A Fortunate Misfortune.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 32, 7 August 1902, Page 15

A Fortunate Misfortune.

Thirty years ago a young man named Samuel M. Bryan, a clerk at the Post Office Department at Washington, received notice that his services were no longer needed. When he looked over his stock-in-trade he found that it consisted of something less than 100 dollars in cash and— a great idea. A week later he was on his way to San Francisco, one good-natured postal clerk after another allowing him to ride in his car. On reaching San Francisco he secured a plaoe as purser on a steamship bonnd for Japan, and in due coarse found himself at Tokio. Once in Japan's chief city he prooeeded without delay to put his great idea into exeoution.

What he proposed was to perfect and put in operation in Japan a postal system modelled after that of the United States. Bryan found willing listeners among the high Japanese officials, and in due time was requested to prepare a prospectus of his system to be submitted to the Mikado. Its value was at once recognised and its adoption ordered. Bryan wsb placed at the head of the new department, with a salary of 11,000 dollars a year, and trusted with the negotiation of a postal treaty between Japan and the United States. A few months later he was back in Washington as the envoy of the Japanese Government, treating on equal termß with the man who had dismissed him for inoompetenoy. The treaty, which he negotiated with skill and diplomacy, proved satisfactory to all oonoerned. Bryan remained some 15 years in the service of the Japanese Government. He then returned to the United States, a rich man. it ib interesting to conjecture what his career might have been had he not lost his plaoe in the Post Office Department.