Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1884-05-06
CURIOUS PATENTS.
Products of Our Yankee Invention.

nlshed the New York Times with brief
list of patents on small things-such us
any man or boy might have thought of,
but didn't, and which in many instances
have proved mines Of wealth to the
lucky discoverer.
Among these trihes 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 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
q 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 well off as if his father had left him
~, 600, 600 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 $125,000 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 needle threader
is worth $4,000 year to the man
who thought of it. The "drive we'll
was an idea OF Col. Green, whose
troops, during the war, were in want Of
water. He conceived the notion of driv-
ing two-inch tube into the ground IN
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 S2,OOO,0O0. The spring
window shade yields an income equal to
an investment of $l,OO0,0 600; the stylo-
graphic pen, with which this article Is
written, also 81, 100000; the marking
pen for shading in different colOrs,
100000; 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 brooches 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 coffin-lid, just
over the face of the corpse, If the per-
son is in 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. II 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 a 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
that it would prevent their breaking
during 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, cluck" of the
natural hen, an inventor has taken out \
patent which initiates that sound,
soothing and charming the tender-heart-
ed but bereaved offspring with its artiA-
cial Groom and consoling the young
orphan with its mechanical solicitude.
This is based evidently upon another
patent for babies of machine operated
by clock-work and producing low and
melancholy Inurmur which no child,
however wakeful, can successfully resist
but to which it succumbs in profound
slumber. There is also the false-bot-
toned nest which deludes the hen into
the belief that she has not laid an egg,
and combined with her own conscien-
hous devotion to duty, persuades her to
continuance of her work until she is ex-
hausted or undeceived. A patent hen
roost, by the action of the hens, closes
the doors of beehive at night and
opens them in the morning, protecting
the hive against the ravages of the bee
moth. A wire frame strung above q
horses head is also patented. 1t is
meant to persuade the animal that it is
the top of fence too high for him to
overlap. This, of course, presumes
that the horse is an ass.