The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-03-22
IDEAS WORTH FORTUNES

modities in the world, provided you
carry them to the right market.
If your brain has worked out a
scheme that is of practical benefit
somebody will want it and will pay
money for it. There are plenty of
cases where manufacturers have hon.
estly paid inventors not for anything
so tangible as patent or model,
but just for suggestion that could
be materialized.
All the soda water and other 'hzzes'
in the world had their origin this
way. To Harvey Browne, ,san Eng
lishman, as he was knocking his pipe
one day, occurred the notion of max
ing aerated water by forcing carbonic
acid gas through it under pressure.
He never made any diagrams or
bothered about any patent. He SIM
ply took himself and his idea to big
beer bottling firm. They questioned
him a little and then offered him
$25, 900 for it. He told them they
would have to pay $50, 900 or he
would patent it and sell it elsewhere.
They could not afford to let him do
that, SO they signed the check for
$50, 900.
The idea for the perforated postage
stamp edges netted the man to whom
it came SIS, 900. And he realized the
sum without any patent. He went
to the Government officials, and with
just needle and an ordinary slip of
paper showed them what he meant,
at the same time suggesting simple
device for perforating machine that
should do the work of the needle.
1t was discovery worth while, for
previously all the sheets of stamps
had to be laboriously cut with scis-
sors. Norman Miles was the mans
name, and for his idea, without so
much as drawing a plan or making a
model, he got $25,oo
The modern gum on the back of
the postage stamp brought its inven-
tor $40, 900. Jacob Morris he was, a
Spitalfeld Jew, who used a paste of
cold starch and water to stick his
hand bills on his store windows.
The English Government had been
offering a reward of $Io,ooo for a
gum that could be allowed to dry so
that the stamps could be later stuck
on with a lick" Morris hit on the
idea of drying his starch paste to give
it drying power. He told the Gov
ernment officials that he had the dis
covery for which they were offering
$4,000, but he didn't propose to sell
it for less than $4,000. He finally
compromised, however, on $40, ,oco.
John Ruthin's safety valve for To-
comotives was offered as an idea to
an engine making firm. They might
with the greatest ease have stolen it,
but instead they paid him SIS, 900.
Five years later the same inventor
got IS, 900 jnst for tho suggestion of
how to make a new sausage machine
which has since proved a marvel.
Henry Stephens, the inventor of a
churn now used in every part of the
world, sold the idea of the machine to
a firm of agricultural implement ma
kers, who paid him $40, 900.
When the idea for the wonderful
"Facile" electric motor came to
Huntley Webb he stopped only to
dash down a few pencil notes and
then rush off to sell the idea immedi-
ately to Hickman & Rouse. They
paid $45 900 for it.
Many of these men might have be-
come millionaires if they had held on
to their ideas, patented them and
themselves placed the goods on the
market. But they preferred instead
the cash in hand at once, for they
were dreamers of dreams and lacked
the executive ability and the hard
hustle and push to make their dreams
realities.