HOW MR. SMITH MADE HIS FORTUNE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1580, 11 March 1887, Page 3

HOW MR. SMITH MADE HIS FORTUNE.

Twelve months ago Mr. Smith, the inventor, who was a young man of exemplary habits, lived in a lodging house conducted by a widow who had seen better days. His landlady had two daughters, the one beautiful, and the other good. Mr. Smith, being the most eligible lodger in the house, by reason of the fact that he occupied the second floor front and received a large salary as bookkeeper for an extensive hardware firm—with access to the safe—became an object of much consideration to these interesting half orphans. The mother likewise smiled upo -n the young man, and the three united their efforts to make the house a happy home for him. Mr. Smith was not oblivious to the esteem in which he was held, but he was in doubt as to which of the daughters he liked the better. The beautiful daughter was the more clever and accomplished of the two, but she possessed a remark - ablp quick temper and had contracted a habit of playing the piano and singing after dinner, which Mr. Smith hypocritically affected to admire. The good daughter, although a trifle stupid and quite fat, had irany excellent points also. Mr. Smith was finally saved the trouble of making a decision.

One of the other lodgers, a middleaged lawyer, who had been systematically snubbed by the beautiful daughter ever since Mr. Smith's arrival in the house, unexpectedly inherited a fortune. He at once proposed for her hand, and was accepted so quickly that Mr. Smith was dazed for a week. The beautiful daughter at once cut her mother and sister, set up a victoria, and drove past the lodging-house daily without once looking in the direction of her former habitation. Taen Mr. Smith discovered how much he loved the other daughter, and though he anticipated the expense of her appetite with dread, he asked her mother's consent to their union. It was granted and both were happy. Mr. Smith and his affianced now frequently strolled about Regent Street on a Sunday afternoon, and they very often met the lawyer's wife in her carriage, upon which occasions she passed them without the slightest recognition. Mr. Smith was a highspirited youth, and he arrived at the lofty determination that his fiancee should ride alone Eegent Street as well as her sister. To this end he engaged a hansom cab, choosing that particular style of vehicle by reason of the greater conspicuousness of its occupants, L but he little as the maiden he loved squeezed her massive form through the narrow door, that he was laying the foundation stone of a fortune. They passed the lawyer's wife in the Park with great pride and satisfaction; but the sensation of riding in a cab fired Mr. Smith with a passion for hansoms that became insatiable. He rode to and from his business in a hansom; he rode out every night with his affianced; he began to neglect his books to ride about the city ; he wasted his time in cab riding, and as a result he lost his situation. Then he was driven from the lodging-house and his landlady informed him that he should never see her daughter again until he showed himself worthy of her by proving his ability to provide for her support. Mr. Smith was cast down but not completely. The hansom habit had ruined him. Ho now determined that it should repair hi* fortunes. He was an observing young man and had often noticed that the horse before a hansom is always in inverse proportion in point of size, to the vehicle, and he

also recalled the fact that whenever his fair companion bad leaned back in the cab her weight invariably lifted the horse from bis feet and left the animal dangling in his harness from the shafts. Why, thought Mr. Smith, could not the principle evolved be applied to a mechanical contrivance by which the occupant of a hansom might stop the vehicle at will, without being obliged to call the driver through the trap? Mr. Smith wag convinced that this result might be obtained, and many weeks of patient study and experiment finally involved the Smith regulator, which consists of a weight running in a groove under the body of a hansom, which, when the cab is in motion, remains between the wheels. When the occupant desires to stop he presses his foot upon a button in the floor, which elides the weight to the rear of the vehicle and lifts the horse into the air. When the cab is ready to proceed the button is pressed again, the wjight shifts, and the horse is let down on his feet. When a number of cabs are drawn up before a railway station or elsewhere the manifold benefits of the invention are realised, for the horses, being lifted from their feet, space is economised, the animals are rested, and the sight lends variety to the landscape. As has been intimated, Mr. Smith has made a fortune from the invention, and never ceases to bless the day when he first took his fiancee for a ride in a hansom.