Arkansas true Democrat., 1857-12-22
Interesting Patent Office Decision.

That thorough and accomplished officer the new commissioner of patents, Mir. Holt, of Ken lucky, has, as we learn from Washington, re- jected the application of John McBarty for letters patent for improved "policeman's club"
 The model of the club is about twelve inches long, is round, and about an inch and a quarter in diameter It has smooth and polished sur face, and resembles the baton generally borne by police and other officers. Its exterior gives no indication of its real character or capabilities Its barrel is hollowed and within it is an in. genious mechanism connected with four longi. tudinal "spurs or lancets,' which lie concealed in the tube. On touching spring these lancets leap from their hiding places, and through them, by single wrench of the weapon, most fear full mutilatOn Is inflicted on the hand of any adversary who may have grasped it. In the technics of street rencOntres, It may then be cubbed, and its lancets made to bury thenl- selves at will in the head and body of the vic- tim
 The commissioner says that justice to the in- ventor demands the admission that the me- chansm of this "miniature internal machine" displays sufficient novelty to support a patent The law, however, in its wisdom has declared that something beyond mere novelty must be established before patent can issue. The in- vention must not only be new, but it must be important and usefui. Conceding the assump- tion that this club would be eminenay useful to policemen it is still obvious that this Is too limi- ted measure of utility to satisfy the require ments of the law. An invention to be patent ed, must not only be useful to the few, with a chance of being peruicious to the many, but it olo hot oft of the whole community, the good resulting from it would decidedly preponderate over the evil. If the officers of public justice, and those law-abiding citizens who love peace and pursue it, could be induced to defile themselves with this instrument, and could its use be restricted to such, it might be comparatively harmless; but when it passess from the workshop of the mechanic who has fashioned 1t, 1t is manifestlv beyond the control of the government, and will md Its way into the service of the crawling profiigate certainly as the stlletto seeks the | belt of the bravo.
 It's manufacture and distribution through so- ciety, under the expectation that good would result therefrom, would be an act of folly equal ed only by that of strewing our pathway with thorns, Tn the delusive trust that they would bud and blossom into flowers at our approach- It is barbarous in its every characteristic, and is as repugnant to the genius of our institutions, and to the morality of that faith in whose shi- ming footprints our legislation strives to follow, as is the scalping knife of the border savage After other arguments against granting patent for this club, the commissioner concludes by saying: Whether received as weapon of of. fence or defence, it is adapted to the hands ol the most absolute and the most dastardly, and evidently belongs to the same class as the slune shot of the burglar, and the brazen knuckle oi the political rufian. The national honor would be no more tarnished by granting patent fol the one than for the other"