Edison, His Life and Inventions [170]
Edison Electric Light Company asking them if they would not like to pay me this money, as it was spent when I was very hard up and made the company a success, and was the foundation of their present prosperity. They said they `were sorry'--that is, `Wall Street sorry'-- and refused to pay it. This shows what a nice, genial, generous lot of people they have over in Wall Street.
"Chinnock had a great deal of trouble getting the customers straightened out. I remember one man who had a saloon on Nassau Street. He had had his lights burning for two or three months. It was in June, and Chinnock put in a bill for $20; July for $20; August about $28; September about $35. Of course the nights were getting longer. October about $40; November about $45. Then the man called Chinnock up. He said: `I want to see you about my electric-light bill.' Chinnock went up to see him. He said: `Are you the manager of this electric-light plant?' Chinnock said: `I have the honor.' `Well,' he said, my bill has gone from $20 up to $28, $35, $45. I want you to understand, young fellow, that my limit is $60.'
"After Chinnock had had all this trouble due to the incompetency of the previous superintendent, a man came in and said to him: `Did Mr. Blank have charge of this station?' `Yes.' `Did he know anything about running a station like this?' Chinnock said: `Does he KNOW anything about running a station like this? No, sir. He doesn't even suspect anything.'
"One day Chinnock came to me and said: `I have a new customer.' I said: `What is it?' He said: `I have a fellow who is going to take two hundred and fifty lights.' I said: `What for?' `He has a place down here in a top loft, and has got two hundred and fifty barrels of "rotgut" whiskey. He puts a light down in the barrel and lights it up, and it ages the whiskey.' I met Chinnock several weeks after, and said: `How is the whiskey man getting along?' `It's all right; he is paying his bill. It fixes the whiskey and takes the shudder right out of it.' Somebody went and took out a patent on this idea later.
"In the second year we put the Stock Exchange on the circuits of the station, but were very fearful that there would be a combination of heavy demand and a dark day, and that there would be an overloaded station. We had an index like a steam-gauge, called an ampere-meter, to indicate the amount of current going out. I was up at 65 Fifth Avenue one afternoon. A sudden black cloud came up, and I telephoned to Chinnock and asked him about the load. He said: `We are up to the muzzle, and everything is running all right.' By-and-by it became so thick we could not see across the street. I telephoned again, and felt something would happen, but fortunately it did not. I said to Chinnock: `How is it now?' He replied: `Everything is red-hot, and the ampere- meter has made seventeen revolutions.' "
In 1883 no such fittings as "fixture insulators" were known. It was the common practice to twine the electric wires around the disused gas-fixtures, fasten them with tape or string, and connect them to lamp- sockets screwed into attachments under the gas- burners--elaborated later into what was known as the "combination fixture." As a result it was no uncommon thing to see bright sparks snapping between the chandelier and the lighting wires during a sharp thunder-storm. A startling manifestation of this kind happened at Sunbury, when the vivid display drove nervous guests of the hotel out into the street, and the providential storm led Mr. Luther Stieringer to invent the "insulating joint." This separated the two lighting systems thoroughly, went into immediate service, and is universally used to-day.
Returning to the more specific subject of pioneer plants of importance, that at Brockton must be considered for a moment, chiefly for the reason that the city was the first in the world to possess an Edison station distributing current through an underground three-wire network of conductors--the essentially modern contemporaneous practice, standard twenty- five years later. It was proposed to employ pole-line
"Chinnock had a great deal of trouble getting the customers straightened out. I remember one man who had a saloon on Nassau Street. He had had his lights burning for two or three months. It was in June, and Chinnock put in a bill for $20; July for $20; August about $28; September about $35. Of course the nights were getting longer. October about $40; November about $45. Then the man called Chinnock up. He said: `I want to see you about my electric-light bill.' Chinnock went up to see him. He said: `Are you the manager of this electric-light plant?' Chinnock said: `I have the honor.' `Well,' he said, my bill has gone from $20 up to $28, $35, $45. I want you to understand, young fellow, that my limit is $60.'
"After Chinnock had had all this trouble due to the incompetency of the previous superintendent, a man came in and said to him: `Did Mr. Blank have charge of this station?' `Yes.' `Did he know anything about running a station like this?' Chinnock said: `Does he KNOW anything about running a station like this? No, sir. He doesn't even suspect anything.'
"One day Chinnock came to me and said: `I have a new customer.' I said: `What is it?' He said: `I have a fellow who is going to take two hundred and fifty lights.' I said: `What for?' `He has a place down here in a top loft, and has got two hundred and fifty barrels of "rotgut" whiskey. He puts a light down in the barrel and lights it up, and it ages the whiskey.' I met Chinnock several weeks after, and said: `How is the whiskey man getting along?' `It's all right; he is paying his bill. It fixes the whiskey and takes the shudder right out of it.' Somebody went and took out a patent on this idea later.
"In the second year we put the Stock Exchange on the circuits of the station, but were very fearful that there would be a combination of heavy demand and a dark day, and that there would be an overloaded station. We had an index like a steam-gauge, called an ampere-meter, to indicate the amount of current going out. I was up at 65 Fifth Avenue one afternoon. A sudden black cloud came up, and I telephoned to Chinnock and asked him about the load. He said: `We are up to the muzzle, and everything is running all right.' By-and-by it became so thick we could not see across the street. I telephoned again, and felt something would happen, but fortunately it did not. I said to Chinnock: `How is it now?' He replied: `Everything is red-hot, and the ampere- meter has made seventeen revolutions.' "
In 1883 no such fittings as "fixture insulators" were known. It was the common practice to twine the electric wires around the disused gas-fixtures, fasten them with tape or string, and connect them to lamp- sockets screwed into attachments under the gas- burners--elaborated later into what was known as the "combination fixture." As a result it was no uncommon thing to see bright sparks snapping between the chandelier and the lighting wires during a sharp thunder-storm. A startling manifestation of this kind happened at Sunbury, when the vivid display drove nervous guests of the hotel out into the street, and the providential storm led Mr. Luther Stieringer to invent the "insulating joint." This separated the two lighting systems thoroughly, went into immediate service, and is universally used to-day.
Returning to the more specific subject of pioneer plants of importance, that at Brockton must be considered for a moment, chiefly for the reason that the city was the first in the world to possess an Edison station distributing current through an underground three-wire network of conductors--the essentially modern contemporaneous practice, standard twenty- five years later. It was proposed to employ pole-line