Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1878 — A Martyr to Perpetual Motion. [ARTICLE]

A Martyr to Perpetual Motion.

The Journal of Commerce, apropos of an inquiry made by a correspondent, relates a curious story for the truth of which it vouches. Thg correspondent had asked whether any Government had ever offered a reward to the sue* cessful diseoverer of practical perpetual motion; and whether the idea of perpetual motion is not contrary to natural laws? Our venerable contemporary replies that no such offer has been made; but that the idea of perpetual motion is in itself quite in accordance with natural laws, the planetary world furnishing a visible illustration of it. It then says that thirty years ago a machine, moved only by gravitation, was exhibited in its office and seen by many. It ran in connection with a pendulum that regulated its motion, which was very slow but incessant. The editor had it under lock and key and still it moved. It was then exhibited at a fair in New Jersey and there “ A professor from Princeton College and one or two other very learned and benevolent persons were indignant that the people should be so imposed upon, and, making the necessary affidavit, had the inventor, then an old man nearly fourscore, arrested for swindling, as he had taken money at the door from a few visitors. The man, the machine and the avengers of the law were brought into the court. Upon their representation that the cylinder could not revolve unless there was a spring concealed in it, an axe was brought and, in spite of the tremulous remonstrances of the inventor, it was split into a dojfen' pieces. As in a former celebrated trial (described in John viii: 10), the accusers withdrew in silence, self convicted. There was no spring in it; it had gone around of itself, but it was ruined, and so was the owner!” 'X But no practical good could have come frdm the invention, as it barely overcame its own friction and could furnish no useful power.— N. Y. Graphic.

There were 148 suicides in New York City in 1877, By far the larger number of persons who took their lives .were in the prime of manhood or womanhood, between the ages of twenty and forty. Only two persons under twenty welcomed self-destruction; the period between thirty and forty Was the most prolific of suicides. The nativity of the suicides was as follows: United States, 44; England, 6; Ireland, 17; Scotland, 1; France, 2; Austria, 2; Germany, 59! There is no preponderance in the German-born population of New York that will wholly account for these astonishing figures. It will be seen that the German suicides were thrice as many as the Irish, and nearly as many as the American and Irish combined. An exchange 'asks: “ Can we drink with impunity?” Certainly yoq can. if Impunity Invites yon —Exchange: