vention he considered only second in value
to the discovery of vulcanization. The India-rubber shoe, as we now
have it, is an admirable article,--light, strong, elegant in shape,
with a fibrous sole that does not readily wear, cut, or slip. As the
shoe is made and joined before vulcanization, a girl can make
twenty-five pairs in a day. They are cut from the soft sheets of gum
and joined by a slight pressure of the hand. But almost every step of
this process, now so simple and easy, was patiently elaborated by
Charles Goodyear. A million and a half of pairs per annum is now the
average number made in the United States by his process, though the
business languishes somewhat from the high price of the raw materials.
The gum, which, when Goodyear began his experiments, was a drug at
five cents a pound, has recently been sold at one dollar and twenty
cents a pound, with all its impurities. Even at this high price the
annual import ranges at from four to five millions of pounds.

Poor Richard informs us that Necessity never makes a good bargain. Mr.
Goodyear was always a prey to necessity. Nor was he ever a good man of
business. He was too entirely an inventor to know how to dispose of
his inventions to advantage; and he could never feel that he had
accomplished his mission with regard to India-rubber. As soon as he
had brought his shoemaking process to the point where other men could
make it profitable, he withdrew from manufacturing, and sold rights to
manufacture for the consideration of half a cent per pair. Five cents
had been reasonable enough, and would have given him ample means to
continue his labors. Half a cent kept him subject to necessity, which
seemed to compel him to dispose of other rights at rates equally low.
Thus it happened that, when the whole India-rubber business of the
country paid him tribute, or ought to have paid it, he remained an
embarrassed man. He had, too, the usual fate of inventors, in having
to contend with the infringers of his rights,--men who owed their all
to his ingenuity and perseverance. We may judge, however, of the
rapidity with which the business grew, by the fact that, six years
after the completion of his vulcanizing process, the holders of rights
to manufacture shoes by that process deemed it worth while to employ
Daniel Webster to plead their cause, and to stimulate his mind by a
fee of twenty-five thousand dollars. It is questionable if Charles
Goodyear ever derived that amoun