STORIES OF EDISON
RECORD OF INVENTION. SUICIDE PLAN, FOR* COCKROACHES. i ■ Mr. Thomas Edison, in his eightieth year, can look back upon a record - of inventive fertility which is almost without parallel. “Say”, . Mr, Edison is said to have remarked to afrlend nearly 20 years ago, “I have - been mixed up in a whole lot “of things haven’t I?” . From 1869, when a patent was granted on hisiautomatic vote'recorder, to about th e middle*. ■ of. 1910, be applied for 1328. distinct patentS^l- - one for every eleven days in the entir e period. To separate the man from his 1 inventions in difficult; but rare glimpses are given in a recent biography of an almost frivolous Edison, who devised an ingenious electrical contraption for promoting suicide among the - cockroaches which overran ;the New York office in which he worked at a telegraph ‘operator. First Phonograph;
When his first phonograph had been* completed to his satisfaction he started to turn the handle of the. - shaft, while at the same time into one'of -the' little tubes he declaimed in stentorian 1 - tones that immortal lyric, “Mary- had' a‘•little Lamb.” Then he turned the shaft backbard to the starting' point, threw away the first tube adjusted the other, and once more turned the shaft forward. Out from the machine, faintly but surely, came the voice of Edison reciting the classic adventure of Mary and the lamb-
I was never so taken aback in my life (said Edison afterwards). I was always afraid of things that worked the first time.
Although he was not the : pioneer of telephony, it was his invention of the carbon transmitter that made - the telephone commercially l practicable. And it is credibly stated that “Hallo” as a preliminary call-word. was first heard in Edison’s laboratories at Menlo Park. Bell’s original callword was the lustier “Ahoy.” A Mordant Wit.
His capacity for doing without sleep has often been commended upon. At one time he was working all round the 24-hour clock, and went: to bed at 6.30 one morning. He wasup at 7, v having had about one hour and a half of real sleep; When- he went to breakfast and was asked, “How do you feel this morning?!' lie replied, T would feel better if I. Had overslept myself, half. an.- hour.”
He has a mordant ■ wit; of which one example is his reply to the building committee of a Philadelphia church who consulted him about" the advisability of installing lightning rods. “By/ all means,” he replied, “You 1 know; providence; is sometimes absent-minded.”
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Shannon News, 17 May 1927, Page 4
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424STORIES OF EDISON Shannon News, 17 May 1927, Page 4
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