The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1879-09-26
FREAKS OF INVENTION.

The experience of the last six years
shows that hard times stimulate rather
than OUstruct American inventive ge-
Mus. This remark is verified 10y the re-
cord of invention and is not speculative.
More applications for patent rights have
been filed in the United States Patent
Office at Washington since the great fl
nancial panic Of 1873 than were received
by the office during any twenty years of
its previous existence. Since the reOr-
ganiZatiOn Of the Patent Office. brought
about by the great fire of 1896, more than
21S, 0OO patents have been issued to do
mestic and foreign inventors. And how
many of this great number of '-protec-
tons have produced to the inventors
the equivalent to the official fees for eX-
amining. printing, illustrating and
granting, and of the time and labor be
slowed in maturing the inventions ? An
Intelligent and experienced principal eX-
amiueT to whom proposed this told me,
mot one in thousand. He may have
spoken lightly, but had he said mot one
in five hundred he would probably have
been in the neighborhood of the fact.
Let a specific class of inventions be
considered, that of car couplings. There
are now on the records of the Patent Of
fee and in the hands of aspiring invent
Ors throughout the country more than
two thousand patents for devices for the
coupling together of railroad cars. the
sole object of a very great majority of
which is to provide for The automatic
connection of the cars. and thus obviate
the necessity of the bTakeman's going
between abutti9g cars in the coupling
process and the consequent danger of his
being mashed through the failure to
meet or the giving away of drawheads
as the vehicles mutually exhaust their
momentum upon each other. And yet
of these two thousand and odd inven-
tiOnS only two are in general use III the
United States. and certainly not more
than four have proved to be worth the
sheepShin and paper they are written and
printed on. Yet scarcely a week passes
which does not bring to the Patent Office
two or three applicants for protection for
similar devices. Major William H. APP
pleton, who has charge of the classes of
textile fabrics, looms, spinning and sew
ing machines, etc, not long since made
to the Herald correspondent the surpris-
ing declaration that the greater the
number of inventions the greater the
field of invention.
Upon seed planters there are to date
more than four thousand five hundred
patents. OF this immense number of
planters not a tithe can plant more than
two rows across the field at once-be
they seed corn, cotton or beans-exclu-
ding, Of course, the machine for the de-
posting OF the smaller cereals which are
classed in the Patent Office as ''seed
drilling machines. -
OF fire escape patents there are a fewer
number because, principally, devices OF
this kind are of comparatively recent
date. There is no other class of inven-
/ tiOns so almost wholly due to the excite
4 ment and demand of the hour as this one.
/ Every great fire brings to the Patent Of
/ flee a greater or smaller number of in.
ventionS for the rescue of people and
/ property from burning buildings. The
destruction OF the Brooklyn theatre and
/ the consequent loss of life short time
( ago was worth a great deal of money tC
( the Patent Office. and probably not les:
than seventy-five patents were issued II
/ consequence of it. The Chicago fire.
little farther back, was also a great slim
/ ulant to inventors of fire apparatus. a,
was also, in limited degree, the burn
ing of the St. Louis hotel in which tn,
actress Kate ClaxtOn came near losins
. her life. The dates of these three event
are distinctly traceable in the records o
the office. Many of the escapes are aw k
ward and impractical, while some ar
little short of absurd in their construc
tion and application. 1t is safe to sa
that not more than a score of the fOu
hundred and odd devices TO enable pee
pie to climb out of the windows Of
burning house and safely descend to til
ground are as reliable and convenient a
The OLD and sensible style Of tying q rOp
TO the bedpost and letting ones sci
down hand overland. There are sal
to be at the present time a cOnsiderabl
number Of applications pending in TIN
class, and it is manifest that the deyiC
which strikes the mean between utilit
and economy has not yet been place
before the country.
A case which is not in the fire escaI
line. but which may, like the cases
that line, be considered of the spasmodi
order, was recently disposed of by I'll
granting OF patent. 1t was to 30
ton lady. and was for a novel mechanis
for holding back the ears of childre
and preventing them from standing OF
obtrusively to the prejudice of good a
pearance. This device is peculiarly a
+ plicable to children with abnormal
large or flap ears. The inventress do
not specify whether or not the deman
) for her invention is peculiar to Boston
The patentability of a device IL go
. erned principally by two things.