Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1876 — The Enthusiastic Inventor. [ARTICLE]

The Enthusiastic Inventor.

Here in Machinery Hall one meets that individual whom the correspondent so dreads, the enthusiastic inventor. He steals upon one ere he is aware; he lays his skinny hand upon one and drags him off, no matter how great the reluctance, to gaze upon the eighth wonder of the world, the favorite machine. Standing there, in front of the creature of iron, or steel, or brass, which he had evolved from his braiu, the inventor begins a regulation chant which one is destined to hear perhaps an hundred times: “ One of the most peculiar features of the Exhibition; nothing like it in any of the foreign departments; entirely my own invention; spent sixteen years perfecting it” And then follows a host ol technical details, at which the reporter, in the. anguish of his overladeh spirit, cries out: , “Good Lord, deliver us!” But there is no hope, no prospect of deliverance. Why should not the man who has brought into the world a new force to move it along up the steep of civilization have a chance to sing its praises ? This is his day and his hour, and he means to profit by it. No sooner are you released from one inventor, than another appears, stealing stealthily upon you from behind a pile of machinery or suddenly blocking your way as you tread the dubious mazes of the pump department. H§ plunges down on you from a locomotive cab; he dashes in at you from a blowing machine; he launches his descriptions at you from the

platform of a hay-scales; his rattling accents ring in your ears as you refresh yourself at the gigantic soda fountain; he beams on you from beneath some colossal dredging machine or a tall crime; he deluges you with details while you look at the fire-extinguisher; and sets you on fire with his inexplicable energy while you are examining cold wrought Swedish iron. He takes every form and speaks every tongue. He knows of your coming, and follows you even to the outer entrance when you depart, still rehearsing, with a breath which never fails and an inspiration which never flags, his monotonous refrain of piston and blowpipe, of spinning jenny and. eccentric movement, of stop-cocks and of furnaces, of pumps aud of engines.—Edward King, in “ .Boston Journal '