Unappreciated genius is a very common thing, but if in despair the possessor seeks comfort from drink, then tragedy more often than comedy ensues. A man about fifty-five years of age was picked up on London Fields with his throat cut, a razor in his hand, and his breath smelling strongly of spirits. The police considered it a case of attempted suicide, for he was not dead. After detention at the hospital, he was charged, so I made his acquaintance. After the law had done with him, I made friends with him, hoping to help and cheer him a bit, for he was quite friendless--his wife dead and no children. I found him a most intelligent and clever man. He had been a commercial traveller in a good way of business. He owned frankly to me that when a traveller he drank heavily, but strenuously denied that drink was the cause of his present position, though he admitted that, when under the influence of drink, years ago, he had been attacked and robbed of a large sum of money, and received at the time severe injuries to his head. He was of a mechanical turn of mind, and for more than thirty years he had been working at a problem that approached perpetual motion, which, he said, was absurd. He lived in a very poor neighbourhood, and had a small room in a miserable house. In his room were a very small truckle-bed, one chair and table, and a little lathe. The rest of the room was covered with models of his machinery, some finished, some in course of construction, while the walls were covered with drawings and designs. After the death of his wife, he determined to give up his calling, and go in for mechanics altogether, and this was the result--disappointment, poverty, starvation, and would-be suicide.
I gave him a suit of clothes, of which he stood in sore need, sent him for a short holiday to recruit his health, and then induced him to do some travelling on commission in the timber trade. This he did for a short time, but his heart and his thoughts were ever on his models. I have sat by him in his little room, and have seen him glow with excitement and become as one inspired as he expatiated on his invention, which, he contended, would, if properly utilized, dispense with steam and electricity as motive powers, do away with horses in trams and cabs, work the sewing-machine for the tired woman and the knife-cleaning machine for the hotel porter, while cyclists might adopt it to carry them over hill and dale; the possibilities were infinite.
