A CONVICT INVENTOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 183, 20 December 1912, Page 4

A CONVICT INVENTOR.

According to the Technical World, the problem which Tesla, Edison and oilier great electrical experts have been attacking for years, the tapping of the mighty currents of static electricity which exist in the atmosphere, has been at last solved, not by a highly-trained scientist with an elaborate laboratory at his disposal, but by a convict in the penitentiary at Florence, Arizona. Hoy J. Meyers, the prisoner who has perfected one of the most original contrivances ever 'devised, is serving a three and a-half years' sentence. "" Superintendent Robert Sims, of the Florence penitentiary, is one of the new school of prison officials, and his aim is to turn the men under his charge into useful citizens. When Meyers' great idea came to him the convict went to the -Superintendent and told him all about it: Sims allowed .Meyers the use of a little workshop, and let him build a model of his invention. Within a few weeks Meyers had constructed a rough working model, which gave results sufficiently"'good to show that his idea was practicable. He was allowed to continue his researches, and a second model was entirely successful in doing all that the inventor claimed for it. Then a difficulty arose. Meyers wanted to patent his device, but it was ascertained that before the scepticism of the Patent Office officials could be satisfied lie would have to appear personally at Washington and give a demonstration with his model. At this stage Mrs. Kate Barnard, State Commissioner of Charities and Corrections of Oklahoma, became interested in Meyers. She appeared before the Arizona Legislature and made such an eloquent and persausiye appeal that Meyers was given leave of absence for thirty days, on parole. _ Meyers went to Washington, gave his demonstration, completed all the necessary formalities in connection with his patent, and returned to prison to serve the remaining ten months of his sentence. Electrical experts are confident that when Meyers is once more a free man he will speedily become a very rich one.