Evening star., 1895-06-01
AN INVENTIVE EDITOR.
How Mr.. Cowles Employed Some of
His Spare Time.

How Mr. COvles Employed Some of
His Spare Time.
Edwin Cowles. who for years was widely
and favorably famed as the proprietor and
publisher of the Cleveland Leader, was
not only an editor of heroic methods, but
he was also an inventor of no mean sue
cess. Like all inventors who invent a
great deal. Cowles now and then chron-
icled failure. Just after the great New
hall Hotel fire at Milwaukee Cowles was
SO stimulated by the loss of life that he
invented fire escape. There was re-
porter on the Leader whose yielding and
obliging nature suggested him very
naturally to Cowles as the man to test the
new fire escape.
1t should be given trial at the Leader
building; the reporter should deftly escape
by it. and then write a few columns ac-
count Of the triumph. They took the con-
trivance, which consisted in its main fea-
ture of a half-inch MANILA rope, and a one
sheave pulley. to the fifth floor overlooking
Long street. 1t took some thirty minutes
to get the new avenue of escape from
fires properly fixed in its place in a win
dow.
This, however, did not strike Cowles as
drawback. although several of the spec
tators considered among themselves wheth-
er the victim wouldn't be burned to a Gin
der before he got the ingenious contrivance
of the editor ready to work. At last all
was In order and the daring reporter
launched himself into the air. He escaped
very well for about ten feet, and then the
thing stuck. Neither up nor down would 1t
work. ,.
The reporter was too far down to permit
his recovery from the window from which
he started: and he was too high up to
reach him from the next window below.
There he swung between heaven and earth
the latter being some sixty long feet below.
10 make matters worse, the reporters
nerve gave way, and he was unable to
help himself The fact that he was seated
IN running moose was all that kept him
from falling to his death on the cobbles
below. As it was, he hung and swung in
very ticklish position. To cut it short
the fire Iaddies" had to be called to get
the reporter, whose rescue they finally ac-
complished.z 1t was the last heard, how
ever. Of the Cowles fire escape.
On another historic occasion Editor
Cowles invented a tricycle. with power of
its own. The power was furnished by a
giant clock spring, which was wound UP
clock fashion, only the winder used a big
crank: One could wind sixty miles of run
into this tricycle., so the inventor said.
When all was ready Cowles got his ex-
pertinent reporter and repaired to the ar
mory. where the wide grill floor offered a
splendid field of operations.
He explained the tricycle. to the reporter;
how this button set it going, and that but
ton stopped 1t, and after cautioning him 10
give the machine exactly the correct gee"
turn necessary to make it glide about the
big hall in circle. Cowles loaded the re-
porter into the saddle and stood back to
witness results.
They came soon enough. The reporter
touched the button to start the invention,
but he overlooked the "gee' twist. The
harvest of the whole thing was that the
machine fed straight across the hall at
the rate of something like a mile a minute,
and crashed into the opposite wall of stone
1t smashed the tricycle. to srlithereens and
opened a hospital to the reporter for the
next two weeks. Editor Cowles then turn
ed his attention to other affairs.