220 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[April, 



"coats," that cliildlike innocents are beguiled 

 into purchasing tliem as "perfect fits, "and can- 

 not be prevented from parading about in them, 

 to the vast amusement of an unfeeling public ! 



Does Mr. King desire us to ventilate further, 

 his attempt to make the public believe that he 

 had a patent on a then unpatented machine'? 



We believe that the decision of the United 

 States Courts on the invention of practical 

 movable comb frames, will be more satisfactory 

 to bee-keepers than volumes of controversy be- 

 tween interested parties. 



There can be nothing so significant in Mr. 

 Williams' assumed fact, that other parties began 

 to sell movable comb hives about the same time 

 with ourselves, as his ignorance of the true his- 

 tory of such hives in this country. Our hives 

 Avere largely made, used and sold by us, in the 

 spring and summer of 1852, in our native city of 

 Philadelphia. The patent was issued October 5th, 

 1852, and the first edition of our work was pub- 

 lished in May, 1853. Thousands of these hives 

 were widely disseminated years before Harbison, 

 ]\Ietcalf, or any one else, took out a patent on 

 hives using movable frames. From 1852 to 1857, 

 the invention, when not denounced by patent 

 hive-mongers as an impractical conceit, was repre- 

 sented as Jit only for amateur uses ; and only after 

 i'.s success was establish d, were other patents (in- 

 fringements if not duly licensed under that of 

 Langstrothj, brought before the public. The 

 second patent on hives using movable frames 

 was granted March blst, 1857, to Albert Kelsey ; 

 the third to Samuel Kelley, Dec. 8th, 1857; the 

 fourth to Kimball P. Kidder, April 13th, 1858 ; 

 and the fifth to Ebenezer W. Phelps, November 

 flth, 1858 ; while Mr. Harbison's did not issue 

 until January 4th, 1858 ; and Mr. Metcalf 's not 

 until July 30th, 1861. 



Need we say much more about the Berlepsch 

 declaration?* We give entire credit to the 

 Baron's statement that he made frames before 

 us, and not to Mr. Williams' that they were 

 iiientical with ours, for the Baron himself nearly 

 a year after the date of our application for a 

 patent, discredited his own invention as "a mere 

 juggle.'" 



In the supplement to his December number, the 

 Baron's declaration, with King's preface is published 

 •with a great display of bead lines. 



IMPORTANT TESTIMONY! 



The Oath or August Baron von Beklepsch — ex- 

 planation. 

 " In the April number of the American Bee Jturnal, 

 -1871, Mr. Wagner oli'ered Mr. King space in bis Jour- 

 nal for tbree montbs to come to answer the attack 

 made on bira in that number. At first Mr. King did 

 not intend to reply at all, but subsequent to bis return 

 hom Europe, be forwarded tbe following document 

 to Mr Wagner, and Mr. Waguer rctuaed to publish it, 

 shielding himself bebind tbe poor defence, "' that bis 

 ofl'er did not remain open indefinitely." Tbe most 

 obtuse observer, after reading tbe testimony contained 

 in that document, will discover tbe real reason of bis 

 declining it. At tbe request of several eminent apia- 



rians, some of whom have hitherto been advocates of 

 Mr. Langstroth's claims, and in view of tbe high 

 character of the t' stimony, we present it to tbe apia- 

 rians of America." 



Then follows the declaration. In the January 

 numl)er of the Journal, Mr. Wagner gave some 

 of his reasons for refusing to publish this decla- 

 ration. Does Mr. King think that any one of 

 ordinary intelligence can see in the Baron's de- 

 claration, a REPLY to Mr. Wagner's masterly ex- 

 jjosure of wortJilessness of the King patents f 



Mr. King makes an evident parade of what he 

 calls "the oath of the Baron," and we are told 

 that the original oath can be examined at his 

 office. We can find no proof that the Baron 

 made any oath — he merely asserts before the 

 notary public, "I have only made such state - 

 ments as I can at any time attest to under oath."* 

 There is something mysterious about this 

 second declaration procured by Mr. King to sup- 

 ply his loss of the lirst, when the first is declared 

 to have been "recorded in the Notary's books, 

 number 1643." Why subject an invalid to the 

 trouble, and himself to the expense of a second 

 [ declaration, instead of j^rocuring a certified copy 

 of the first ? What a waste was there of time 

 and money upon a document now admitted to 

 have no legal value in the suit, and which, while 

 in many ways damaging to Mr. King, show.s 

 only that the Baron used frames (but did not 

 describe them) prior to ours. Was it merely to 

 prove this, that Mr. King volunteered his ser- 

 vices as the jealous defender of the Baron's fame, 

 and scattered his declaration thick as Vallam- 

 brosa's leaves? And yet, after all this superser- 

 viceable zeal, he makes the Baron August Von 

 Berlepsch play only "second fiddle" to Major 

 Augustus Munn, Ambrose F. Moon, and per- 

 haps to some other persons as yet " the great 

 unknown." 



When he first shook his magic kaleidoscope 

 of "prior inventors," the face of Major Munn 

 loomed large across the ocean — soon after the 

 Baron's star was revealed, shining however, with 

 a more subdued light — until in a truly auspicious 

 hour, a glorious Moon rises, fidl-orljed, in our 

 Western horizon, to outshine the first, and ante- 

 date the last ! 



Neither the Baron nor the Major will, I trust, 

 take any serious offence at this good-natui-ed 

 raillery. 



When our King crossed the ocean, he proba- 

 bly appeared before each of them in turn, dis- 

 guised as another " Queen of Sheba,'" coming 

 from far-distant lands to pay homage to their 

 wisdom. He is a master hand at such entice- 

 ments. 



Would that after a hearty laugh we could stop 

 here. No one who knows us personally, or from 

 our writings for the last twenty years, will think 

 we find pleasure in exposing the faults of others. 



*We will publish this declaration in full, if any at- 

 tempt is made to prove that we have suppressed any 

 esseutial part of it. 



* When our readers learn that the Baron is suffering 

 from jiartial paralysis, and that be could only dictate 

 tbe declaration, they can readily account for its 

 inaccuracies, nor will the absence of a formal oath 

 induce tbem to believe that a man of the Baron's high 

 standing purposely misstated facta. 



