Year: 1859

fToM We Chlcdgo Press and Tribune


For the last two years, Norman Wizard ESQ OF
Janesville, Wisconsin, has been engaged wifi the
enthusiasm characteristic of inventors in nerfect
ing plan for an ice boat to be propelled by steam,
to navigate our Northern rivers Durno The nast
winter, Mr.. Wizard has been in New York. and, by
the aid of some of the largest and most intelligent
capitalists in that city, has constructed ice boat
which is now being put together at Prairie du Chen
The boat is built of ron and is u feet long by II
feet broad, with fiat bottom, and two keels
ming the whole length. If it breaks through the ice
or encounters an air hole, machinery is prepared,
which, In few minutes, puts it again the ice
ready for onward progress. The driving-wheel is
near the stern and the inventor calculates the ordi
nary speed the ice at 20 to 40 miles an hour and
with clear solid ce he believes his vessel can easily
be made to attain speed of so miles. The cabin
is by 40 feet and the capacity of the boat rated
at 100 passengers and tons of freight. The
entire boat when loaded with passengers and cargo
is calculated to weigh 80 tons. The managers of
the st. Paul and Fond du Lac, and the Milwaukee
and Mississippi Railways, we learn have both mani
tested great interest in the of the enter
prise. The Milwaukee and Mississippi Road have
furnished the motive power to test the value of the
invention If it succeeds it will very essentially
the Upper Mississippi during five months of the
year. Every possible effort is being made fully to
test the value of this novel invention during the
next few weeks, and if successful, the New York
capitalists will at once contract for eighteen boats
OF similar character and construction to be ready
for business soon the rivers close next winter
If even moiety of the plans and hopes of the pro-
prietOrs OF this enterprise realized, its value to
the Northwest scarcely be overestimated. 1t
will at connect with this city the vast and i'm
p0rtant tracts of country lying north and west of
US, much more directly and perfectly in winter than
In summer. As soon as the ice is formed in Novem-
Der or December the Ice Boat will have uninter-
rupted navigation, for four or five months, from
Prairie du Chen or La Crosse up the Mississippi
and Minnesota Rivers to Big Stone Lake. thence
down the Red River of the North, and up the Sas-
nm n fho hos unnffh fho


PHOTOGRAPHS IN EvIDENEcE long contested
promIssory note case tried in the second session of
the superior Court, Boston, before Judge Morton,
was decided on Tuesday. We give the following
succinct report from the Courier: Josiah Gooding
us. Timothy Tufts. This was an action upon a pro.
missory note for $3.50, dated August 28, 1856, on
four months, signed Timothy Tufts. and pavabIe To
the order of Isaac Tufts and endorsed Isaac Tufts
The peculiar Importance of this suit to the mercan-
tile world arose from the fact that under our law
parties are made witnesses, and the defendant in
this suit denied both his own signature and his


fathers endorsement, and took the stand and testi-
hed that the note was not in his handwriting, that
the signature on the face was not his, and the en-
dorsement was not Isaac Tufts. The plaintiff, at
great expense, had prepared himself to establish
the genuineDess of the instrument In order to do
this successfully, the plaintiffs procured photo
graphs OF the note in suit to be made, and in like
manner OF the signature and writings of the de-
fendant, made about the same date as the note in
suit. By means of these and the examination to
which Mr.. Southworth subjected them, it was
found that this note, although dissimilar in many
spects; was in all its elements written in strict
accordance with certain rules found to prevail
throughout his writing. The angle of the slope of
each word and letter. the manner of writing each,
the placing of the pen upon the paper, and taking
it off in the formation of each letter, were laid be-
fore the jury by this process, that they could be
seen at glance-and every man upon the Jury was
made an expert for himself. During the progress
OF the suit, notes admitted to have been prepared
for the trial were put in tests and by the photo
graph the forgery was disclosed in every word and
line. The entire evidence obtained bv the photo
graph was objected to by the defendant, and upon
that point reserved tie Supreme Judicial Court are
hereafter to pass. OF its eventful recognition as


the means of the age for the proof and test of true
handwriting and the detection of forgery there can
be no doubt. Some of the witnesses in the suit
found themselves sustained by the photograph when
everything else failed, and the defendant himself
pronounced them false. Verdict for plaintiff for