The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-11-04
RALPH GARDON'S
LAST INVENTION.


From the London Pail Mall Budget. T.
Ralph Carbon strobe moodily up and
down his workshop, Uttered with the odds
and ends of machinery which represented
the ruins Of "a hundred castles in the air.
"A failure! Everything in my life is d
miserable failureg he cried aloud as he
paced the floor
It was not the breakdown of an ordinary
invention, however, that wrung the bitter
words from him. He had grown accus-
toned to waking in the morning with an
idea worth millions in his head, and going
to bed at night with the knowledge that
it was not worth a million match sticks;
and had become quite philosophical over
the failure of his plans for money making.
But this time it was a different arrange
ment that had broken down, an arrange
ment by which the inventor hoped to
make home for himself and children;
and the handspring, in the shape of De
borah Dcne, tine woman he loved, had
failed him. In his clenched hand he held
the letter she had sent him, abruptly an
nouncing that she wished to break off
the engagement.
Il fail in everything that would make
life worth living, and cannot even kill
myself" he went on i'm his despairing
soliloQuy. Must everything / try prove a
failure2"
he took up the revolver once more with
sudden determination, and holding the
barrel between his teeth, pulled the trig-
ger. There was a click, but nothing more;
he had forgotten, after all, to load the
thing.
He had failed once more to kill himself
and the nervous shock he had experienced
had made it impossible for him to repeat
the attempt. He must think Of some
thing, he told himself, which would make
the last act easier for him. He was de
termined on suicide. and had committed
himself by informing Deborah of his in
tentions; but when the single movement
of a finger was in a moment to make an
the difference between life ana death, his
physical courage deserted him, and his
finger became pOwerless. He must pre-
pare some plan for killing himself in
which the exact moment Of his death
would be decided by chance or the action
OF machinery
The idea pleased him by suggesting the
need of invention, "A need which his mind
was always ready to meet and he set
himself with a melancholy pleasure to
think out the details OF a killing machine
'ittN % "tANhlt AAAilll All his req tlltIiS.
Death must be painless and instantaneous
of course but must act at a different mo-
ment from that at which the victim tool,
the decisive action which would make his
fate certain and Interchangeable. lie drew
out 81 plan rapidly making rough sketches
OF the mechanical details on the back of
Deborah bcue's fatal letter.
Then he went down 90 his forge on the
floor below. auj worked hard al the manu-
tacture of the instrument he had invented.
10 was finished hy midnight. ana. lu d
grim sort of way. Ralph Carbon was proud
OF h.s work
Tho invention was va the form OF n 6v.
nau.te bomb. which would explode by
ihr slow action pf an aul1 eating throueb
ID barrier ot cement one of hIs past rl-
uros bad loft hm with the dynamite or
h.H hands 10 Ntu lueiossd Boo 20 .lrrfuiiy
welded IRON .lHe. Joined STRONGLY. so tHaf
once thn .aHO was closed De- could only be
opened hy the exercise or ronsidersbl,
.orre IN vaa connected as strongly to s1
non chain. which tho inventor fastened
"lth "a yale paddock Waou ht bad locked