The Dime Bank Man

"If you want romance, if you want stories of gold, blood, luck, everythina; that goes to inake up the gamut of human passion, come with me to the patent ofRce, and behind tliose cases fllled with dry-as-dust speeifications and legal pliraseology I will show you skeletons that once had red blood in their veins." Thus spoke a friend of mine, one of the best known patent attorneys in Washington, and then lie walked across the room and picked up from his desk one of those little cylinder banks to hold $5 worth of ten cent pieces whicb were all the rage a few years ago. Holding the toy in his hand, ie said : ■'When you como to write the ro manee of the patent office, you can make a chapterof what 1 aüi jioiug to teil you. You remember the craze for these banks a few years ago, and how it turned everybody to saving dimes until at last there was an actual scarcity of that coin created? Well, the history of this patent is worth while telling. "I neyer advance a man money on his patenta or speculate in them. That is not my business, which is sitnply to represent him in a legal capacity before the office. But one day a man carne hito my New York office with an idea which he wanted to patent and about which he wauted to consult me. I told him that the fees and expenses would amount to $135. " 'Mr. Connoily,' lie said, 'I liavn't $135 in the world, and I never expect to have tliiit unucl) it one time. "I lookcil at the man, and I looked at the model and said to hiin, 'Í liave oever yet taken an interest in a patent, but I vrill pay all the expenses in cou□ectiou witli this patent if you will give me ;i quarter interest in it.' ' 'VVhy?' he asked. " 'Becanse you have a fortune there,' I tolil hiin. "However, the man said he would see about it. A few days later he carne back with his brother-in-law, who had advanced the money. I procured his patent for hun. "Now, to go back and teil how this man conceived the idea for the bank. He was in the employ of the Pennsylvania Kailroad Co. at Jersey City, receiving a salary of $U a week. He was not an unculüvated man but had a little knack of mechanics. He was in the habit of spending liis Sundays with his sister, and one day when he called there he found bis nephew, a ehild of about three years of age, sitting on the floor shaking a toy bank and trying to that whenever the youiifíster dropped a cent hito the hank he, like most children, was wild to get all the money out to count, and she went. on to Bay to her brother, 'Whycan't yon invent a bank whicli wilJ show huw much there is in it?' and tlie brother said lie thought he eould. "That gave him the idea. After he got his patent he hada few banks made, and on Saturday nights he used to put them in a basket, carry them around to the toy sliops in the neighborhood and dispose of them. He found only one drawback - he could not make them fast enough to supply the demand. After he had been.doing business in this way a few weeks he carne to see me. He told me wfoat he was doing and then went on to say : 'Mr. Connolly, do you tliink you could íinl someoue who would lend me $2,500? There is a factory in Newark which I can buy for that amount, and which is just the thing I want for making iny banks. Ií I can get hold of that factory, I am sure I can sell all the banks I can make.' "I told him I thought I could get him the money and to come and see me in the course of a few days. A few days later he carne in and said he didn't think I need bother about finding him that money, as he expected to have it next week. I asked him where he was eoing to get it f rom. "You will think I am embellishing this story, because it sounds so improbable, bnt I am simply relating the facts without the slightest exaggeration or ornament. He said he had a lottery ticket and he expected it would draw a prize. But wait; let me teil this story of the lottery ticket. He and some other men workiug at Jersey City decided to make up a pool and buy a lottery ticket, each man to put in $1. When the time carne, the others backed out, and only himself and one other, a carpenter, put in their dollars. Thfl ticket drew $5,000. "With hia share lie bought out the Newark factory, and in a short time had six hundred men at work turning out these banks, and even then he could not keep up with orders. He was soon making a clear profit of $1,000 a week, then $2,000, then almost that much a day. During the time the craze lasted, and you know it was not of short duratiou, he made a large fortune." "And what became of the man?" I asked. "Oh, they put him in an insane asylum. He eouldu't stand prosperity. , He lost a great deal of his money about as rapidly as he made it, altbough fortunately he put a couple of hundred thousand or so in real estáte, which his wife now has." - Boston Globe.