The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1878-11-08
EDISON.
Something About His Boyhood.

Something About His Boyhood.
At II he began the world-as train.
boy on the Grand Trunk railroad, OF
Canada and Central Michigan. To one
who has noticed the precocious self.
possession, the fippant conversational
powers and the sharp financial dealings
OF the young persons who for the most
part abound in it, it does not seem a
profession for the cultivation of spirit
of quiet research, or the most thorough
requirement of the sciences and arts
But it is fair to presume that Master Ed
ison ut this time had no very compre-
hensive scheme of development pre-
pared. 1t offered the most available
means of livelihood. He went into il
with such will that in course of time
he became an employer of labor, having
four assistants under him for thesdis-
posal of his wares. He is not averse to
recur to the humors of this part of his
life.
"Were you one of the kind of train
boys" he has been asked, "who sell figs
in boxes with bottoms half an inch
thick? 2"
IF l recollect right" he replied, with
a merry twinkle, "the bottoms of my
boxes were a good inch.'
There exists daguerreotype of the
train-boy of this epoch. 1t shows the
future celebrity as chubby-faced fell
low in glazed cap and muller, with
papers under his arm. The face has an
expansive smile-not to put too fine
point upon it, grin. Yet there is some
thing honest and little deprecating in
it, instead of impudence. He was, as
will be shown, an eccentricity among
train-boys, and was, no doubt, sensible
of it. He looks like a fellow whose
glazed cap brakeman would touzle over
his eyes in passing, while thinkinga good
deal of him, all the same
His peculiarly consisted in having
established in turn, in the disused
smoking-section of springless old bag
gage-car which served him as head
quarters for his papers, fruits and veg
etable ivory-two industries little knows
to train-boys in general. He surround
ed himself with a quantity of bottles
and some retort stands-made in the
railroad shops in exchange for papers
procured a copy of "Fresenius' Quail
tative Analysis" and, while the car
bumped rudely along, conducted the
experiments of chemist By hanging
about the office of the Detroit Free
Press, in some spare hours, he had ac-
quired an idea of printing. AT a favor
able opportunity he purchased from the
Office 800 pounds of old type, and to
the laboratory printing Office was
added. 1t seems TO have been by a
peculiar, good-natured, hanging-around
process of his own, with his eyes ex-
tremely wide opct and sure of what
they wanted. to see, that his prac-
teal information on SO many useful
subjects was obtained. He learned
something of mechanics and the
practical mastery of locomotive in the
railroad shops, and acquired an idea of
the powers of electricity from telegraph
operators. With his printing office he
published paper-the Grand Trunk
Herald. 1t was weekly 12X16 inches,
and was noticed by the London Times,
to which copy had been shown by
some traveller as the only journal in the
world printed on railway train. The
impressions were taken by the most
primitive of all means, that of pressing
the sheets upon the type with the hands,
and were on but one side of the paper.
Baggage-men and brakemen contributed
the literary contents. In 1862, during
the battle of Pittsburgh Landing, the
enterprising manager conceived the idea
of telegraphing on the headlines of his
exciting news and having them pasted
on bulletin boards at the small country
stations. The result was profitable
venture, and the first awakening of in
terest on his part in the art of telegraph
ing, i'll which he was destined to play
such remarkable part.
During this time he continued his read
ing with undated industry. His train
carried him into Detroit, where there
were advantages he had never enjoyed
before. An indication of his thirst for
knowledge, of a naive ignoring of enor-
nous difficulties, and of the complete
ness with which the shaping of his
career was in his own hands, is found in
project formed by him to read through
the whole public library There was no
one to tell him that all of human knowl-
edge may be found in certain moder-
ate number of volumes. nor to point
out to him approximately what they are.
Each book was in his view distinct
part of the great domain, and he meant
to lose none of it. He began with the
solid treatises on dusty lower shelf
and actually read, in the accomplish
ment OF his heroic purpose, fifteen feet
in line. He omitted no book and
skipped nothing in the book. The list
contained, among others, Newton's
principal" Ure's scientific dictionaries,
and Buttons Anatomy of Melancholy"
". II. Bishop, IN Scribner for No
rember.
Coin Transportation.