Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-04-04

plete m all it's parts, if sk exceeded cer-
 tain dimensions The fire in the patent
 office iIl 1877 destroyed 124, ,OOO of these
 models. and this requirement was soon
 after discontinued. The considerations
 that moved to this change were the cost
 to inventors and the rapid accumulation
 of models, involving the question of
 space for storage. Drawings have been
 substituted, models being only fur
 nished when called for by the bureau.
 There remain about 16O, ,000 old models
 which are kept in glass cases and serve
 as sort of museum for the entertain
 ment of pilgrims.
 Of all the applications for patents
 about 55 per cent. arc granted. Rejec-
 tions are upon the ground that the
 principle or application is covered by
 patents already issued or that the de-
 vice is trivial. It is true, however.
 that among the patents that have been
 most profitable are many upon small
 and seemingly insignificant articles in
 everyday use. The invention of some little thing that everybody buys and
 keeps on buying is as good to it's owner as gold mine-far better than most of
 them. Many simple mechanical toys ,
 help to fill their stockings at Christmas have made men rich.
 The number of patents issued to those who have attempted the solution of
 some mechanical problem is almost be-
 yond belief. Probably the largest num-
 ber for any one thing has been granted
 for devices to mitigate the horrors of the family washing day" More than
 thirty-ave hundred patents have been granted for washing machines. Not one in fifty of them has ever come into
 general use, and fewer still have proved to be of real practical value. It re-
 quires about as much ''elbow grease"
 and causes as much backache to op- crate one of them as it does to rub clothes on a washboard in the good old way. Wrecks of these machines in all stages of decrepitude may be seen in back yards and woodsheds all over the country, particularly in the rural dis tricts. If men have not succeeded in
 Tightening the labor of the wife and
 mother in this respect it cannot be said that they have not tried. Scores of other things might be mentioned on which in various forms there are patents by the hundreds. If thou sand fail the next man thinks that he has solved the question. No machine tor appliance is so perfect that somebody does not think he can improve it.
 Up to 1873 more than two hundred patents had been issued for ''veloci- pedes," as they were then called. Since that time thrice as many more have been granted upon this class of vehi- cles. The first "bilze" patented con- sisted simply of two wheels, tandem, connected by a bar which the rider be- strode. He pushed himself along by putting his feet upon the ground. There was no pedal to give motion to the wheels.
 As to money in patents, it is hard to tell whether & patent is going to be profitable or not. Some of the greatest inventions have been sneered at in the patent office, and some of the smallest ideas bring in the biggest returns. A common needle threader gave it's in- ventor $10,OO0 a year for many years, and millionaire travelled around the world not long ago who got his fortune out of a patent shoe button. The in- ventor of the roller-skate made over Q million dollars out of the idea, and the rubber tip which you use at the end of your lead pencil brought in e2O,0O to the English man who conceived it. The chill dren of the United States are ready to pay large amounts to the lucky man who is able to think up q new toy for them, and there is a de- pertinent of patent toys in the patent office. The dancing Jim Crow paid it's inventor $75,O0O per annum for long time. and little ball with rubber at tached to it brought another man S5O,- 900 per annum for years. A joiuted wooden snake paid it's inventor more than $50, 1000, and another wooden figure brought in half million. Nearly everything you see in use has been at one time or another patented, and some of the most insignificant things have been worth fortunes. It is said that the inventor of the stylographic pen made 8 million dollars out of it. Elec- trical inventions have brought in mill lions to many. Telephone Bell is rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Edison is worth his millions, and all other con. nections of the great electrical inven- tors ride in their own carriages.
 The patent office is good school for the study of human nature and human character. In it you find represented every description of the human mind, and in it's models and in it's drawings are stored up the mental lives of hun. \ lreds of thousands of souls. Every ! patent granted represents dozen | which have been rejected, and the half l million, in round numbers, inventions recorded in the patent office represent | thousands of stories stranger than the ] widest visions of fiction. Could they speak. they would tell stories full of l oathos. They would give dreams | wilder than the stories of the Arabian \ Nights" and you would find the facts \ with them more pathetic | han the SaddeSt incidents of fhe nouala