The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-02-14 00:00:00

THE LABOURS OF MR. EDISON.

The Whitehall Review of February 7th gives an admirable
portrait of Mr. Edison, which is accompanied by an inter-
esting biographical sketch of the great inventor, from which
we make the following extract:—
Mr. Edison's life is a simple story of a painfully
laborious existence, Incessant toil from an early
hour till late at night is interrupted by only a few
hours' sleep. The necessary rest, short as it is,
Mr. Edison obtains on a cot, or an improvised
bed, in a convenient corner of his laboratory, so
that he may be always ready to recommence
work where he left off a few hours previously.
Need we say that frugality and abstinence charac-
terise Edison's habits? His chief meal is a hearty
supper, sent in about midnight from an neighbouring
resturant—a proof that in addition to his other gifts
he boasts the digestion of an ostrich. The daily
routine at Menlo Park begins in the morning about
ten o'clock with the perusal of a tremendous pile
of letters. Edison, aided by his secretary, sees and
reads every one of his letters, and none are
passed without a careful scrutiny, though it
often happens that nearly two hundred are
received by a single mail, varying from the
most trivial inquiries to all kinds of business, and
culminating in delicate questions of science. Next
comes the examination of books, pamphlets, and
newspapers, which pour in upon the inventor from
all parts of the globe ; and two or three hours are
passed in reading and study. It is about two o'clock
when he enters the laboratory, where he meets his
right-hand man, one Mr. Batchelor. Now it is that
Edison examines the work which has been done during
his absence; and here the nature of his intercourse
with the assistants in the laboratory seems to us
to merit special mention. All look up to the
master-mind as an authority, and although no amount
of discipline is exacted, every one of his co-labourers
seems to have fallen into Edison's ways, and that the
entire work is performed, as it were, by one hand only.
No instructions are given, no authority is apparently I
exercised, and yet there is cohesion, and everything de-
notes method. There is no necessity for the se-inflicted
hardships to whch Edison subjects himself in the exer-
cise of his vocation. The plain truth is that, inured to
fatigue, he loves to be at work, He has been finan-
cially successful, but that fact has not changed his
turn of mind Der altered his course of life, and there
Is little danger of excessive work interfering with
Edison's most wonderful vitality. His family is a
long-lived one; Mr. Edison's father is now in his 75th
year; his two uncles are respectively in their 79th and
84th years, while the father of the these three sons
(the inventor's grandfather) is said to have died at the
advanced age of 103," . . .
After glancing at the early days of the hero of the work-
shop, the Whitehall Review proceeds to say :
"Although he is only just completing his thirty-
third year, the fruits of Edison's labour have secured
him an ample competency. He has been enabled to
construct a laboratory according to his own fancy at
Menlo-park (State of New Jersey), on the line of rail-
way between New York and Philadelphia. Dr.
Beard, an eminent American physici,t, says of the
Inventor of the phonograph: Edison has a
mind of extraordinary resources in the presence of
failure. I have worked with him side by side, night
after night, experimenting in some difficult problems
of electricity, and I became more interested in the
psychological analysis of Edison's mind than in the
electrical problems. Sometimes, when we were utterly
foiled in all our attempts to overcome some difficulty,
half a dozen possible solutions would instantaneously
present themselves to his mind, and, when they all proved
futile, he was ready with others. Indeed, Edison is more
than inventor—it does not take a very remarkable in-
tellect to invent, but Edison's inventions are scientific
discoveries.' Such, then, is Edison. When he was
building his laboratory at Menlo Park he said one day,
I shall invent some minor thing every ten days, and
some big thing every :six months That,' remarks
Doctor Beard, 'seemed to me a very wild predictions
but it has been more than fulfilled.' Has it not
been?"