New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1899-06-25
LAST CENTURY HUSTLER"

A LAST CENTURY HUSTLER"
In short. Benjamin Thompson, expatrated
and antipathetic politically, to his own country
men, was unquestionably what those OF later
| generation would have called a hustler.
Neither did he forget his native Massachusetts,.
| When his services to Bavaria were To be re-
warded with a title he chose TO be Count KUN
ford in memory OF that Massachusetts town OF
/ Rumford which later became Concord And
when in 1896 he began his work as an actVe
promoter of scientific research, he would not
endow his two medals in connection with the
English Royal Society without at the sane time
endowng two others for the American Academy
Of Science and Art.
Having already become identified in these
ways with the cause OF scientific progress Count
Rumford having retired from the Bayarlan
service was living in London in 1883 and it
! was as a member of the London Society for
! lettering the Condition and Increasing the
! Comforts of the Poor" that he laid the first
stone in the foundation Of the Royal Institution
! OF such pillar ard ground OF scientific truth
! as the Royal Institution is to-day neither Count
| Rumford nor the committee of the benevolent
society to whom he submitted his scheme had
! any idea The original plan Of the Institution
to which George III afterward granted his char
ter with the privilege of being styled Royal,
was distinctly in the line of "Betterng the Con-
dition and Increasing the Comforts OF the POOR"
! and was scientific only as 1t aimed IN INTRO
ducng knowledge to the masses for their prac-
| teal use and benefit. The fifty original
subscribers for 30 guineas each, having raised
sum equivalent to about $l3,OOo IN American
money of these days. fitted up the now famous
he use in Albemarle-st with museums. in which
the rnasses-'the Fortnight see models OF
all kinds Of machines including that most Gu
rious and most useful machine, the steam
engine" and not forgetting the Rumford
roaster," with many other forms OF stoves
ovens and cooking apparatus The inventor OF
"Rumford soup also attached great importance
not only TO his full-siZed models of kitchens, out
to the services If professor Of the culinary ART
who was to experiment in the direction OF I'M
proved cookery and the results were 10 lie
tested in a dining room attached to the lnstitu-
ton where one might eat Of the latest thing IN
soups. roasts. boiled entree
That same year Count Rumford was called
back TO Bavaria The armies Of the French
Consulate on the enc hand and Of the German
Empire-French from quarter Austrian
from another-wcrc moving on the Electoral
dominions. threatening to make II their battle
ground The EIector ran away, and the Yankee
Count OF the Holy Roman Empire. summoned
from his philanthropic pursuits in Abemarle-
ST. and appointed Generassimo, was left to
see that the State Of Bavaria took no harm
All this ne did. ana then returned t. his work
at the London Royal Institution. Financially
and otherwise his pet project throye for TWO
years but in 1902 the interest of Fashion in
Science as Science then presented at the
Royal Institution, began to flag
I,