Connecticut western news., 1889-11-06
STEALING INVENTIONS.
OF OTHERS BRAINS
 RUTHLESSLY APPROPRIATED.
And the Men to Whom Credit is Due Are
 Doomed to Suffer.

---SO been despair-but what was not such for him, in view of his abiding Chris tian faith-by the attacks of the bene- fciaries made rich with his patents, who begrudged him even the small royalty which would soon die out with his patent, he wrote as follows:
 "1nventors are the children of mis- fortune and want. Probably no class of the community receive smaller compensation for their labors than do inventors. Their hard fortune often calls forth the expression of pity and compassion from the public, while, at the same time, there are too many ever ready to encroach upon their inven- tions without their knowledge or con- sent. However valuable or important an improvement may be, it seldom happens that the right owners are benefited by it."
 This "encroachment" upon the in- ventions of others, as Goodyear mildly put it, took avirulent form in his case. Two years before the expiration of his patent, he sought it's renewal. His inventions had enriched capitalists who had put novel goods upon the market and had been enabled to develop an industry, which, at the time James Parton wrote his life of Goodyear had reached the annual proportions of $8,000.000. Upon his inventions Goodyear was getting only small royalty. As soon as his application for renewal of his patent was made, the wealthy cormorants who had been amassing fortunes from his brains began bitter assaults upon him for the virtual purpose of stealing, by so- called lawful methods of procedure, the life-work of the inventor. The air was filled with tales of the enormous revenue Goodyear had re- ceived in the way of royalty. When his impecunious condition was pointed out, it was charged agalnst him that it was his own fault, because of his ssreckless and extravagant habits.'' '' Vituperation and insults were heaped on the man in order to .sbreak him. James T. Brady showed up the nature of these assaults and their mendacious character before Congress. It was not the fault of his assailants that they did not get away with all the fruits of Goodyear's inventions. When he died his estate was $2O0,OOO in debt.
 There are those who do not hesitate to say that the famous George Stephen son appropriated" the ideas of Richard Trevethick for his "traveling engine"-Stephenson's first term for the locomotive-the ''Blucher." Trevethick was captain in Cornish tin mine, brilliant man of whom Samuel Smiles Ill his "Life of George Stephenson" says: "With half the cleverness and double the application, he might have successfully worked out the problem of the railway loco- motive and kept ahead of all competi- tors" He got out his patent for a "steam carriage'-a four-wheeled coach run by steam boiler and furnace box attached to the rear axle-March 25, 1902. The bellows to quicken combustion were worked off the rear axle crank. This was the first high pressure engine constructed on the principle of moving the piston by the elasticity of steam against the pres sure only of the atmosphere, the great novel feature of the invention being that the piston not only was raised, but also depressed.
 The point to be borne in mind is that of Trevethick in this engine car ried the steam blast into the chimney. This engine was the famous "Black Billy" which was seen by clergy man one evening who ran rapidly away, exclaiming that he had seen "a terrible deevil on the High Bridge road" The value of the steam blast in the chimney, which Trevethick used only incidentally to "get rid of nuis- ance," was not "properly understood" as Smiles puts it, "until Stephenson il- lustrated its importance, being, in fact, the very lifeblood of the locomo- tive engine"
 This statement of Smiles has an im- portant bearing on the present sub- ject, for it has been charged that studied Trevethick's engine on the sly and "appropriated' the idea of carrying the steam blasts into the or smokestack.
 It seems matter of wonder in those days when Keeley keeps his motor in the innermost sanctum of secrecy and "Professor" Freund throws the air of intense mystery around his electric sugar swindle-both having gained strong point over investors under the pretense that secrecy is necessary in order to prevent the stealing of their ideas by others-that Stephenson should have had every opportunity to inspect the Trevethick engine at leis- ure. Yet such was the case.
 Blacklett of Wylam, place near Kill where Stephenson was at