ton there are several colored men who
have made inventions of more or less importance which were suggested by
the mechanical problems arising in their daily occupations.

Mr. Shelby J. Davidson, of Kentucky, a clerk in the office of the
Auditor for the Post Office Department, operated a machine for
tabulating and totalizing the quarterly accounts which were
regularly submitted by the postmasters of the country. Mr.
Davidson's attention was first directed to the loss in time through
the necessity for periodically stopping to manually dispose of the
paper coming from the machine. He invented a rewind device which
served as an attachment for automatically taking up the paper as it
issued from the machine, and adapted it for use again on the reverse
side, thus effecting a very considerable economy of time and
material. His main invention, however, was a novel attachment for
adding machines which was designed to automatically include the
government fee, as well as the amount sent, when totalizing the
money orders in the reports submitted by postmasters. This was a
distinct improvement in the efficiency and value of the machine he
was operating and the government granted him patents on both
inventions. His talents were recognized not only by the office in
which he was employed by promotion in rank and pay, but also in a
very significant way by the large factory which turned out the
adding machines the government was using. Mr. Davidson has since
resigned his position and is now engaged in the practice of the law
in Washington, D.C.

[Illustration: ROBERT A. PELHAM.]

Mr. Robert Pelham, of Detroit, is similarly employed in the Census
Bureau, where his duties include the compilation of groups of statistics
on sheets from data sent into the office from the thousands of
manufacturers of the country. Unlike most of the other men in the
departmental service, Mr. Pelham seemed anxious to get through with his
job quickly, for he devised a machine used as an adjunct in tabulating
the statistics from the manufacturers' schedules in a way that displaced
a dozen men in a given quantity of work, doing the work economically,
speedily and with faultless precision, when operated under Mr. Pelham's
skilful direction. Mr. Pelham has also been granted a patent for his
invention, and the proved efficiency of his devices induced the United
States government to lease them from him, paying him a royalty for their
use, in addition to his salary