Morris tribune., 1883-05-30
CURIOUS PATENTS.
Products of Our Yankee InUcntiOn.

Some investigating person has fur
nished the New York Times with brief
list of patents on small things-such as
any man or boy might have thought of,
but didn't, and which in many instances
have proved mines of wealth to the
lucky discoyerer.
Among these trifies is the favorite toy
the "return ball "a wooden ball
with an elastic string attached, selling
for the sum of 10 cents each, but yield
ing to its patentee an income equal to
fair returns ON q capital of 100000.
The rubber tip on the end of lead pen
ellis affords the owner of the royalty an
Independent fortune. The inventor Of
the gummed newspaper wrapper is also
rich man. The gimlet.pointed screw
has evolved more wealth than most sill
yer mines, and the man who first thought
of putting copper tips to children's shoes
is as we'll off as if his father had left him
50, 600, 900 in United States bonds. AL
though roller-skates are not SO much
used in countries where ice is abundant,
in South America, especially in Brazil,
they are very highly esteemed and have
yielded over 81, 900, 900 to their inventor.
But he had to spend $125,OO in En-
gland alone fighting infrjngements. The
dancing Jim Crow" toy, provides an
annual income Of $4,000 to its invent
or, and the common aeedle threader
is worth $4,000 a year to the man
who thought of it. The "drive we'll
was an idea of Col. Green, whose
troops, during the war, we're in want of
water. He conceived the notion of driv-
ing two-inch tube into the ground un-
til water was reached and then attach
ing pump. This simple continuance
was patented after the war, and the tens
of thousands of farmers who have adopt
ed it have been obliged to pay him a
royalty, moderate estimate of which
is placed at $2,OOO,0OO. The spring
window shade yields an income equal to
on Investment of 81, 600, 600; the stylo-
graphic pen, with which this article is
written, also 100000; the marking
pen for shading in different colors,
800, 900; rubber stamps, the same. A
large fortune has been reaped bya West
ern miner who, ten years since, invented
metal rivet or eyelet at each end of
the mouth of breeches and coat pockets
to resist the strain caused by the car
riage of pieces of ore and heavy tools.
! Fortunes have been made out of the
dead as well as the living. The torpedo
grave, which will explode when body
snatchers NEEDLE with it, is one bonanza;
another odd, but probably not lucrative
one, is an open tube, running from the
top of the ground to the cofin-lid, just
over the face of the corpse. If the per-,
son is in q trance and has been buried
alive, he draws himself up through the
hole and returns to the surface by means
of rope-ladder in the tube. If he pre-
fers, however, to send for assistance, he
pulls cord which rings bell near The
top of the tube. After lying there long
enough to assure his friends that he has
no intention of coming back the tube is
pulled up, drawing as it comes glass
plate over the face of the inmate of the
coffin.
Every time woman pricks the shell
Of an egg preparatory to boiling it she
violates patent right, this having been
secured by some genius who discovered
chat it would prevent their breaking
Turing the boiling. 1t having been said
that chickens Matched by artificial heat
do not thrive as well as others because
they miss the maternal affection ex.
pressed in the "cluck, clucA Of the
natural hen, an inventor has taken out q
patent which initiates that sound
soothing and charming the tender-heart-
ed but bereaved offspring with its artifi
cial Groom and consoling the young
orphan with it's mechanical solicitude
This is based aevidently upon another
patent for babies Of machine operated
by clock-work and producing a low ani
melancholy murmur which no child
however wakeful, can successfully resist
but to which it succumbs in profount
slumber. There is also the false-bot
toned nest which deludes the hen int
the belief that she has not laid an egg
and, combined with her own conscien