Chapter 6

In 1370 Barnabo Visconti compelled two Papal delegates to eat the bull of excommunication which they had brought him, together with its silken cords and leaden seal. As the bull was written on parchment, not paper, it was all the more difficult to digest.

A similar anecdote was related by Oelrich, in his "Dissertatio de Bibliothecarum et Librorum Fatis" (1756), of an Austrian general, who had signed a note for two thousand florins, and when it fell due compelled his creditors to eat it. The Tartars, when books fall into their possession, eat them, that they may acquire the knowledge contained in them.

A Scandinavian writer, the author of a political book, was compelled to choose between being beheaded or eating his manuscript boiled in broth.

Isaac Volmar, who wrote some spicy satires against Bernard, Duke of Saxony, was not allowed the courtesy of the kitchen, but was forced to swallow them uncooked.

Still worse was the fate of Philip Oldenburger, a jurist of great renown, who was condemned not only to eat a pamphlet of his writing, but also to be flogged during his repast, with orders that the flogging should not cease until he had swallowed the last crumb.

How They Got On In The World.

Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Through the Crucible of Small Beginnings and Won Out.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

HE "PEELED OFF HIS COAT."

Indiana Boy Obeyed Order of Merchant, and His Successful Uphill Struggle Landed Him in Senate.

James A. Hemenway, Senator from Indiana, found himself, at the age of seventeen, confronted with the problem of supporting his mother, the younger children of the family--and there were six of them--and himself. His father had just died bankrupt, every cent of money and stick of property having gone to pay the liabilities incurred by indorsing bad notes.

Young Hemenway knew what hard work meant, for he had been used always to toiling on the farm. It was difficult, however, to earn ready money in Boonville, Indiana, where he was born in 1860, and so he was forced to migrate to Iowa.

A relative living in Des Moines introduced him to the proprietor of a dry-goods store, and Hemenway was promised a place. When he reported for business next morning the manager looked him over and said:

"We've already a pretty big force of people. Do you see anything that needs to be done?"

Hemenway looked around at the disorderly arrangement of the stock-room.

"I might fix this up," he said.

"All right. I'll try you out. Peel off your coat and pitch in."

Hemenway pitched in, and for eighteen months he continued at work in the dry-goods store, sending home to Boonville every cent above his absolute expenses. His living during this time cost him on an average two dollars a week.

His next venture was on a farm in Kansas. He borrowed money enough to start in with another brother, and both put in a hard spring and summer. They had the prospect of a crop that would clear off their indebtedness and leave them something ahead for other operations. A scorching drought set in, however, blasted every stalk of grain and blade of grass on the place and left them both broke.

All that was left to them were a team of horses and a yoke of oxen, and they used these to haul meal and other provisions from Wichita out to the dwellers on the frontier.

In 1880, Hemenway returned to Boonville as poor as he was when he set out three years before. He managed to get a job in a livery stable caring for horses; then he became a shipper in a tobacco factory. He also found time to begin the study of law, and in this he was assisted by Judge George Rhinehard, a jurist of local repute.

While he was still studying law, the Republicans of his district nominated him to the office of public prosecutor. This was not done because they thought Hemenway was specially fitted for the office, but because the district was so overwhelmingly Democratic that there seemed to be no chance of his election. His name was put on just to fill out the ticket.

"You can't get it," the campaign manager told him. "So you needn't go to any bother. Some time, maybe, you'll get the nomination to something within reach."

Hemenway refused to be a dummy, and as long as he was on the ticket he thought it best to put up a fight, and he made such a stiff canvass that he not only won out, but he carried a part of his ticket into office with him. Then when he was in office he acquitted himself so well that he was reelected, and in 1895 he was elected to Congress.

Hemenway made his greatest reputation as head of the Appropriations Committee, and it was due to him that heads of departments were prevented from exceeding their appropriations. They had been in the habit of asking for a certain sum, and, when it was not granted, going ahead as though it had been, exceeding their allowance and then calling on Congress to make up the deficit. The practise had grown to dangerous limits, and Hemenway forcibly put a stop to it.

In 1905 he was elected to the Senate, and he has already begun to make himself felt in that body as a man of ability and forcefulness.

MADE TRAVEL LUXURIOUS.

Discomfort of Old-Time Railroad During a Night Ride Gave Young Inventor Idea for Sleeping-Cars.

George Mortimer Pullman, inventor of the Pullman car, was born on a farm in Chautauqua County, New York, in 1831. The family was poor, and when George was fourteen years old his mother became ill, and he was forced to leave school and go to work in a country store. He stayed there three years, and was then apprenticed to his brother in Albion, New York, to learn the cabinet-making business.

There wasn't much money to be gained, but in 1859 he had saved a few hundred dollars, and when the widening of the Erie Canal made it necessary to pull down or move the buildings along its bank he went into the business of house-moving.

He had been drawn to the work in the first place by the idea of getting the hard wood that entered into the construction of some of the buildings. This was cheap, and some of it was suitable for cabinet-making. But the profit was not great, and the field for the sale of his goods had not increased. So he turned to house-moving, and by this greatly increased the amount of money at his command.

It was at this time that he got the idea of an improved sleeping-car. One night he was riding from Buffalo to Westfield, a distance of sixty miles, and the rattling and jolting of the cars as they swung around the curves or banged over the uneven roadbed made sleep almost impossible.

At that time the bunks provided were nothing more than three tiers of shelves similar to the bunks on the canal boats. It was necessary on rounding a curve to hold on tight to keep from being spilled out on the car floor. A person could recline in such a bunk, but it would have been foolhardy to try to sleep.

The unusual roughness and discomfort of the trip set Pullman to thinking, and during the six hours occupied by the run he considered the question in various ways. Before the end of the journey was reached he had decided to build a car in which it would be possible to sleep, and which would also give passengers as much comfort as the space at command permitted.

Young Pullman was not able then to put his idea into operation, for none of the railroad officials would listen to him, and he did not have the necessary money to carry on his experiments independently. He earned the money, however, in the work he did in Chicago. The whole city was being raised so that a sewerage system could be introduced.

Before that time Chicago was on a level with Lake Michigan, and during storms the water frequently backed into the cellars, and there was not fall enough to carry waste out into the lake. The work of raising buildings or removing them was in Pullman's line, and during the few years it lasted he made money quickly.

Then he set to work to carry out his ideas about sleeping-cars. He took two old passenger coaches and refitted them, and went to the head of the Chicago and Alton Railroad and asked that they be given a trial.

"All right," said the president; "go ahead. We won't charge you for the use of the road during the trial."

The trial showed that there was a demand for more comfortable cars, but none of the roads was willing to put any money into the scheme. This necessitated more experimenting by Pullman, at his own expense, and in 1863 he built, at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars, a car that was equipped throughout according to his plans.

Pullman's First Sleeping-Car.

This first sleeping-car, the "Pioneer," embodied many of the features of the modern Pullman, but it was condemned by practically every railroad man in the country as a wild extravagance, for the ordinary sleeping-car of the time cost only four thousand dollars.

The "Pioneer" lay in the train-shed most of the time during the first year of its existence, but whenever it was used the demand for berths in it was promising.

This led James F. Joy, president of the Michigan Central, to give a half-hearted consent to experiments on his road. Pullman took every cent of money he possessed and as much money as he could borrow, and built four cars. They cost twenty-four thousand dollars each, and when Joy learned how much money had been expended on them it amazed him so much that he was on the point of ordering a discontinuance of all experiments.

Joy held up the trial for a month, and then allowed the cars to go out only on condition that each one be accompanied by an old-style car. The old cars were deserted. People preferred to pay two dollars for a berth in a Pullman car, rather than fifty or seventy-five cents for a bunk in the jolting, springless cars.

Still, the railroad men could not see the advisability of investing twenty-five thousand dollars or more--for Pullman's plans grew in expensiveness all the time--in cars, and they steadfastly turned down his requests that they give him orders to build cars and buy the cars when they were finished. This led him to determine to build the cars and rent them.

Investors did not flock to him, but he got together enough to start operations, and the five cars he already had on the rail were earning money. During the first year he did not add any new cars, but the next year he put several out, and they were a huge success--the company that year earning two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

The big roads centering in Chicago were pushing out in all directions. The transcontinental roads were open for business. The ending of the Civil War had paved the way to railroad extension in the South. All these facts gave new opportunities for Pullman's business.

In the second year the company earned still larger profits, reaching the four-hundred-thousand-dollar mark. Its income went on steadily up to a million dollars, and still on until it passed beyond twenty millions.

Before this stage was attained, however, Pullman found that his factory had outgrown its Chicago quarters, and all the surrounding land was held at prohibitive prices. He determined to break away from the city, so he went out several miles, and for eight hundred thousand dollars purchased a thirty-five-hundred-acre tract. Here he built the city of Pullman, raising the ground from the level of the prairie, so that the mistake Chicago had made would not be repeated, and planning everything on such a scale that no future changes were necessary.

For a year Pullman had four thousand men constantly employed in raising the ground, laying out streets, and building shops and residences. When they finished he was ready for the seven thousand employees engaged in building the Pullman cars.

COLT AND HIS REVOLVER.

Not Until It Had Been Used in Two Wars Was Inventor Able to Demonstrate Its Effectiveness.

Samuel Colt, whose revolver was the pioneer of all practical rapid-fire arms, was ten years old when he was taken out of school and put to work in his father's silk and woolen mill in Hartford, Connecticut. At fourteen he was doing a man's work in the dyeing department of the establishment, but he wasn't getting a man's pay, for his father did not think it worth while to pay money to a member of the family. So in 1828, when he was fourteen, Samuel Colt ran away to sea, shipping on an India merchantman.

It was on this voyage that young Colt conceived the idea and made a rough wooden model of the first revolver. He fashioned it with a jack-knife, and figured the mechanical details out on a piece of paper. On his return from sea the following year he made a rough iron model of it, but it did not work satisfactorily. His mechanical knowledge was not sufficient to enable him to remedy the defects, and he had to go back to work for his father.

The question of pay came up again, and it was settled as before by young Colt leaving and striking out on his own account. This time it was as a lecturer on chemistry, for in the dyeing department he had gained a fair idea of the subject.

Investors Were Timorous.

His lectures brought him money enough to enable him to continue his work, and in 1835 he patented his first revolver. It was a heavy, cumbersome affair, but the device whereby the various chambers were brought in line with a single barrel put it far ahead of all previous revolvers and double, triple, and quadruple barreled pistols.

The easiest part of Colt's work was the invention of the weapon. The hard part came when he organized a company and started in to manufacture fire-arms. Investors didn't care for the idea, and in 1842 the Colt Manufacturing Company suspended for lack of funds.

"I'll give you one thousand dollars for the entire rights to the thing," said a Hartford business man to Colt.

Colt took a couple of days to think it over. He did not have any money or any prospect of money, and a thousand dollars was a big temptation. However, he decided not to take it.

"It wouldn't pay me for the work I put into it," he said. "I'm going to try again."

The new attempt met with more success, for toward the end of the Seminole War in Florida the United States soldiers had begun to appreciate the effectiveness of the Colt revolver. Then the adventurers in Texas and through the Middle West came to look upon the six-shooter as the most valuable part of their outfit, and there was a sufficiently large band of these adventurers to cause a fair-sized demand. This enabled the Colt Company to struggle on until the Mexican War became certain.

Then General Taylor, who had used the Colt revolver in his Indian campaigns, recommended that the United States troops be furnished with it. The little factory in Hartford suddenly found itself confronted with an order for twenty thousand revolvers. It was necessary to work day and night to meet the demand, and while this was going on Colt enlarged his place of business in anticipation of future orders of like magnitude. They came plentifully enough during the two years of the Mexican War, for the Colt was the only small arm that played any part in that contest.

After the war, business did not fall off materially, for the great Western migration was on, and every one who made it went armed. The pioneer and the traveler depended upon the Colt in an emergency, and the workmanship was so good that the revolver itself never failed. It played a great part again in the Civil War, for most of the Northern troops, in addition to their Springfield rifles, carried Colt revolvers. Thus the idea that a runaway boy evolved during his trip to India helped to win the Mexican War, to settle the West, and to decide the Civil War.

THE FIRST EXPRESSMAN.

A Great Industry Began When a Man Decided to Carry Parcels Between Boston and New York.

William Frederick Harnden, when quite a young man, worn out by his sixteen hours a day work in the office of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, came to New York for a short rest. That was in 1839, and there were in the United States 2,818 miles of railroad, all built within the previous ten years, as against the 212,000 or more miles that exist at present. There was no express company in those days, so Harnden said to a friend, James W. Hale:

"I'm sick of working in a railroad office. Do you know, I think that I could make a living doing errands between New York and Boston for people?"

Hale took up the idea at once. He was employed in the Hudson Newsroom, at the corner of Wall and Water Streets, and one of his duties was to bring papers down to the Boston boat on its tri-weekly trips. Besides the papers, he also carried various consignments of money, or parcels from persons who could not get down to the boats themselves. These parcels were then turned over to some passenger who was willing to deliver them.

On the stage line the drivers or the passengers were the parcel deliverers, and no one ever thought of asking money for his services.

"Go ahead," Hale said to Harnden. "You can make money. I'll get you a lot of customers right here in New York."

Carpetbags First Express Cars.

Harnden bought a couple of extra large carpetbags, and announced that he was in the errand-running business, and would transport parcels between Boston and New York, or between intermediate points, at remarkably low prices.

The idea took. It was now possible to send goods with some surety of their reaching the desired point in a reasonable time, instead of waiting until some good-natured traveler or stage-driver came along and agreed to make the delivery.

Harnden prospered, for the railroads were reaching out in all directions. Instead of the stage lines that ran out of Boston there were now three railroads that did most of the business. New York's stage lines were also rapidly disappearing, their work being taken over by the railroads.

All this enabled Harnden to systematize his work, and by hiring a couple of assistants, each carrying two carpetbags, to cover the New York and southern New England district with tolerable regularity.

The railroad companies at first made no provision for the transportation of anything but passengers, but the growth of the business Harnden had established necessitated consideration, and soon a special department was reserved for the goods he was shipping. He cleared over six hundred dollars the first year of operations, and the force of men employed by him went up from one to five.

Besides the parcel delivery branch, Harnden had another that occupied much of his attention. He was engaged in sending immigrants from the Atlantic seaports to those parts of the country where they would have the best chance of making a living.

A Builder of the West.

In 1840, Harry Wells, later one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Company, was Harnden's clerk, and had been trying to persuade him to extend his operations Westward.

"That's the way people are heading," said Wells, "and you'll double your money if you follow them up."

Harnden was doubtful.

"Put people out West," he said, "and my express will follow them."

Wells persisted in pushing his idea, and it gradually took hold of Harnden. He saw a chance--a big one--of helping the new arrivals in this country, and at the same time of developing the country. He arranged for cheap transportation on the Erie Canal, and made it known that he was ready to transport immigrants to any part of the West. New arrivals in this country who had friends in Europe saw the advantages at once, and money was sent over for passage to America.

When the immigrants landed in New York, Harnden's agents took charge of them and kept them under supervision until they reached their destinations. In this way the sharper was fought off, the immigrant was given access to advantages he could not otherwise have, and the country was developed in the right direction.

It was primarily due to Harnden's foresight that the prosperous industrial cities of central and western New York, and the great cities of the Middle West, received the impetus they did during the middle of the last century.

Harnden's business prospered mightily, but death struck him down when he was only thirty-three years old. The business he started and carried on by means of two carpetbags now employs about thirty-five thousand men, and the six-hundred-dollar profits have jumped into the tens of millions, the four leading express companies of the country alone being capitalized for almost fifty million dollars.

TRIUMPHS OF A RUNAWAY.

Irish Lad Went to Sea, Developed Peru, and Became Aggressive Reform Mayor of New York.

William R. Grace, long one of the leading merchants in the United States, and Mayor of New York City in 1881 and 1882, and 1885 and 1886, ran away from home when he was fourteen. His father had a fairly good business in Dublin and intended his son to become a partner.

The son wanted to enter the British navy, and on being refused permission he shipped as cook's scullion on a vessel bound for New York. He left the ship when it reached port, and spent two years in New York, taking any work he could find, helping in the kitchens of the water-front eating-houses, acting as porter, or occasionally going on a short cruise when nothing else offered.

His father had been searching for him all this time, and when he found him he induced him to return home. A partnership was bought for him in a Liverpool firm dealing in ships' supplies, and by the time Grace was twenty-one he was well started on the road to wealth.

This did not satisfy him, for he did not like the restriction imposed upon him by such a business. He broke away from it by going to Callao, Peru, where he found employment with Brice & Co., dealers in ships' supplies. He was order solicitor for the firm, and in going around from one vessel to another in the harbor he came to know all the captains, and he increased the business to such an extent that it was necessary to take him into the firm in order to keep him.

Young Grace also profited by his dealings with the Peruvian government, for he was of great assistance to it in its foreign affairs. Peru was rapidly developing its resources and entering into closer relations with other nations.

In 1869, when he was thirty-six years old, Grace was a rich man. But tropical fever had gripped him, and the only hope of regaining health was to leave Peru. Even that hope was a scant one, but he took it, and went back to Ireland.

His health came to him slowly, and he spent a year traveling from place to place, finally landing again in New York. His old energy had returned, and after a few months he once more plunged into business, establishing the firm of W.R. Grace & Co., and engaging in trade with South America.

He also became the confidential agent of the Peruvian Government, and while acting in this capacity he armed and equipped the Peruvian army and reorganized the Peruvian navy. In 1880 he became the candidate for mayor of two factions of the Democracy--Tammany Hall and Irving Hall--and was elected by a few hundred votes. About the first thing he did was to quarrel with John Kelly, the leader of Tammany. Kelly had sent around a list of appointments he wanted Grace to make.

"Can they do the work?" the mayor asked.

Kelly looked at him in surprise.

"What difference does it make?" he asked. "They are organization men."

"The fact that they are organization men doesn't make any difference, either," said Grace. "I'm going to appoint men who know their business."

This started a quarrel between him and Tammany Hall, but he managed to carry through the reforms on which he was determined.

He put the Louisiana Lottery Company out of business in the city, by raiding their place, and when he found no one there to arrest he carted off their safe to the City Hall, and refused to give it up until the company withdrew from the city and promised to stay out.