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 THOMAS A. EDISON 165 sabsoription drculation, when the paper enjoyed its greatest fame, was five hundred copies, from which he made a clear profit of about forty-five dollars a month. Two announce- ments of his paper are of especial interest. One of them says, ^'In a few weeks each subscriber will have his name printed on his paper.'' The Weekly Herald had begun to attract considerable atten- tion, being even mentioned in the London Times, and Edison might have continued this work and eventually have become a famous editor had it not been for an accident. One day while he was engaged in making an experiment the train gave a heavy lurch upsetting a bottle of phosphorus. The woodwork of the car took fire. Just as Edison was trying to put it out, the conductor, who was a quick-tempered Scotchman, came in and when he saw what had happened he pitched young Edison out of the car onto the platform, throwing his apparatus and printing press after him. The train then proceeded, while the young editor and future inventor was left behind. He had to continue his experiments and the pubHcation of his paper in a workshop in his father's home. While a newsboy on the railroad Edison had become inter- ested in electricity, probably from visiting telegraph ofSces. He experimented with telegraph lines which had been strung up between houses, supporting the wire on trees. He learned how to send and take messages. But one day a stray cow wandering through the orchard pulled down his short poles and wires. Soon after he obtained a position where he was able to practice telegraphy as an operator. This he owed to the kindness of a station agent whose son he had saved from being killed by a train. Although he obtained several posi- tions as an operator he lost them because of his dislike for routine work and his love of reading and experimenting. Mr. Edison worked in a number of different cities, includ- ing Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Boston, as a tele- graph operator. While in Indianapolis he had invented an automatic telegraph repeater. In Boston he patented a vote recorder which was greatly praised, but which was not put to
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