The Newtown bee., 1892-07-08
THE BOSTON STORE,

government and this led B. B. to turn his attention to the development of artil- lery. When the mitrailleuse was pro- duced, in the Franco-Prussian war, he saw that in that direction lay great possi- bilities. He went abroad and, getting hold of the ideas of various inventors who did not have the energy and the capital to bring their inventions into use, he gradually evolved the Hotchkiss re- volving cannon. It took every dollar he could raise-more than $100, ,000-and he came very near disastrous failure
 But he was indomitable and he won. It was well along in the seventies when the French government recognized the merits of what this Yankee had accom- plished in gunnery and began to buy his machines. The wealth came rapidly. Every gun required great deal of am- munition-far more than had been pro- vided for any gun previously used. On the manufacture of this ammunition, the profits were very large.
 Other inventors sought to occupy the same field and Nordenfeldt, Dane, at first got possession of the English mar ket. But Hotchkiss extended his busi- ness from France to Austria, Russia and Germany. After a time, he began to get orders from the United States and rom nearly every government in the world. Finally, during the last year or two Of his life, the English gave him very large orders. After his death, the Paris busi- ness was sold out to an English syndi- cate, of which Sir Edward Thornton, formerly British minister at Washington, was president, for about five millions Of dollars. The stock was subscribed sev- eral times over. The business has been carried on by the men who were Hotch- kiss's partners and associates, but It has not proved as lucrative or as valuable as it was supposed to be when the English inventors scrambled for the stock.
 Hotchkiss was married when young man to a worthy little woman in Sharon, Conn. He drifted away from her when he began to go to Europe and about the same time he fell in with another wom- an. the woman who remained his con- panion as long as he lived and whose will is now being contested, she having died at the Everett House, New York, in Jan- uary. She travelled with him everywhere and came to be known as Mrs Hotchkiss. Her name was Cunningham and she was simply smart and interruptions adven- turess. Some of MT Hotchkiss's busi- ness associates defended his relation ship to her and claimed that she was very helpful to him. l always thought them mistaken and I believe that MT Hotchkiss would have been alive to-day If he had kept clear of this woman. Over and over again, the papers have told of the s'high social position" and the sshonors and attentions" which they re- ceived together in Paris. But the truth was very different. It was strange that a man with such wonderful ability in business should have been so weak and foolish in what belonged to his home. Their life in Paris was one long struggle for social recognition which they never got, could never possibly get. Hotchkiss first made the most strenuous efforts to get divorce from his true wife, at one time offering her very large sum of money and all the evidence, if she would secure such divorce. She refused. She said she wanted him and nothing else in the world. She was very relig-