CONVICTS AS INVENTORS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 207, 22 August 1908, Page 3

CONVICTS AS INVENTORS

0. V. flraves, the American convict, who, while in prison has succeeded ill inventing a device which abolishes the necessity of a bobbin in the sewing machine, is not the only man who has thus distinguished himself under similar circumstances. There was the case of Wells, of Monte Carlo fame, who invented a new kind of marine propeller while confined in Portland for fr.mil, and of Wainwright, the "Whitechapel murderer, who designed a brush-making machine while waiting trial in llnlliiwny. (Peace the notorious burglar, devisel, in the solitude of his cell, a very ingenious method of fixing Ihe hair »f a violm bow \ burglar-proof window-sash Listener which is in use at the presentday was invented in Dartmoor' Prison I,'v'mie '•.Timmie Coffee." a "London house-breaker; while Tlmrtell. wjo treacherously assassinated his friend Weare actually designed the gallows npon which he was afterwards hanged Anthony TCudgo. one of the bethel./ TTall burglars ami murderers, invcnte.l. ,(„„,,„• the period that elapsed between his arrest and bis execution, a kcy-rm,: ,„, an altogether novel principle. Tlw idea was sold bv his executors for t.»M. Aniannaiii«ll>ual,lson,lideve,,bett.r „ul of an ..lor-tfo-therimc belt, which lie V i,t.i while an inmate of rivnlh.m Convict Prison. It. brought him u> cti,non.