ssion to
opinions that he considered sound and useful.

Mr. Burns was born in London in 1826. The family moved soon after to
Dundee, Scotland, and came to New York in 1844. They were people of
small means and independent thinking. The father, William G. Burns, had
been more interested in the Chartist social movement than in any settled
business activity. An uncle, also named Jabez Burns, became a popular
Baptist preacher in London.

The first winter in America found youthful Jabez teaching a country
school at Summit, N.J. Then he began in New York (1844-45) as teamster
for Henry Blair, a prosperous coffee merchant who attended a little
"Disciples" church in lower Sixth Avenue where many Scottish families
congregated. There also Burns met Agnes Brown, daughter of a Paisley
weaver, and married her in 1847. A brave young pair they were, who found
all sorts of odd riches--just as if a fast-growing family could somehow
make up for a slow-growing income. There were hopes, too, that the
contrivances Burns kept inventing might bring wealth; and some extra
money did come from the sale of early patents, including one in 1858 for
the Burns Addometer, a primitive adding machine.

But Mr. Burns had continued regularly in the employ of coffee and spice
firms, and at one time he was bookkeeper for Thomas Reid's Globe Mills.
He advanced slowly, because he lacked real trading talent; but he was
learning all about the handling of goods, from purchase to final
delivery; and when he quit bookkeeping for the old Globe Mills, and
began to build his patent roaster, he could advise clients reliably
about every factory detail.

He was soon looked on as an authority. He wrote some articles for the
_American Grocer_, a series on "Food Adulteration" being reprinted; and
in 1878, he began the quarterly publication of his thirty-two-page
_Spice Mill_, which soon became a monthly, and gained the interested
attention of practically the entire coffee and spice trade.

Through the columns of this paper, in circulars, by letters, and in a
pocket volume called the _Spice Mill Companion_, he distributed
information on coffee, spices, and baking powder, and gave valuable
advice to beginners in the coffee-roasting business. Not a few coffee
roasters were started on the way to fortune by the counsel of Jabez
Burns. He died in New York, September 16, 1888.

Jabez Burns founded the business of Jabez Burns & Sons in 1864,
beginning the manufacture of his