Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR HENRY BESSEMER.]

At eighteen years of age he went to London, "knowing no one," he says, "and myself unknown,--a mere cipher in a vast sea of human enterprise."

He soon found a place to work as modeller and designer, engraving a large number of original designs on steel, with a diamond point, for patent-medicine labels. A year later he exhibited one of his models at the Royal Academy. His inventive brain and observing eye were always alert in some new direction. Having ascertained that the Government lost thousands of pounds annually by the transfer of adhesive stamps from old deeds to new ones, he determined to devise a stamp which could not be used twice.

For several months he worked earnestly, at night after his daily tasks were over, and in secret, thinking how richly the Government would reward him if he succeeded. At last he produced a die of unique design, which perforated a parchment deed with four hundred little holes. He hastened to the Stamp officials to show his work. They were greatly pleased, and asked him which he preferred for his reward, a sum of money, or the position of Superintendent of Stamps, with a salary of three or four thousand dollars a year. He delightedly chose the latter, as that would make him comfortable for life. There was another reason for his delight; for being engaged to be married, he would have no solicitude now about daily needs: life would flow on as smoothly as a river.

At once he visited the young lady, and told her of his great success.

She listened eagerly, and then said, "Yes, I understand this; but surely, if all stamps had a _date_ put upon them, they could not at a future time be used without detection." His spirits fell. He confessed afterward that, "while he felt pleased and proud of the clever and simple suggestion of the young lady, he saw also that all his more elaborate system, the result of months of toil, was shattered to pieces by it." What need for four hundred holes in a die, when a single date was more effective? He soon worked out a die with movable dates, and with frankness and honor presented it before the Government officials.

They saw its preferableness: the new plan was adopted by Act of Parliament; the old stamps were called in and new ones issued; and then the young inventor was informed that his services as Superintendent of Stamps, at three thousand dollars a year, were not needed.

But surely the Government, which was to save a half million dollars a year, would repay him for his months of labor and thought! a.s.sociations, like individuals, are very apt to forget favors, when once the desired end is attained. The Premier had resigned; and, after various promises and excuses, a lawyer in the Stamp Office informed him that he made the new stamp of his own free will, and there was no money to be given him.

"Sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings," says young Bessemer, "I went my way from the Stamp Office, too proud to ask as a favor that which was indubitably my right."

Alas! that he must learn thus early the selfishness of the world! But he took courage; for, had he not made one real invention? and it must be in his power to make others. When he was twenty-five he produced a type-casting machine; but so opposed was it by the compositors, that it was finally abandoned. He also invented a machine for making figured Utrecht velvet; and some of his productions were used in the state apartments of Windsor Castle.

A little later his attention was accidentally called to bronze powder, he having bought a small portion to ornament his sister's alb.u.m. The powder, made in Germany, cost only twenty-two cents a pound in the raw material, and sold for twenty-two dollars. Here was a wonderful profit.

Why could he not discover the process of making it? He worked for eighteen months, trying all sorts of experiments, and failed. But failure to a great mind never really means failure; so, after six months, he tried again, and--succeeded. He knew little about patents, had been recently defrauded by the Government; and he determined that this discovery should be kept a secret. He made a small apparatus, and worked it himself, sending out a travelling-man with the product. That which cost him less than one dollar was sold for eighteen. A fortune seemed now really within his grasp.

A friend, a.s.sured of his success, put fifty thousand dollars into the business. Immediately Bessemer made plans of all the machinery required, sent various parts to as many different establishments, lest his secret be found out, and then put the pieces of his self-acting machines together. Five a.s.sistants were engaged at high wages, under pledge of secrecy. At first he made one thousand per cent profit; and now, in these later years, the profit is three hundred per cent. Three of the a.s.sistants have died; and Mr. Bessemer has turned over the business and the factory to the other two. The secret of making the bronze powder has never been told. Even Mr. Bessemer's oldest son had reached manhood before he ever entered the locked room where it was made.

For ten years the inventor now turned his attention to the construction of railway carriages, centrifugal pumps, etc. His busy brain could not rest. When frequent explosions in coal-mines occasioned discussion throughout the country, he made, at large expense, a working model for ventilating mines, and offered to explain it to a committee of the House of Commons. His offer was declined with thanks. A little investigation on the part of great statesmen would have been scarcely out of place.

At the great exhibition in London in 1851, he exhibited several machines,--one for grinding and polishing plate gla.s.s, and another for draining, in an hour, an acre of land covered with water a foot deep.

The crowd looked at them, called the inventor "the ingenious Mr.

Bessemer," and pa.s.sed on. Two years later he made some improvements in war implements, and submitted his plans to the Woolwich a.r.s.enal; but they were declined, without thanks even. Some other men might have become discouraged; but Mr. Bessemer knew that obstacles only strengthen and develop men.

The improved ordnance having been brought to the knowledge of Napoleon III., he encouraged the inventor, and furnished the money to carry forward the experiments. While the guns were being tested at Vincennes, an officer remarked, "If you cannot get stronger metal for your guns, such heavy projectiles will be of little use." And then Mr. Bessemer began to ask himself if he could not improve iron. But he had never studied metallurgy. This, however, did not deter him; for he immediately obtained the best books on the subject, and visited the iron-making districts. Then he bought an old factory at Baxter House, where Richard Baxter used to live, and began to experiment for himself. After a whole year of labor he succeeded in greatly improving cast-iron, making it almost as white as steel.

Could he not improve steel also? For eighteen months he built and pulled down one furnace after another, at great expense. At last "the idea struck him," he says, of making cast-iron malleable by forcing air into the metal when in a fluid state, cast-iron being a combination of iron and carbon. When oxygen is forced in, it unites with the carbon, and thus the iron is left nearly pure. The experiment was tried at the factory, in the midst of much trepidation, as the union of the compressed air and the melted iron produced an eruption like a volcano; but when the combustion was over, the result was steel.

Astonished and delighted, after two years and a half of labor, Bessemer at once took out a patent; and the following week, by request, Aug. 11, 1856, read a paper before the British a.s.sociation, on "The manufacture of malleable iron and steel without fuel." There was great ridicule made beforehand. Said one leading steel-maker to another. "I want you to go with me this morning. There is a fellow who has come down from London to read a paper on making steel from cast-iron without fuel! Ha! ha! ha!"

The paper was published in the "Times," and created a great sensation.

Crowds hastened to Baxter House to see the wonderful process. In three weeks Mr. Bessemer had sold one hundred thousand dollars worth of licenses to make steel by the new and rapid method. Fame, as well as great wealth, seemed now a.s.sured, when lo! in two months, it being found that only certain kinds of iron could be worked, the newspapers began to ridicule the new invention, and scientists and business men declared the method visionary, and worse than useless.

Mr. Bessemer collected a full portfolio of these scathing criticisms; but he was not the man to be disconcerted or cast down. Again he began the labor of experimenting, and found that phosphorus in the iron was the real cause of the failure. For three long years he pursued his investigations. His best friends tried to make him desist from what the world had proved to be an impracticable thing. Sometimes he almost distrusted himself, and thought he would give up trying, and then the old desire came back more strongly than ever. At last, success was really a.s.sured, but n.o.body would believe it. Every one said, "Oh, this is the thing which made such a blaze two or three years ago, and which was a failure."

Mr. Bessemer took several hundredweight of the new steel to some Manchester friends, that their workmen might try it, without knowing from whence it came. They detected no difference between this which cost thirty dollars a ton, and what they were then using at three hundred dollars a ton.

But n.o.body wanted to buy the new steel. Two years went by in this fruitless urging for somebody to take up the manufacture of the new metal. Finally, Bessemer induced a friend to unite with him, and they erected works, and began to make steel. At first the dealers would buy only twenty or thirty pounds; then the demand steadily increased. At last the large manufacturers awoke to the fact that Bessemer was underselling them by one hundred dollars a ton, and they hastened to pay a royalty for making steel by the new process.

But all obstacles were not yet overcome. The Government refused to make steel guns; the shipbuilders were afraid to touch it; and when the engineer of the London and North-western Railway was asked to use steel rails, he exclaimed, excitedly, "Mr. Bessemer, do you wish to see me tried for manslaughter?" Now, steel rails are used the world over, at the same cost as iron formerly, and are said to last twenty times as long as iron rails.

Prejudice at last wore away, and in 1866, the "Bessemer process," the conversion of crude iron into steel by forcing cold air through it for fifteen or twenty minutes, was bringing to its inventor an income of five hundred thousand dollars a year! Fame had now come, as well as wealth. In 1874, he was made President of the Iron and Steel Inst.i.tute, to succeed the Duke of Devonshire. The Inst.i.tute of Civil Engineers gave him the Telford Gold Medal; the Society of Arts, the Albert Gold Medal.

Sweden made him honorary member of her Iron Board; Hamburg gave him the freedom of the city; and the Emperor of Austria conferred upon him the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of Francis Joseph, sending a complimentary letter in connection with the jewelled cross and circular collar of the order. Napoleon III. wished to give him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, but the English Government would not permit him to wear it; the Emperor therefore presented him in person with a gold medal weighing twelve ounces. Berlin and the King of Wurtemburg sent him gold medals. In 1879 he was made Fellow of the Royal Society, and the same year was knighted by Queen Victoria. In 1880 the freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold casket; the only other great discoverers who have received this distinction being Dr. Jenner, who introduced vaccination, and Sir Rowland Hill, the author of penny postage. In the United States, which gives no ribbons or decorations, Indiana has appropriately named a flourishing town after him.

It is estimated that Sir Henry Bessemer's one discovery of making steel has saved the world, in the last twenty-one years, above five thousand million dollars.

When his patent expired in 1870, he had received in royalties over five million dollars. In his steel works at Sheffield, after buying in all the licenses sold in 1856, when the new process seemed a failure, the profits every two months equalled the original capital, or in fourteen years the company increased the original capital eighty-one times by the profits.

How wise it proved that the country lad did not obtain the permanent position of superintendent of stamps, at three thousand dollars a year!

Rich beyond his highest hopes, the friend of such eminent and progressive men as the King of the Belgians, who visits Denmark Hill, Sir Henry has not ceased his inventions. Knowing the terrors of sea-sickness, he designed a great swinging saloon, seventy feet by thirty, in the midst of a sea-going vessel named the "Bessemer." The experiment cost one hundred thousand dollars, but has not yet proved successful. In 1877, when sixty-four years old, he began to devote himself to the study of Herschel's works on optics, and has since constructed an immense and novel telescope, which magnifies five thousand times. The instrument is placed in a comfortable observatory, so that the investigator can either sit or stand while making his observations. "The observing room, with its floor, windows, and dome, revolve and keep pace automatically with every motion of the telescope."

This is accomplished by hydraulic power.

No wonder that Bessemer has been called the "great captain of modern civilization." He has revolutionized one of the most important of the world's industries; he has fought obstacles at every step,--poverty, the ridicule of the press, the indifference of his countrymen, and the cupidity of men who would steal his inventions or appropriate the results. He has earned leisure, but he rarely takes it. His has been a life of labor, prosecuted with indomitable will and energy. He has taken out one hundred and twenty patents, for which the specifications and drawings fill seven large volumes, all made by himself. The world had at last come to know and honor the boy who came to London at the age of eighteen, "a mere cipher in a vast sea of human enterprise." He made his way to greatness unaided, save by his helpful wife.

Sir Henry died on the fifteenth of March, 1898, leaving an immense fortune, which, nevertheless, was not inordinate when compared with the services rendered by him to mankind; and a stainless name. The unfair treatment which had embittered his earlier days had been atoned for by the Queen granting him a t.i.tle in recognition of his invention accepted by the Post-Office, and he had come to be regarded as one of the greatest benefactors of modern times. Such a life, crowned with such a success, is calculated to be a mighty inspiration to every ambitious youth.

SIR t.i.tUS SALT.

I spent a day, with great interest, in visiting the worsted mills and warehouses at Saltaire, just out from Bradford, England, which cover about ten acres. The history of the proprietor, Sir t.i.tus Salt, reads like a romance. A poor boy, the son of a plain Yorkshire man, at nineteen in a loose blouse he was sorting and washing wool; a little later, a good salesman, a faithful Christian worker and the superintendent of a Sunday school.

At thirty-three, happening to be in Liverpool, he observed on the docks some huge pieces of dirty-looking alpaca wool. They had long lain in the warehouses, and becoming a nuisance to the owners, were soon to be reshipped to Peru. Young Salt took away a handful of the wool in his handkerchief, scoured and combed it, and was amazed at its attractive appearance. His father and friends advised him strongly to have nothing to do with the dirty stuff, as he could sell it to no one; and if he attempted to make cloth from it himself, he ran a great risk of failure.

Finally he said, "I am going into this alpaca affair right and left, and I'll either make myself a man or a mouse."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR t.i.tUS SALT.]

Returning to Liverpool, he bought the whole three hundred bales for a small sum, and toiled diligently till proper machinery was made for the new material. The result was a great success. In three years over two million pounds of alpaca wool were imported, and now four million pounds are brought to Bradford alone. Employment was soon furnished to thousands, laborers coming from all over Great Britain and Germany. Ten years later Mr. Salt was made mayor of Bradford; ten years after this a member of Parliament, and ten years later still a baronet by Queen Victoria,--a great change from the boy in his soiled coa.r.s.e blouse, but he deserved it all. He was a remarkable man in many ways. Even when worth his millions, and giving lavishly on every hand, he would save blank leaves and sc.r.a.ps of paper for writing, and lay them aside for future use. He was an early riser, always at the works before the engines were started. It used to be said of him, "t.i.tus Salt makes a thousand pounds before others are out of bed." He was punctual to the minute, most exact, and unostentatious. After he was knighted, it was no uncommon thing for him to take a poor woman and her baby in the carriage beside him, or a tired workman, or scatter hundreds of tracts in a village where he happened to be. Once a gypsy, not knowing who he was, asked him to buy a broom. To her astonishment, he bought all she was carrying!

The best of his acts, one which he had thought out carefully, as he said, "to do good to his fellow-men," was the building of Saltaire for his four thousand workmen. When asked once what he had been reading of late, he replied. "Alpaca. If you had four or five thousand people to provide for every day, you would not have much time left for reading."

Saltaire is a beautiful place on the banks of the river Aire, clean and restful. In the centre of the town stands the great six-story mill, well-ventilated, lighted, and warmed, five hundred and forty-five feet long, of light-colored stone, costing over a half million dollars. The four engines of eighteen hundred horse-power consume fifteen thousand tons of coal per year. The weaving shed, covering two acres, holds twelve hundred looms, which make eighteen miles of fabric per day.

The homes of the work-people are an honor to the capitalist. They are of light stone, like the mill, two stories high, each containing parlor, kitchen, pantry, and three bedrooms or more, well ventilated and tasteful. Flower beds are in every front yard, with a vegetable garden in the rear. No broken carts or rubbish are to be seen. Not satisfied to make Saltaire simply healthful, by proper sanitary measures, and beautiful, for which Napoleon III. made him one of the Legion of Honor, Mr. Salt provided school buildings at a cost of $200,000, a Congregational church, costing $80,000, Italian in style,--as are the other buildings,--a hospital for sick or injured, and forty-five pretty almshouses, like Italian villas, where the aged and infirm have a comfortable home. Each married man and his wife receive $2.50 weekly, and each single man or woman $1.87 for expenses. Once a year Mr. Salt and his family used to take tea with the inmates, which was a source of great delight.

Believing that "indoor washing is most pernicious, and a fruitful source of disease, especially to the young," he built twenty-four baths, at a cost of $35,000, and public wash-houses. These are supplied with three steam engines and six washing machines. Each person bringing clothes is provided with a rubbing and boiling tub, into which steam and hot and cold water are conveyed by pipes. The clothes are dried by hot air, and can be washed, dried, mangled, and folded in an hour. In Sweden, I found the same dislike to having washing done in the homes, and clothes are usually carried to the public wash-houses.

Perhaps the most interesting of all Mr. Salt's gifts to his workmen is the Saltaire Club and Inst.i.tute, costing $125,000; a handsome building, with large reading-room supplied with daily papers and current literature, a library, lecture-hall for eight hundred persons, a "School of Art," with models, drawings, and good teachers, a billiard-room with four tables, a room for scientific study, each student having proper appliances for laboratory work, a gymnasium and drill-room nearly sixty feet square, an armory for rifle-practice, and a smoking-room, though Mr. Salt did not smoke. The membership fee for all this study and recreation is only thirty seven cents for each three months. Opposite the great mill is a dining-hall, where a plate of meat can be purchased for four cents, a bowl of soup for two cents, and a cup of tea or coffee for one cent. If the men prefer to bring their own food, it is cooked free of charge. The manager has a fixed salary, so that there is no temptation to scrimp the buyers.

Still another gift was made to the work-people; a park of fourteen acres, with croquet and archery grounds, music pavilion, places for boating and swimming, and walks with beautiful flowers. No saloon has ever been allowed in Saltaire. Without the temptation of the beer-shops, the boys have grown to intelligent manhood, and the girls to virtuous womanhood. Sir t.i.tus Salt's last gift to his workmen was a Sunday-school building costing $50,000, where are held the "model Sunday schools of the country," say those who have attended the meetings. No wonder, at the death of this man, 40,000 people came to his burial,--members of Parliament, clergymen, workingmen's unions, and ragged schools. No wonder that statues have been erected to his memory, and that thousands go every year to Saltaire, to see what one capitalist has done for his laborers. No fear of strikes in his workshops; no socialism talked in the clean and pretty homes of the men; no squalid poverty, no depraving ignorance.

That capital is feeling its responsibility in this matter of homes for laborers is one of the hopeful signs of the times. We shall come, sometime, to believe with the late President Chadbourne, "The rule now commonly acted upon is that business must be cared for, and men must care for themselves. The principle of action, in the end, must be that _men must be cared for_, and business must be subservient to this great work."

If, as Spurgeon has well said, "Home is the grandest of all inst.i.tutions," capital can do no better work than look to the homes of the laborer. It is not the mansion which the employer builds for himself, but the home which he builds for his employe, which will insure a safe country for his children to dwell in. If discontent and poverty surround his palace, its foundations are weak; if intelligence has been disseminated, and comfort promoted by his unselfish thought for others, then he leaves a goodly heritage for his children.

JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.

The small world which lives in elegant houses knows little of the great world in dingy apartments with bare walls and empty cupboards. Those who walk or ride in the sunshine often forget the darkness of the mines, or the tiresome treadmill of the factories.

Over a century ago, in Lyons, France, lived a man who desired to make the lives of the toilers brighter and happier. Joseph Jacquard, the son of a silk-weaver who died early, began his young manhood, the owner of two looms and a comfortable little home. He had married Claudine Boichon, the daughter of a goldsmith who expected to give his daughter a marriage portion, but was unable from loss of property. Jacquard loved her just as devotedly, however, as though she had brought him money. A pretty boy was born into their home, and no family was happier in all France. But the young loom-owner saw the poor weavers working from four in the morning till nine at night, in crowded rooms, whole families often bending over a loom, their chests shrunken and their cheeks sallow from want of air and sunlight; and their faces dull and vacant from the monotony of unvaried toil. There were no holidays, no walks in the fields among the flowers, no reading of books, nothing but the constant routine which wore out body and mind together. There was no home-life; little children grew pinched and old; and mothers went too early to their graves. If work stopped, they ate the bread of charity, and went to the almshouse. The rich people of Lyons were not hard-hearted, but they did not _think_; they were too busy with their parties and their marriages; too busy buying and selling that they might grow richer. But Jacquard was always thinking how he could lighten the labor of the silk-weavers by some invention.