THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 213 



Analysis," tried some experiments in chemistry. An ingenious 

 youth, he seems to have been peculiarly wide-awake in every 

 direction. 



His next original venture was the starting of a newspaper, 

 printed in the train, and subscribed for by baggage-men and 

 brakesmen. His mode of printing was certainly simple 

 enough ; he pressed the sheets on the type with his hands ; this 

 type he had purchased from the Detroit Free Press office, 

 and there also, in some fashion or other, he had at spare 

 moments picked up what he knew of type-setting. The 

 Grand Trunk Herald^ as his newspaper was named, would no 

 doubt be in demand on his train. During the war he telegraphed 

 his headlines to the country stations in advance. In addition 

 to his acquisitions in practical matters, his reading tastes were 

 diligently cultivated; indeed, he seriously set himself to the 

 task of reading through the public library of Detroit. Happily 

 for his future usefulness, this feat was an impossibility, although 

 he made considerable progress in a shelf of dry and probably 

 dusty volumes. It was not all progi^ess with our lively youth, 

 however. Through some accident, in his absence, among his 

 bottles, the baggage waggon took fire, and the chemist's 

 laboratory was ignominiously turned out by an enraged 

 conductor, who finished up by thrashing the chemist At 

 another time he was made award of the responsibilities of 

 editorship, by being thrown into the river by an aggrieved 

 individual, who had been too personally attacked in another 

 paper with which he was connected, named Paul Pry. We 

 imagine he must have cost his parents some perturbation about 

 this time, as he developed a mania for telegraphy, encircling 

 his father's house 'vvith wires. His mode of obtaining material 

 for his work was somewhat questionable — small boys, for a slight 



