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Show Honor Comes Too Late to Interest Inventor If there was ever an unfortunate inventor in-ventor it was old Jim Fitch, the genius of Philadelphia, who plied the Delaware river in a steamboat of his own design and construction 22 years before the Fulton effort on the Hudson. Hud-son. Fitch spent years in working out his idea and did it with a considerable consider-able degree of success, but he was a very humble member of society, given to minor spells of self-indulgence, so that he was never taken seriously by anyone and no hand was raised to help him. On the contrary he met with opposition and misfortune. One blow after another fell upon his shoulders shoul-ders and finally he gave up and wandered wan-dered south, where he lived a while and then died and was buried there. The story ef his setback is a long one. The only recognition that he ever received re-ceived Is about to be bestowed upon him In the shape of a celebration by his descendants which will be held at an early date, but It is a little too late to be of any interest to old Jim Fitch. Washington Star. |