Page:Heroes of the telegraph (IA cu31924031222494).djvu/78

 Moreover, the ten European powers in special congress awarded him 400,000 francs (some 80,000 dollars), as an expression of their gratitude: honorary banquets were a common thing to the man who had almost starved through his fidelity to an idea.

But beyond his emoluments as a partner in the invention, Alfred Vail had no recompense. Morse, perhaps, was somewhat jealous of acknowledging the services of his 'mechanical assistant,' as he at one time chose to regard Vail. When personal friends, knowing his services, urged Vail to insist upon their recognition, he replied, 'I am confident that Professor Morse will do me justice.' But even ten years after the death of Vail, on the occasion of a banquet given in his honour by the leading citizens of New York, Morse, alluding to his invention, said: 'In 1835, according to the concurrent testimony of many witnesses, it lisped its first accents, and automatically recorded them a few blocks only distant from the spot from which I now address you. It was a feeble child indeed, ungainly in its dress, stammering in its speech; but it had then all the distinctive features and characteristics of its present manhood. It found a friend, an efficient friend, in Mr. Alfred Vail, of New Jersey, who, with his father and brother, furnished the means to give the child a decent dress, preparatory to its' visit to the seat of Government.'

When we remember that even by this time Vail had entirely altered the system of signals, and introduced the dot-dash code, we cannot but regard this as a stinted acknowledgment of his colleague's work. But the man who conceives the central idea, and cherishes it, is apt to be niggardly in allowing merit to the assistant whose mechanical skill is able to shape and put it in practice; while, on the other hand, the assistant is sometimes inclined to attach more importance