Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-08-26
ODD WAYS OF MAKING MONEY.

Men Who Have Become Suddenly Rich by
Means of Trivial InyentiOns-TwO Curious
Characters.
Two curious characters drifted into the
current of fashionable life here the other
day, writes Long Branch correspondent
of The Philadelphia Press. They came
in private palace-car in which they had
been travelling about the country for the
past six months. Both are men of great
fortune, though not yet in the meridian
of life. One is of Philadelphia, the
other a Jerseyman. Five years ago
neither of them dreamed Of hiring
private car, yet single stroke of good
fortune brought them out of the common
places of life and gave them positions of
prominence in the world of affairs. One
made his money out of glass signs and
the other from patent medicine which
he compounded in the secIusion of his
! Jersey home.
| Nine out of ten business men would
laugh at the idea of making fortune
out of bits of glass two feet long with gilt
lettering, and many would hesitate before
! giving up even moderate income to risk
his time with a patent cure-aIl remedy
But now the life-work of these two men
is done so far as the accumulation of
money is concerned, and they live for the
sole purpose of being amused by the world.
They came down here with car full of
the many good things that wealth COM
mands-a hamper of champagne and
larder in which Delmonico chief would
reVel. A stable of horses had preceded
them, and when they were not luxuriating
in their home on wheels they were spin
ming along the bluff behind team that
took dust from no one. Yet they tired
of all this in two days, and just because
slight rain-storm set in started down to
Cape May for change, as one of them
said.
Before going, however, they picked up
a companion who has been struggling in
the beaten path of commerce for life
time and had not reached the goal which
they touched in few years. He could
| interest them by the stories of his busy
career, and they took him along with them
| for the one purpose of listening to
! him.
| There is man here the inventor of an
Oyster-opener and of an arrangement for
making coffee in a minute. He told me
that he had already formed two compan-
les for the purpose of putting his in
vention upon the market, and thereby
| giving an opportunity to every man to
be his own oyster-opener and coffeemak
er. Who can help smiling at a man who
builds his hopes III this way?
'You see," said he, everyone likes a
| cup of coffee as soon as he has gotten
out of bed. Now, I propose to sell my
| apparatus for so cents apiece. All you
have to do is to jump out of bed, pour as
much water in it as you want, teaspoon
full of coffee, and then light the lamp I'M
derneath. You can then go back to bed
and take minutes nap, and when you
jump out again your coffee in made and
waiting"
"And you expect to sell great many
of these coffee makers!" [ asked.
''Well," confidently replied my latter
day Mulberry sellers, 4" there are nearly a
million coffee-drinkers in New York city
| alone; that is enough for me-"
The world always finds amusement in
listening to the plans of these living
types of John L. Raymond's great charac-
ter, but there are any number of them
who have money out of seeming trivial
ties. [ noticed man driving on the
avenue to-day, who twelve years ago saw
a fortune in the sale of needles, if he de-
voted his attention solely to them. He
has reaped that fortune now, and is the
only man in the country who trades ex-
clusiVely in these little bits of steel. He
controls the house on this side of the At
lantic to which all the needles in use have
to be sent from abroad.
l There is another man stopping here
whose wealth has come from the inven-
ton of scarf-pin, and one of the hand
soonest cottages at Seabright is occu-
pied by well-known inventor of patent
suspender.
The person who first thought of at
taching a ball to the end of an elastic
cord, SO that it would return, went to
Caleb Gushing years ago to have him make
out the application to be sent to Washing
ton for patent. Mr.. Cushing was busy
at the time with an important law case
and wondered that the man was willing to
pay the large fee he always demanded for
his work, when he learned the nature of
the patent.
. Il will have to charge you as much as
1 imagined you will make out of this
thing" he suggested to the inventor.
well, I've already made a contract that
will net me $5,OOO," was the reply, ''and
| can see my way clear to ten times that
amount
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