MUCH FROM LITTLE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 71, 19 March 1912, Page 3

MUCH FROM LITTLE.

FORTUNES FROM SMALLINVEN v TIONS. Mr W. A. Du Puy, a writer in the “Scientific American/’ points out how many fortunes have been made from little, useful, • everyday inventions. Mr W. H. Palmer, of Baltimore, was the inventor of a cap for beer or soda-water bottles which has made him a millionaire. He carried the patent in his pocket for six years before he succeeded in placing it on the market; when it was placed Palmer and his capitalist bad a profit of many thousands of pounds between them on the first year’s * business. The difference between the old straight and the crinkly hairpin made a fortune for an inventor, who took bis cue from his wife’s difficulty in the use of the article. The man who invented an opener for tins, did well, a.s also the inventive genius who made a can with a seam just below the top- which, when the owner wants to open the tin, he has but to strike, when the seam breaks and the top comes off. A Chicago packer ordered ten millions of these cans as an experiment, and others followed suit. Thaddeus Fairbanks was a 'New England farmer who, in the silent watches of th,e night, thought out the principle of the now well-known Fairbanks scales. The rubber eraser on the end; of a pencil made a fortune for its introducer, H. L. Lipinan, of Philadelphia; while Hoatin, of Providence, who devised the little metal staple that holds on shoo bottons,realised ■ a fortune thereby. Elias Howe evolved the sewing-machine from the idea of placing a hole near the 1 point of a needle; others followed, and brought the machine still nearer perfection. Adams, who brought out a. patent in 1871 for chewing-gum, made a 'great fortune from it.