The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-10-13


worked very well in the fine, dry
weather during which it was built, but
the first rainy day rendered it useless.
1t could hardly have been otherwise,
for nine-tenths of the line was fastened
with mere penny nails to the cedar of
a snake-stake. There were no insu-
lators of any kind, and the line was
what is known as stove-pipe annealed
wire. Excepting two paid messages
sent over this line, the whole was a
financial failure.
Zone day while the line was in oper-
alton AL rushed into my Office, his eyes
electric sparks. Mr.. Mackenzie he
cried, Il can send two messages at the
same time over single wirep
"'Away with your nonsenser I re-
piled, and drove him out of the office.
After the Boston trial in which Edi-
sons claim to the invention of the 'du-
plex' was contested, l recalled to him
the incident.
"'Had 1 had your evidence, Macken-
zie,' said the inventor, in reply, it
would have saved me three hundred
thousand dollars"
In three months the pupil excelled
the master, who had no hesitation in
recommending him to the telegraph su-
perintendent. Edison became night
operator at Stratford, Ontario.
Now began his migratory career as
telegraph operator. Many ups and
downs were his. Often he was hungry,
cold and shelterless, for the insatia-
BILE impulse to experiment to the
neglect of his duties kept him con-
tinually out of work. One day he rev.
eled in the praises his ingenuity
evoked; the next he was dubbed "Luny"
and turned adrift.
Perhaps his most ingenious boyhood
feat was performed during an ice jam
that broke the cable between Port
Huron in Michigan and Sarnia in Can
ada. The river at this point is a mile
and half wide. The ice made the
river impossible, and there was no
way of repairing the cable.
Edison impulsively jumped on a To-
comotive and seized the valve control
ing the whistle. He had an idea that
the blasts of the whistle might be
broken into long and short sounds, COR
responding to the dots and dashes of
telegraphy. In moment the whistle
sounded over the river: loot, toot,
toot, toot-toot, toooot-toooooot-
toooooot-toot, toot-toot, toot.*
"Hallo-o! Sarnia Do you get me?"
''Do you hear what say?"
| No answer.
''Do you hear what say, Sarnia?"
A third, fourth and fifth time the
message went across, to receive no re-
sponse. Finally the operator on the
other side understood. Answering
''toots" came cheerfully back, and the
connection was established.
Always Indifferent about his dress,
with hair that stood up '1ike quills
upon the fretful porcupine," Edison's
wanderings brought him at seventeen
years of age to the Cincinnati Office of
the Western Union, where his absorp-
ton in electricity and predictions of
its future power confirmed the sobri-
quet ''Luny." which clung to him even
until his fame was established.
1--WE have the craziest chap in our
Office said the telegraph manager to
the editor of the Cincinnati Commercial
Gazette; she does all sorts of queer
things. I wouldn't be surprised if he
should be great some day. Let me tell
you his last prank. We have been an
noyed for some time by cockroaches.
They infested the sink They don't
now. 'Luny' fixed them! He just ran
two parallel wires around the sink, and
charged one with negative and the
other with positive electricity; bread
crumbs were then scattered, and when
Mr. Cockroach appeared and put his
little feet on the wires, ashes were all
that were left to tell the tale" In this
coclxroach ''annihilator' was the germ
of the incandescent light.
Up all night as telegraph operator,
Edison's curiosity would not let him
sleep in the daytime. Inquiringly he
roamed about the libraries or machine
shops of the town in which he happened
to be, and night not unfrequently found
him untitled for duty Operators were
required to report every half hour to
the circuit manager. How to comply
with this regulation and indulge in a
nap at the same time was conundrum
Edison's fertile ingenuity soon solved.
He rugged up wheel with Morse char
dCLcrS Cllp III Inc CAICulllcrSuCS III SUCH
a way that when turned by a crank and
weight it would write the figure ''six''
and sign the Office signal. The prompt
ness with which Edison's office always
responded was soon commented on at
headquarters, Once however, the main
office sent message, asking that
train be held. There was no response.
The young rogue had not counted on
this. Investigation was set on foot,
the trick was discovered, and again the
boy operator was adrift. The district
telegraph of to-day is the substantial
expression of this sleepy lads device to
partake undisturbed of natures sweet
restorer, balmy sleep"
Wherever he went, in these boyhood
days, he had workshop, and every tel
egraph office in which he tarried wit
messed some electrical freak of his rest
less brain. In some form or other his
subsequent inventions embody these
boyhood contriVances.
The determination, industry, per-
severance, honesty and temperate hab-
its of his boyhood followed him into
manhood. The forty-fve distinct in
ventions with which he has since revo-
lutionized modern civilization, his
library of one hundred thousand vol
umes, the best-equipped laboratory in
the world, are but the larger expression
of the tastes of the Grand Trunk Line
newsboy, in whom his contemporaries
| Al. 4