The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-21

/ that his story, Which has lately been run
ming in the Pail Mall Magazine deserves
! that praise, while others claim that Hall
4 Gaines THE Manxman" is the great book
! OF the year.
/ 1t is probably safe to say that there is
no greatest book, so far as England is con-
cerned, but it is also safe to say that if the
e uthors who have been spending much
ii me and patient investigation for the past
W .ar or TWO in preparing life of Thomas
a Edison have been equal to their oppor
{, mites then the book issued from an
& merican press which will be the most
in teresting will be this work. If it also
ha We literary charm, the capacity to pic
tIz e and image Mr.. Edison as he is, to
tel the extraordinarily dramatic story Of
his early years as Il may be told and To set
for n his ADLER achievements with dig
nit,r and power that win compare with
thet e things which he has done, then no
rom ance, no history, no biography written
in [ hese present times can match this tale.
II his early life Edison passed through
expe riences, some dramatic, some humor-
Gus, which, had they been conceived of by
the genius who wrote the tales of The
Ara 5ian Nights, - would have been regard
ed q worthy efforts of that great magma
ton. The first story that told of these ear
lier Q. xploits OF Edison has as yet never been
mate ned in vividness of description, pic
lures que style and the capacity to see the
man as he really was by any of the later
and almost innumerable sketches Of him.
1t was in 1878 that report came to
one Of the newspaper offices in New York
that a young man named Edison had in
vented machine which could talk. Edi-
son WAS then known only in the world of
electricity. The capitalists of the great
telegraph company knew him as an ex-
ceedingly ingenious young man who had
invented a telephone the rights of which
they liad bought of him, and who had per
fecfed that invaluable instrument for
stockholders which is called the ticker.
The army Of telegraph operators knew
him as a whole souled companionable fell
low, who had beaten tho fastest operator,
whose manuscript looked like print, and
who was, as they thought, visionary.
But the pu bile did not know him at all.
The report of this talking machine came
to the cars Of "A brilliant newspaper writer
who has since gained distinction in con-
sress, Mr.. Amos j. Cummings, and he
determined TO make investigation of the
machine, Gazing at first but little for the
man.
Mr. Cumm tngs therefore went to little
workshop anti laboratory which Edison
had set up in a place called Menlo Park,
not far from \ ew Brunswick, y. J., and
the instant he met the inventor of the ma
chine Cummings realized that the man
was greater than any implement which
he had devised, nd that study of him
would be far more interesting than an in
vestigation into e'Ten so great a mystery
as a machine which could reproduce the
human voice.
The two men TO und that they were COM
panionable; that they had had many ex-
periences in com mon, the one having
served at the print er's case in many states
of the Union and the other having re-
ceived or sent news dispatches. from Mem
phis to Boston In New York their expe-
riences had been in common. They had
eaten at the same quaint little all night
eating hoGses, or ''beaneries, as they are
colloquially known, and they had many
friends in common. Cummings discov-
cred that, like all men of real genius, Edi-
son was as modest and unaffected as a boy
and had as genuine sense of humor as
the most serviceable reporter upon a New
York paper.
The inventor exhibited the photograph
TO Cummings, persuaded him that it was
not magic but science which made it pos
sible for that whiriing thing to talk, and
then began TO tell the story of his life-of
how he had learned telegraphy almost by
intuition;' of how he footed it from Mem
phis TO Louisville; of how he turned UP in
Boston and beat the fastest operator, who
had been assigned ihe task of breaking
him down by the swiftness with which he
sent him long news dispatches; of how he
invented machine which enabled him to
take maps in idle moments and yet awak-
ened him at the signal Of some distant
sender; of how he rid the office by electrical
device of the countless and unwelcome in
truders that came through the cracks of
the floor and wall and by way of the water
pipes And many other graphic and gro
tesque stories of his early career Edison
told the writer, not dreaming that they
would be produced.
They were reproduced with artistic fidel-
itv, and very long narrative appeared in
The sun, which, while explaining and de-
Tending the new talking machine which
had presumed before that TO be hum
bug, also told the romantic and humorous
story of the life of the wizard of Menlo
Park. 1t made Edison famous, as his in
vention had not 1t was a description
worthy of the subject. Thousands of per-
sons laughed over the humorous anecdotes
and read with tremulous lips the pathetic
suggestions, for there was much of pathos
in Edison's early life.
Since then Edison's exploits have
brought him the highest honors from the
scientific world, and kings have decorated
and titled him. He has made a fortune
that numbers him among those who pos
seSs more than $1,000, 900, and these
Graver and more important achievements
OF his life, if they are told as effectively as
was that earlier tale, ought 10 make story
with all the charm and fascination of bril- ,
liant romance. Nevertheless it is too soon
10 write Edison's life, for he beiieTes that
If he is spared TO fill out the allotted term I
Of man his greatest achievements are yet
10 come. r.. J. EDWARDS.
Digestive Action OF Vinegar.
\ health writer discussing the effects of !
vinegar on digestion says: The micro 1