Chapter 9

His step-father's brother-in-law kept an oyster bar, and he at once put the boy to work learning to open oysters, attending to customers, and keeping the place clean. The work and the surroundings were rough, and Stoddard was so manifestly unfitted for his work that he was finally taken away from the bar and sent into the streets to sell matches. After a few months of this he was placed in a cheap second-hand clothing store, but here his earnings were not sufficient to satisfy his family, and though he was of frail physique his mother apprenticed him to a blacksmith.

"I was put to work at once on the anvil," he says, "and before the day was over my right hand was so blistered that I had to open its fingers with my left hand, and detach them from the handle of the sledge hammer that I wielded."

He was eighteen years old when he was sent to work in an iron foundry, and he remained at this occupation several years, studying and writing incessantly at night. One poem, "Ode on a Grecian Flute," was accepted by the _Broadway Journal_, a little weekly edited by Edgar Allan Poe. Later the originality of the poem was doubted. Stoddard went to assure Poe that it was original. He found him asleep in an office chair. On being awakened and told by Stoddard that the poem was original, Poe jumped up and yelled:

"You lie! Get out before I throw you out."

Stoddard fled, and the poem was not published. The last glimpse he ever had of Poe was one cold and stormy autumn day. Stoddard was hurrying along Broadway, well sheltered by an umbrella, when he noticed Poe, thinly clad, crouching against the side of a building in an attempt to find refuge from the storm. Stoddard walked around the corner and paused. He wanted to go back and offer Poe the shelter of his umbrella, but he did not dare. The following summer Poe died in Baltimore. Afterward Stoddard wrote the first genuinely fair and appreciative life of him.

A MIGHTY ELECTRICIAN.

Steinmetz Is Not Yet Forty Years Old and Has Taken Out Over One Hundred Patents.

Charles P. Steinmetz, chief expert at the Schenectady Electrical Works, was born in Breslau, Germany. Though he is only forty years old, he has already taken out more than one hundred patents for electrical devices, and some of these are of immense value.

His father was a railroad employee, and on German railroads the pay is small and the duties exacting. But the father managed to send his son to the University of Breslau, and here he distinguished himself in mathematics and chemistry, and spent his leisure time in chemical and mechanical experiments at home.

At that time the German government was making an effort to stamp out socialism, and laws of unusual severity were passed against those who advocated it. Bismarck, who headed the anti-socialist movement, saw to it that the laws were vigorously enforced. The natural result was a reaction against the conduct of the government, and the universities became permeated with socialism.

Steinmetz, then a boy of seventeen, was drawn into the work of socialistic agitation, and he became the editor of a paper during a period when the real editor was in prison for _lèse majesté_.

The paper was finally suppressed, and Steinmetz's connection with it was reported to the university authorities. Then he received information that a warrant was out for his arrest and he fled to Zurich, Switzerland. Here he supported himself by tutoring, and by writing for electrical magazines and for a daily paper.

The articles for the daily paper paid him two dollars a week. His income was pitifully small, but he managed to save a few dollars, and, meeting with a young American from San Francisco, he decided to relinquish his ambition to become a professor of mathematics in some German university. He then emigrated to America.

Lands as a Poor Immigrant.

Steinmetz and his American friend landed in New York with just twenty dollars between them. They hired a small room in Brooklyn, where they started housekeeping together. Steinmetz had acquired this knack during his Zurich days, and through his first year in America he lived with his friend in one room, doing their cooking and washing on a gas-stove, and at the same time conducting electrical and chemical experiments.

Steinmetz had with him when he arrived in this country a couple of letters of introduction, one to a man who manufactured electrical and chemical supplies on a small scale. This letter was the first presented, but on visiting the place Steinmetz was unable to see the manufacturer. He was, however, told to call again. He called again, and was once more put off with a polite invitation to return. After two more calls Steinmetz realized that he was an unwelcome visitor. He thought it over for a few moments, then laughed and, turning to the clerk, said:

"Oh, well, all right. He'll have to call on me, now, if he wants me--and I think he will."

Eventually the manufacturer did want Steinmetz, but never got him, for Steinmetz took the second letter of introduction to Rudolph Eickemeyer, head of the Eickemeyer Elevator Company, of Yonkers. Eickemeyer sized the young man up, and at once put him to work as a draftsman, at twelve dollars a week.

It was while in Yonkers that Steinmetz drew attention to his ability by a series of articles in an American electrical magazine on alternating currents. This was followed by the first of the inventions and improvements that laid the foundation of Steinmetz's substantial fortune.

From the first Steinmetz had taken a lively interest in America and everything American, and the views for which he was forced to fly from Europe were so modified that they agreed with the new conditions in which he found himself. Speaking of them, he said:

"In this country they would be theories without any chance of practical application, and there is no use in a theory merely for theory's sake."

When the Eickemeyer concern was taken over by the General Electric Company Steinmetz went with it and was hailed as its greatest asset. He was first sent to the Thomson-Houston Company--the Lynn, Massachusetts, branch of the General Electric--and there he worked out the first successful plan for transmitting power and light, on a large scale, over long distances, and for controlling currents.

Incidentally he made several important discoveries and improvements in the arc and incandescent lights and in electric motors.

A Mathematical Wonder.

In addition to being a thorough electrician, Steinmetz is a mathematical wonder, and there are few tricks of the lightning calculator that he cannot duplicate and go one better. It had been his intention to become a professor of mathematics, and doubtless he would have done so had he remained in Germany. The salary and fees of the professorship would have given him at best a couple of thousand dollars a year. His work in this country pays him a big salary, and this is supplemented by a large income from patents.

Personally he is one of the most popular men in the business. "The professor," as he is generally known, has been generous in offering assistance to young electricians, and he has patiently spent his time in aiding in the development of their ideas. He has shown the same skill in bringing the best out of men that he has used to such effect in handling machinery.

THE FIRST ROTHSCHILD.

Founder of the House of Rothschild Had Vainly Attempted to Reconcile Himself to Being a Rabbi.

Mayer Amschel Bauer, founder of the house of Rothschild, was born in the Ghetto of Frankfort, Germany. This section was set off for the Jews with barriers, and at night these barriers were closed and no one was permitted to leave the street. His father was a merchant in poor circumstances, and it was the dream of his life to make the son a rabbi. So he sent him to study with the rabbis learned in the law of Moses. The studies continued a few weeks, and then young Bauer rebelled. He would go no more. His father entreated and threatened. It was useless, for the boy took the few gulden he possessed and set up as a money-lender.

There, on the sidewalk of the squalid Judengasse, or street of the Jews, began the power of the richest and most famous banking family in the world.

The business under the sign with the red shield prospered so that the owner dropped his own name and adopted that of his emblem, Rothschild. Around him there were men equally prosperous. Mayer Amschel Rothschild was not only a lender and changer of money, but he was also a student of coins. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel was also an enthusiastic student of numismatics, so when he heard of the collector in the Judengasse he made his acquaintance. This acquaintance enabled Rothschild to step out from among his fellows and begin operations on a larger and different scale. He became a negotiator of national loans, and his success brought him into prominence with the nations fighting against Napoleon.

Napoleon invaded Hesse-Cassel, and the Landgrave fled, after entrusting Rothschild with his money and treasures. At the risk of being shot Rothschild buried the treasure in his own garden, and it remained there until Napoleon swept on and the Landgrave returned to his home. Then Rothschild restored the property, adding five per cent interest on the money.

The first Rothschild remained to the end of his life in the old house in the narrow Ghetto. Even when he had monarchs in his grip, when he was parceling out Europe for the financial operations of his sons, he continued there, and, when he died, his wife, the mother of all the Rothschilds, remained there, and in the forties of the last century, when the old woman was approaching her ninetieth year, it was one of the sights of Frankfort to see her carriage, resplendent in crimson velvet and decorated with monograms, drive through the street and stop before the dilapidated house that was her home.

GOT SIXTY CENTS A DAY.

The Head of the American Locomotive Works Began His Career as a Machinist's Apprentice.

Albert J. Pitkin, president of the American Locomotive Works, began his business life as a machinist's apprentice at the age of sixteen. His wages were sixty cents a day, and the little shop in which he was employed turned out one small stationary engine each week. He is now the head of the American Locomotive Company, which manufactures three thousand locomotives a year, or ten for each working day, and is capitalized at fifty million dollars. Seven men were employed in the shop where he learned his trade. He has now control of sixteen thousand men.

Pitkin's father was in poor circumstances, and at twelve years of age the boy went to live with his grandfather at Granville, Ohio. The grandfather was a cabinet-maker and wood-turner, and before long he had taught his grandson many of the secrets of the trade and had developed in the youth an understanding and appreciation of what machinery could be made to do.

"There is no use using hand tools if you can make a machine do the work," said the boy.

Then, from an old spinning-wheel which he found in the attic of the house, he made a machine that sawed wood and saved labor in the cabinet-shop. He also constructed other machines out of wood, and the cleverness with which they were fashioned and adapted to the needs of the little shop enabled him and his grandfather to turn out an increased amount of work.

At sixteen years of age it became necessary for young Pitkin to choose some trade, and he selected that of machinist. He was regularly indentured for three years, and received sixty cents a day for the first year, ninety cents a day for the second, and one dollar and twenty-five cents a day for the third. His father was disabled by ill health during this period, and the greater part of the son's meager earnings went to help support the family.

Economy and Hard Study.

All this time he was forced to live on a few cents a day, and the only money he spent besides the cost of his board and clothing was what went for books on mechanics and material for mechanical drawing. When his apprenticeship was finished he was not only a thorough machinist, but he was also a mechanical draftsman.

His next position was in the locomotive repair-shops of the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus Railroad. The year he spent here was one of hard work and hard study, for he continued his drawing more assiduously than before. At the end of the year he obtained a place in the drawing department of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, having prepared himself for the stiff examination given there without one bit of outside assistance.

He spent five years with the Baldwin company, worked up from the lowest position in the drawing department to the highest, and during that five years he introduced nearly one hundred improvements in locomotive construction.

The training he had received in a small machine-shop was repaying him with interest, and his determination to make machines do as much work as possible was bearing fruit. Wherever he could, he introduced automatic machines.

He was only twenty-five years old when he was promoted to the position of chief draftsman in the Rhode Island Locomotive Works.

"Rather a responsible position for a young man," one of his friends suggested dubiously.

"Not if the young man knows his business," replied Pitkin. "And I think I do. I've thought of nothing else for the last nine years."

Became Superintendent.

After two years in Providence, he went to the Schenectady Locomotive Works, and in two years he became superintendent of the shops. Here he was free to put into operation many of the ideas he could not use before, while he was working in subordinate positions, and it was largely due to him that the Schenectady company became one of the most prosperous in the country.

When the American Locomotive Company was organized, Pitkin was made vice-president, for it was recognized that he was probably the most thoroughly equipped man in the business. There was not a department with which he was not acquainted, nor a mechanical operation in the shops that he could not perform.

Two years ago Samuel R. Callaway, president of the company, died, and Pitkin was unanimously chosen as his successor. It took him thirty years to climb to that height, and the thirty years were marked by hundreds of improvements in locomotive construction and by wonderful records in turning out locomotives against time.

There were many mechanics who started with him and had an equal chance, but they were soon distanced in the race.

"They were content," he said, "with a steady, plodding, uniform way of doing things, and while they were methodical and obtained good results, I tried to figure out some way of getting better results and getting them more easily. I took chances on doing a thing in other than the prescribed way, but often the new way was the better way."

Little Glimpses of the 19th Century.

The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled so as to Present a Nutshell Record.

[_Continued from page 260._]

FOURTH DECADE.

1831

Political disorder in Greece becoming increasingly serious, the President, Capo d'Istria, attempted restrictive measures which were violently resented. His opponents burned the Greek fleet at Hydra to prevent it falling into his hands. On October 9 Capo d'Istria was assassinated; his brother succeeded him and headed the government for a short time.

To suppress the Polish rebellion, Russia sent an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men into Poland, under Diebitsch. A bloody but indecisive campaign followed. The Russians were defeated in several battles, but Polish expeditions into Lithuania and Volhynia failed completely; and cholera, which had spread from India, devastated both armies, General Diebitsch being among the first to die. The Polish struggle for independence, however, was a hopeless one. The Russians received assistance from Prussia and Austria, while the Poles ruined their cause by their internal dissensions. On September 7 Paskievitch, who had succeeded Diebitsch, took Warsaw, and the rebellion was crushed. The Polish language was forbidden in the schools, and all who had taken part in the rising were ruthlessly punished.

In Italy, a revolt of Modena and Bologna against Papal rule was put down by Austria, Metternich insisting on extirpating all attempts at reform; but France, which had approved Austrian intervention, compelled both the Papal States and Austria to grant a few concessions to the people. The disputed status of Belgium was settled by a conference in London, the country being separated from Holland and established as a kingdom, with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as king. Luxembourg was claimed by both Holland and Belgium, and a Dutch army advanced to support the pretensions of the former. France thereupon sent an expedition into Belgium to defend her neighbor and protégé; but the other powers compelled both forces to withdraw, the question of Luxembourg being left for future settlement.

The rulers of the German states sought to stamp out liberalism, and there began a heavy emigration, many of the emigrants coming to America. Riots in England because the House of Lords rejected a bill to reform the election system, which the Commons had passed; the houses of several of the opponents of reform were burned. Trade in England unsettled, and cholera was added to destitution.

In the United States, general prosperity prevailed, and there was a heavy westward migration. The Black Hawk War was fought to suppress a rebellion of the Sacs and Foxes on the upper Mississippi. The abolitionist movement progressed; Garrison's _Liberator_ was founded. France agreed to pay the United States five million dollars for damage to shipping during the Napoleonic wars. Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi. Chicago organized as a town. New York the first of the States to abolish imprisonment for debt.

Alizarin, the foundation of anilin dyes, was separated by Robiquet and Colin, of Paris, and Michael Faraday made his great discovery of magneto-electric induction. Deaths: James Monroe; G.W.F. Hegel, German philosopher; Barthold Niebuhr, German historian; Mrs. Siddons, English actress; James Northcote, English painter.

=RULERS--United States, Andrew Jackson; Great Britain, William IV; France, Louis Philippe; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Nicholas I; Austria, Francis I; the Papacy vacant at beginning of year; on February 2 Cardinal Capellari became Pope, with the title of Gregory XVI.=

1832

Otto, son of the King of Bavaria, became King of Greece. Switzerland divided into two antagonistic federations of cantons; federal government intervened, and tranquillity was restored. Failure of the Duchesse de Berry to incite rebellion against the rule of Louis Philippe. Disturbances in Portugal, owing to the misrule of Dom Miguel, who was acting as regent for the girl queen, Maria da Gloria, daughter of Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. Miguel impoverished the country and persecuted legitimists and foreigners; fleets were sent by France and England to protest; and with their support Dom Pedro, who had resigned the crown, landed in Portugal and attacked Miguel.

President Jackson opposed "wild cat" banks, and vetoed bill for a renewal of the charter of the United States Bank at Philadelphia. Nullification in South Carolina, and the Federal tariff laws repudiated. Calhoun resigned as Vice-President and was immediately elected United States Senator from South Carolina. Jackson sent troops to Charleston to collect the Federal revenues. Renewed trouble with the Seminoles, on an attempt being made to remove them from Florida. The Sacs and Foxes also rose in Wisconsin, but were defeated.

Egyptians, under Mehemet Ali, invaded Turkish territory and defeated the Turks. Repressive measures in Germany against the press and political meetings. The actions of Papal soldiers caused renewed disturbances in Italy; Austria sent troops again, and France landed a force at Ancona to check Austria.

The Chartist movement in England assumed a definite organized form; Lord Grey's ministry resigned; insistent demands for reform; rioters tried, and several condemned to death; King William attacked by a mob; the Duke of Wellington insulted; Wellington tried to form a new ministry, failed, and Lord Grey was recalled; twenty new peers were created, and the Reform Bill was finally forced through the Lords.

Sir Walter Scott, Goethe, Duke of Reichstadt, son of Napoleon; Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence; Georges Cuvier, naturalist; Sir James Mackintosh, philosopher, and George Crabbe, poet, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1833

Opposition to the abolitionist movement bitter in America. Northern travelers in the South subjected to violence; antislavery meetings broken up; office of Berry's _Philanthropist_, at Cincinnati, and Lovejoy's _Observer_, at Alton, Illinois, destroyed. Wendell Phillips became a leader of the antislavery movement. Nullification ordinance in South Carolina repealed; on the other hand, Congress adopted the Compromise Tariff, reducing duties on imports.

In Portugal, Dom Miguel was driven from Lisbon, and his navy destroyed by Dom Pedro's fleet, commanded by Sir Charles Napier. Civil war also arose in Spain, Don Carlos claiming the throne upon the death of Ferdinand VII. Peace treaty between Turkey and Egypt; Russia obtained concessions from Turkey by the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, and thereby aroused the opposition of other European powers. Tractarian movement in England. A Quaker was admitted to Parliament on affirmation, but a bill to relieve Jews of civil disabilities was thrown out. Slavery abolished in all British territory, twenty million pounds being voted as reimbursement to slave-owning planters in the colonies. On this bill Gladstone made his maiden speech, defending his father's record as a slaveholder.

The "Young Italy" party active; Mazzini exiled. German states continued to use stringent methods for stamping out radicalism. Polish refugees expelled from Germany, and many come to America.

Electromagnetic telegraph set up at Göttingen, Germany. Legendre, French mathematician; William Wilberforce, English statesman; John Randolph of Roanoke; Edmund Kean, English actor, and Hannah More, English author, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Isabella succeeded Ferdinand VII as ruler of Spain.=

1834

South Carolina Railroad built from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hamburg, South Carolina, a distance of one hundred and thirty-four miles--the longest line then in existence. Indian Territory set apart, and several tribes transferred to it. Jackson censured by Congress for removing government deposits from the United States Bank; specie payments resumed after thirty years' suspension. Abolitionist movement gained in strength, and bitter debates resulted in Congress.

China took from the British East India Company its monopoly of the opium trade; British ships on the Canton River fired on. Trade-union strikes general throughout England. The Houses of Parliament almost totally destroyed by fire. Violence and labor troubles in France. Civil disorders continued in Spain and Portugal; but the strife in the latter country was ended by the submission of Dom Miguel on May 22. In Spain the cause of Don Carlos was maintained by Zumalacarregui, a guerrilla chieftain of Navarre.

Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English authors; Joseph Jacquard, inventor of the Jacquard loom; the Marquis de Lafayette; Schleiermacher, German theologian; Thomas Robert Malthus, English economist; Thomas Stothard, English artist, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1835