HOW FORTUNES ARE MADE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1927, 24 August 1888, Page 2

HOW FORTUNES ARE MADE

I The stone nteps of the gloomy Patent Office m Southampton Buildings are reputed to have been worn hollow by the feet of disappointed Inventors, bu£ the prizes that are drawn by the lucky lew are, nevertheless very tempting. ''Invention " states that a particular patented stylographio pen, and a pen for shading m different color* are producing £40,000 per annum. Among other example* oited, a robber tip at the end of lead pencils has yielded the owner more than £20 000. The •' Drive Well," an Idea of .the American Oolonol Green, whose troops daring the war, were m want of water, ii said to y'eld In royalties, paid mainly b? farmers who have adopted it, £600,000 a year. A. large fortune hai been reaped by a miner who invented * metal rlvet,or eyelet at eaoh end of the mouth on ooat and' trousers pooketa, to resist the strain caused by the carriage of pieces of ore and ne»ry tools. ' The Inventor of the roller-skate nude ova? £200,000 by his Invention. The gimlet pointed sorew is believed to have produoed more wealth than most silver mines, and the 1 Amer'c\D who first thought of patting copper tips to children's shoes li'iii well off m If his Mhe* had left him £400,000 la United States Bonds." Upwards of £2000 a year is reported to be made by the inventor of the common needle-threader. A favorite American toy has, it is laid, yielded the patentee an lnoome eqaal to £10,000 a year. Against thti may be set the discouraging fact that many of the most useful of inventions— as, for example Mr Fiema'a wonderful apparatus, whloh enables the wearer to walk about and breathe freely In the foulest of atmospheres—have scarcely paid the oost of patenting. : . ■