The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-05-31
THE sPECULATING MACHINE.
The Mechanical Tipster That In To
Bent wall Street.
From the New York Press.

From the New York Press.
Ihey say that Prof. J. Burkett Webb.
the Stevens Institute expert In mathemat-
les, eats figures. And our old friend Eras-
ius Eureka Ford is in London showing Off
his mechanical tipster which Prof Webb
recommends. He will make money out of
his invention. He has devoted the best
years of his life to IL. One Of his admirers
was the late DR.. John Hall. Another Is
DR., Patton, president OF Princeton Uni
versity, from which institution he was
graduated These gentlemen were opposed
to his Wall street ventures but admitted
his genius for figures
Ford quit preaching. because he Is a
mathematician. He longed for the exact
sciences, and the Bible was TOO much of
fairy tale. His sermons are stlll remem-
hered by some of Admiral Dewey's friends
in Vermont. When he came upon the
street as a Consolidated Exchange broker
lie hired a long room and covered its walls
with blackboards. on which he made vast
calculations from day TO day. He obtained
from the Stock Exchange the records of
sales of stocks away back in history and
his mind was so stored with them that
If you asked him what New York Central
worth at o'clock on June 3, 1864. he
would instantly and correctly inform you.
adding the number of shares sold. Such
q man Is a wonder
Maurice Logarithm Muhleman, deputy
assistant treasurer and cashier in the SUBJ
treasury, has figures for breakfast, and is
as cold as calculus. yet Ford has captured
him with his tipster. For 1920 a year he
handles figures stadstically and now we
hear of him going into the business OF
feeding quotations to a lighting calculator.
But Ford's machine is no more wonderful
than the adding machine into which YOU
must put 100 342, 49, 20 and 80 to make a
total of 634. Burroughs was st. Louis
man, and nothing to compare with Ford
as a mathematician, YET he devoted life to
his machine.
Somebody Is making fortune out Of tho
adding machine, and the inventor, Bur-
roughs. Is dead. When a company was
organized TO manufacture II on a small
scale he was hired at 81 800 "a year to work
at his bench as a common mechanic. A
few shares of stock were given to him a.
an encouragement He drank up the $3.50
as fast as IL was earned, and died pauper
and worse.
Adding and calculating machines are of
distant origin. Pascal invented one about
1850 when only 10 years old The British
government In 1921 financed Babbage to
the extent OF $4,000. and helped him for
twelve years to perfect his differentiai
machine, then abandoned him. Babbage
nut 100000 of his own money into the In
vention, and the partly completed appa-
ratus is now at South Kensington. Two
Swedish engineers. F.. and G. Shuetz, con-
structed a wonderful machine. which, af-
ter being exhibited in England, in 1854.
Yves bought by our fellow couruyman, Mr..
J. f. Rathbone, for 5000 and presented by
him to Dudley Observatory in Albany. The
Messrs. Schuetz were afterward engaged
to make one for the British government
An "arithmometer" was patented Ia 1929
by NJ Thomas (de Co.mar). and Wiberg's
machine, introduced in 1863, was highly
commended.