has been tellin? an American interviewer the story of his early life. During the. war between the North and the South he was a newsboy working ,on trains- from Detroit. He presuaded the telegraph" operator m Detroit to wire the main facts of the' battle of Pittsburg Landing along the line, so that the stationmasters could post, them on the bulletin boards* the idea -being that the public would be eager, for fuller details and would fight for the papers. Edison's average daily sale of the 'Detroit "Free Press" was 40 copies. That.^ay he provided- himself with lOOO^^Ie says : ' "That was a great- -day for me. At the first, station the crowd was so big tha£^hought it was an excursioh crowd. But; 1 no ; when the \ ' people caught sight of me, they be•■'•^lk, gan to yell for papeirs. T just doub- : If led the price on the spot, and oharged -» ten cents "(sd) instead 'of 'five cents omW a copy. l " gtfgjf "When I got to the 'last station I ; jumped the price up to 55 cents (is; .'OH) a copy, and sold" all I had left. I~ made 75d01. («15) : or loodol. (£2O) m that one trip, aM I tell you I felt mighty good.,' •'That called, my attention to what a telegraph operator could do.- I thought to myself -that telegraphing was simply great, and t made up mymind to become an operator as soon as possible. 1 ' , > FIRST INVENTION. ■ ' Invention was m his blood, but all ' his inventions were; hot successes. '. . ' 'The first serious thing I invented was a machine which would count ■ the votes m Congress m a very few moments'. It was a good machine, , too. but when I took it to Washington they said to me.:. •'• 'Young man, that's' the last thing we want here. Filibustering si.5 i. and the delay m counting the. vote' are the only means we, have of de- . feating bad legislation.' "; He arrived m. New York without a ; cent. and. he had "to park it a lit-" tie;" but Edisbn adds: "I. never did care " much about eating,., anyhow-" By a stroke of luck he obtained an engagement to look after .the tickers m a' stockbroker's office. That -was , -the turning point m his,. life. . The > -story of how he earned his first "big money" is worth quoting m full:— "Then I joined hands with ,__ man named Callahan, and ; we got up several improved types of stock tickers. These improvements were a success.

' "When the day of settlement for, my -invention anproached I began to' wonder how much money I, would get. I was > pretty raw, and knew nothing about business, but I hoped that I might get 5000d01.. (£1000)-. "I dreamed of what I could do with big money like that, of the tools and other- things I could buy to work out inventions ; but I knew Wallr street to" be- a pretty bad place, and o had a general, suspicion that a, man was apt to get beat out of his money there... So I tried to -keep my hopes down ; but the thought of. . 50dOdol. (£1000) kept rising m my mind. ' WITH THE PRESIDENT. .'.' "Well, one day I was sent f Or by ttie president of. the Gold and Stock r Telegraph Co. to talk about a set- 1 .tlemeut for 'my improvements. He | .was General Marshal. Lefierts, colonel of the 7th Kegiment. . . . When | he asked me how much I waited I was afraid to speak, r feared 1 that if h : i mentioned SOOOdol: I might get nothing. • - - ' , . "That was one of the most pairiiul and exciting moments of my life. My, how I beat my brains to know W_at to say. Finally I said : " 'Suppose you make jne an ofier.' "By this time I was scared. I was more than scared. I was paralysed. " 'How would 40,000d01. (£8000). do ?': asked General Lefferts. * "It was all I could do to keep my iace straight and my knees from givin- way. I was afraid he would hear ■ mv heart beat. "With a great efiort I said that I "... guessed that would be all right/ He ■ sard they would have the contract ready m a few days, and I could . come back and sign it. In the meantime I scarcely slept. I couldn't be- . . lieve it. "When I went back the contract • Was ready, and I signed it m a " hurry. I don't know even now what -.v.;.- was m it. A cheque for 40,000d01. was handed to me, and -I went to the bank as fast as my feet would carry ..me. "<_• . > : . ; >-.- . . .. inside of "a 'DahkTjr got ? in line, and when my turn came I handed m my chec-l.e. Of course I had not endorsed it, - "The. teller looked at it, then pushed it back to me and roared something which I could not understand, being partly deal. . My heart sank and mv legs trembled. I handed the cheque back to him, but afain he pushed, it back with the same unintelligible explosion of words. "That settled it. I went out of the bank feeling miserable. I was the victim of another Wall-street 'skin tame.' I never felt worse m my life. "I'M SKINNED." "I went around to the brother of the treasurer, -who had drawn the cheoue awl said : "I'm skinned all rip-ht." When I told him mv story he burst out laughing, and when he went into the treasurer's office to _ explain matters there was a , loud roar -of laughter at my expense. They sent somebody to the bank with me. and the bank officials thought it so great a joke that they, placed a trick on mc by paying the whole 40,000d01. m ten. twenty, and fifty-dollar hills "Tt made an enormous pile of monp-<* T stuffed the bills m my inside pockets and outside Dockets, my troiiser pockets, and everywhere I rould nut them. Then I started for home m Newark. M.J. I wouldn't ?. ftit nn. p. . seat with jiTivbodv on the train nor let any bod.-'* a^nroach in_». ; When T f-otto my v'oom I could ret. ; sleep for fear.ol being robbed. '

"So next day I took it back to Gon'ii'.l Leilerts aud told him 1 didn't know where to keep it. He had it placed m a bank to mv credit, and that was • my first bank account. With that money I opened a new shop, and worked out. new apparatus.". Edison has never been able tb keep money. His earnings have always gone to perfecting apparatus and preparing new inventions, .When m later years he received £20,000 from the Western Union Company he stipulated that it should be paid him m seventeen yearly instalments, and that, he says," was tne wisest thing he ever' did. He had only anticipated half this sum at the outset, and was astounded when h« heard the figure at which the company valued hia 'inventions. "I almost fell over. It made me dizzy, but I kept mv face and answered, with as much coolness as I Cpuld muster, that the offer appeared fib he a fair one." The inventor's deafness is directly due to , his love of science. When he was a newsboy he. was experimenting on a train, knocked over a bottle of phosphorus, and set the car on fire. The conductor boxed, his ears,, and threw boy and apparatus off the. car. ' The result was the deafness which has troubled Edison ever since.