The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-10-12
A STRANGE ROMANCE.
Mechanic Searching for n secret-Forty
Years In n Russian Prison. slvc1

u
Years In n Russian Prison. srTc1
Forty years ago there lived in Provi-
uence, II. L., young man of great in
telligence and wonderful mechanical
ability, who spent little fortune in the
vain attempt of making a perfect repre-
sentatIon of Russian iron, and, after as
many failures as attempts in this under
taxing, he became utterly ruined, finan-
cially. His ambition for the secret in
creased as his fortune grew smaller and
smaller, and when absolute want stared
him in the face he became possessed
with the dete 'mination to accept of the
only means of obtaining one of the
greatest secrets i'll mechanical art, and
TO gam this he must suffer penal servi
ture in the dungeons of Russia.
The rulers of Russia are the only
possessors of the art of making what is
known as glazed Russian iron, used ex-
tensively for oil kinds of stove and stove
pipe work, and which has for nearly a
century been made within the walls of
Russia's underground prisons. None
but life convicts are allowed to be
initiated into the secrets of manufacture
OF one OF the principal means of income
TO tile Russian government, and when
once within its walls no one need ever
hope for pardon, for none have ever
been granted, while but one has ever
been known to have escaped, and when
the door is once shut to the outside
world it is never known what has been
the fate of the unfortunate. This, then.
was the Providence mans last resort for
gaming possession of the secret which
was the desire of his life, and became
his only ambition. Who would be un-
generous enough to call him foolhardy,
crazy Drained or without honorable
ambition, could he not be looked upon
rs wholesouled benefactor to his race
Millions of money have been spent and
wasted all over the civilized globe in
experiments to gain what our Proyi-
dence hero de ermined to make heroic
attempt to gain, and risk his liberty
and even his life, for the benefit of the
whole world. France long since offered
million francs for the same secret,
and Prussia and England have similar
standing offers, but none has ever ap-
piled for the bounty. A Frenchman
named Lamount after long experiments
made very near limitations, but shortly
before the time set for a trial before the
appointed officials of France, Lamount
was killed IL quarrel which no doubt
was brought about for the express pur-
pose of taking his life. His secret died
with him.
The simple rumor of the attempted
assassination of the czar by an Ameri-
can, and supposed to be insane, was all
that was ever known to his friends of
what became of our ambitious mechanic.
and as nearly half century has ratified
on since he set out upon his perilous
undertaking, hardly person living will
remember the circumstance which is
here recorded. There's one person,
however, in Providence who remembers
well the day the hero Of our sketch bade
her fearful farewell. promising that
before she reached her twentieth birth
day he would return to her and fulfill
his promise.
All through these long years she has
never forgotten her promise to wait ior
her lover, nor ceased to believe he would
come to her.
She now lives within moments walk
OF the chimes of Grace church, and is
Still well preserved, and her grace and
beauty make her far more attractive than
many whose years are the same as werc
hers when her lover separated from her
so long ago. Lately she received the
glad tidings far away over the water,
that he who had SO long kept her pa
tlently waiting, was on his way to fulfill
his promise of forty years ago, and let
us hope he may bring the secret he paid
for so dearly, and that he may live to see
some reward for his great sacrifice.