Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-06-02
The sho. maker sclentl.t.

a sensation in his time; now we
have the scientific shoemaker, or
more properly, the shoemaker sci
enlist, whom Samuel Smiles, biogra.
pher of self-made men, has apothe-
osized in a recent volume. The
devotees of natural science are not
so many, when all the circum-
stances Of life pinch to the verge
of prohibition, that even one Of
them can be overlooked without
doing a grievous wrong to the cause
with which they voluntarily iden-
tify themselves. Scotland has pro.
duced many remarkable men, but
not one more remarkable than
Thomas Edward, the naturalist,
whose biography by Smiles reveals
a career Of devotion to an engrOss
ing passion that would be difficult
to match anywhere in our times.
lie is now sixty-three years old.
He was the son of poor hand
loom weaver, put out to work in a
tobacco factory from his sixth to
his eleventh year, then apprenticed
to shoemaker, and at the age ofsev-
enteen became a iourneyman, since
which time he has followed that
humble calling. 1t shows once
more what a remarkably close con-
nection there is between the shoe
makers bench apd robust intellec-
tual excellence. Edward married
early and thus adopted regular
family habits, and has successfully
reared eleven children. For equip
ment as naturalist, he learned
literally nothing before his sixth
year, having been turned out of
the three schools to which he was
sent because Of his passion for birds
and insects. He Jared worse in re-
spect to schooling than other chill
dren in similar circumstances.
Since the year 1881, when he be-
came journeyman in the village
of Banft, in which he has since re-
sided, be has pursued his studies of
Nature parallel with his days work.
For forty years successfully he spent
the most Of his nights in the fields,
in the cold and wet, hiding in fox
holes and covering in the lee of
hay stacks, in quest Of specimens of
animate nature that could not be
secured without svch heroic sa
cri6ce and devotion. No soldiers
life was ever so full of prolonged
hardships as his, self-imposed
though they were.
Thomas Edward was simply re-
garded as insane or idiotic by
the wise ones about him, and he
now confesses himself that he
has been ga fool to nature all his
life" He taught himself to read,
and though his faculty for express
sion on paper was Of course ex-
tremely limited, all that he had
to communicate was eagerly sought
by the conductors of scientific jour
mails, which, however, never recon-
pensed him farthing. And he
obtained no more reward after his
name became known to all the
naturalists Of Europe. All that he
still has is his bench and his lap
stone on which to rely for support
in his old age, although in the His
tory Of British Crustacea, which |
freely accords his wonderful merits,
one hundred and seventy-seyen of
the specimens which are there de-
scribed are of his own collecting, of /
which number twenty were new
species. AT three times in his
laborious life he was compelled to
part with the collections which had
cost him the labor Of years, in order
to pay the bills of the family doctors.
Not a single hand has ever been
lifted to help him in his long and
lrduous career. Nothing but a
deep and unquenchable thirst for
knowledge, which be never thought
Of calling science, has sustained
him. He has had his reward as he
went along, in the triumphs whose
secret sweetness was all his own.
Though so widely recognized and a
member of the Linnean Society, a
little puff-ball Of a local scientific
association has carefully ignored /
the existence Of such a man. Such
rare beings on this earth as Thomas
are not to be addressed by