832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



has a fine literaiy flavor about it, and suggests either Shelley or the 

 reputed author of Aytoun's " Firmilian," according to the taste and 

 fancy of the reader, had been sent, as the heir of the house, to Cam- 

 bridge, and having there acquired the habit of literature, took to jour- 

 nalism and other reprehensible pursuits, and sank at last into a con- 

 firmed scribbler. The world at large always said that Percy was a 

 very clever fellow, while that man James had absolutely nothing at 

 all in him. His entire interest was absorbed in the tea-trade. We 

 who knew them both well, however, could clearly discern that the 

 mere difference of position and education masked in James the very 

 characteristics that were plainly developed and abnormally nurtured 

 in his brother Percy. And Percy often said to me in confidence, 

 after eleven o'clock at night, as we sat together over our glass of 

 whisky-toddy, "If James had only been sent to Cambridge, he'd 

 have been a deal cleverer fellow than I am." It may have been rude 

 of me, but I always agreed myself with Percy. — Cornhill Magazine. 



SKETCH OF DAYID AMES WELLS. 



DAVID AMES WELLS has long been the representative econo- 

 mist of the United States, and a thinker whose vast information, 

 fearlessness, and thoroughly judicial mind, have won him fame among 

 economists the world over. lie has proved his ability and sagacity in 

 the successful management of large business interests. While most 

 economic teachers have been confined to class-room and text-book, it 

 has been his exceptional good fortune to practically apply his science 

 to the reform of fiscal errors. Since vacating his high oflice under 

 the Federal Government, he has exerted wide and growing influence 

 upon the legislators of the nation. 



Mr. Wells was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, June 17, 1828, 

 and is a lineal descendant on the father's side of Thomas Welles, 

 Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, 1655-1658, and on the 

 mother's side of David Ames, who, under Washington, built and 

 established the National Armory at Springfield. He and his brother 

 Oliver were the founders and progenitors of the well-known manu- 

 facturing and railroad-building family of Massachusetts. After gradu- 

 uating at Williams College in 1847, and writing and publishing his 

 first book, entitled " Sketches of Williams College " David Ames 

 Wells was for a time (1848) an assistant editor with the late Samuel 

 Bowles of the Springfield " Republican." While thus employed, Mr. 

 Wells suggested the idea, and was associated in the invention, of 

 folding newspapers and books by machinery in connection with power 

 printing-presses ; and the first machine ever constructed and success- 



