He spent
six laborious years abroad. At the Great Exhibitions of London and
Paris, he made brilliant displays of his wares, which did honor to his
country and himself, and gave an impetus to the prosperity of the men
who have grown rich upon his discoveries. At the London Exhibition, he
had a suite of three apartments, carpeted, furnished, and decorated
only with India-rubber. At Paris, he made a lavish display of
India-rubber jewelry, dressing-cases, work-boxes, picture-frames,
which attracted great attention. His reward was, a four days' sojourn
in the debtors' prison, and the cross of the Legion of Honor. The
delinquency of his American licensees procured him the former, and the
favor of the Emperor the latter.
We have seen that his introduction to India-rubber was through the
medium of a life-preserver. His last labors, also, were consecrated to
life-saving apparatus, of which he invented or suggested a great
variety. His excellent wife was reading to him one evening, in London,
an article from a review, in which it was stated that twenty persons
perished by drowning every hour.
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