1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



195 



right to manufacture and use them. If Mr. 

 Langstroth will take his hive as it is, wo would 

 not have any objection to him getting a renewal 

 of his patent. As it now stands, Mr. Langstroth 

 has received scarcely anything for his invention, 

 and is not likely to. As it now is, he may be 

 considered unfortunate in having selected such 

 a man as Otis to represent him. That man, Mr. 

 Langstroth must get rid of, or his good name 

 will suffer. We are of the mind that he has in- 

 fluenced Mr. Langstroth to make war upon bee- 

 keepers in general, and Mr. Langstroth is now 

 called upon to decide between the beekeei)ing 

 fraternity and Mr. Otis. 



If he continues to back up Mr. Otis, and to 

 endorse his procedures of enforcing war upon 

 the so-called infringers, then we intend to enter 

 the field, and will use every honorable means to 

 force both Mr. Langstroth and Otis to the wall, 

 and in doing so, we believe that we are acting 

 in the defence of right and justice." 



N. C. Mitchell. 



In publishing what he calls "the claims and 

 disclaims of the Langstroth hive," Mr. Mitchell 

 ought to have adhered strictly to tiie original 

 instead of entirely suppressing the Italics in pas- 

 sages where those Italics were manifestly in- 

 tended to direct the attention of the reader more 

 particularly to the vital points. This manifest 

 breach of good faith will prepare the reader for 

 his svibsequent misrepresentations 



"The reader will notice that Mr. Langstroth 

 claimed everything." Those who read my care- 

 ful disclaimer of the Huber, Munn, and Debeau- 

 voy hives, republished by Mr. Mitchell himself, 

 will be at no loss to see that I did not claim every- 

 thing. When Mr. M. asserts that "finding the 

 commissioner of patents would not allow the 

 claims as presented, his attorney cunningly 

 devised another plan," he was either ignorant 

 of the facts in the case, or he had referred to the 

 files of the patent office to obtain the proper in- 

 formation. If he wrote these comments upon 

 the way in which my re-issue was obtained, in 

 utter ignorance of the facts, he must be a very 

 reckless man ; and if he Avrote them after having 

 informed himself of the facts, he must have 

 strange notions of truth and honor. It is more 

 charitable to presume that the habit of making 

 wild and extravagant assertions* based only 

 on a vivid imagination has "so grown by what 

 it has fed on ;" that he has actually lost the 

 power of correct discrimination and sober state- 

 ment. 



Let me state some facts. 1 st. 1 had no attor- 

 ney, but managed my own case before tlie exam- 

 iners whose duty it is, attd not that of the com- 

 missioner, to pass upon applications for the 

 re-issue of a patent. 2d. There was only a single 

 claim objected to by the examiners, Professor 



* See, for example, in his circulars and papers the 

 repeated assertions that he could in a migle aeaaou. 

 nniltiply his colonies one hundred fold, and that he had 

 control of a patent for making artificial comb which 

 would revolutionize beekeeping, when no patent had 

 been issued for such an invention, and the plan 

 though ingenious proved a failure. 



Charles Page, now dead, and Addison M. Smith, 

 Esq. Professor Page called my attention to the 

 fact that lie had seen — I think he said in his 

 father's apiary — a shallow chamber over bars or 

 slats nailed fast, so as to have no lateral motion, 

 and that one of my claims was broad enough to 

 cover this device. I give the claim as it stood in 

 the original and the one in the re-issue, which I 

 substituted for it. 



CLAIM IN RE-ISSUE. 



The shallow chamber in combination with the 

 top bars of the latterally movable frames, or their 

 equivalents, and with the perforated honey- 

 boards upon which to place surplus honey recep- 

 tacles, substantially as and for the purposes set 

 forth. 



ORIGINAL CLAIM. 



The use of the shallow chamber or air space 

 placed over any hive having bars or slats in com- 

 bination with a perforated cover or honey-board 

 on which to place surplus receptacles of any 

 kind substantially in the manner and for the 

 purposes set forth. 



May 26, 1863. 



Within the last few months, I have seen, in a 

 French work published in 1842, the same kind 

 of shallow chamber over the fixed bars or slats, 

 mentioned by Professor Page. It is both figured 

 and described, and if Mr. King thinks that it will 

 help him advantageously to amend liis answers 

 to the suit of Mr. Otis, it will be cheerfully fur- 

 nished to his counsel. 



There are some grains of truth in the state- 

 ments of Mr. Mitchell. My disclaims are not as 

 clear to the general reader as they would have 

 been if the patent office had allowed me to retain 

 the whole of my original specification as it now 

 appears oti their files. In this specification I care- 

 fully described the features of the Huber, Munn, 

 and Debeauvoy hives, and showed in what re- 

 spects they differ from my invention. It was 

 objected to as unnecessarily minute, furnishing 

 information highly interesting to inventors of 

 bee hives, but which the office ouglit not to allow 

 on account of the expense of copying it. 



If Mr. Mitchell thinks that the court has only 

 to pass upon the Langstroth patent to cancel it, 

 why should he so bitterly complain of Mr. Otis, 

 who is striving to give them an opportunity of 

 deciding upon it? Why should he assault him 

 with such vulgar abuse? Will not the public 

 infer that if the bringing of Otis' suit against 

 King to an issue would kill my patent, that both 

 Mr. Mitchell and Mr. King would be glad to 

 have the issue met. 



In due time the beekeepers of the country 

 will have ample proof who are the parties who 

 are afraid to have the matter tested, and why 

 they have sought by indecent accusations to fore- 

 stall public opinion, so as to cripple Mr. Otis' 

 pecuniai-y resources by putting it out of his 

 power to collect money due him for territory 

 sold. They have missed their aim ; the money 

 will not be lacking, and the suit will be pushed 

 to trial. I pass over with a brief notice Mr, 

 Mitchell's long account of suits. Unfortunately 

 these suits were not in equity, the testimony was 



