Chancellor.’ I paid him, four pound, two. The Privy-Seal bill was
handed over to the Clerk of the Patents, who engrossed the
aforesaid. I paid him five pound, seventeen, and eight; at the
same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty
pound. I next paid for ‘boxes for the Patent,’ nine and sixpence.
Note. Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit for
eighteen-pence. I next paid ‘fees to the Deputy, the Lord
Chancellor’s Purse-bearer,’ two pound, two. I next paid ‘fees to
the Clerk of the Hanapar,’ seven pound, thirteen. I next paid
‘fees to the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,’ ten shillings. I next
paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one pound, eleven, and six.
Last of all, I paid ‘fees to the Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaffwax,’
ten shillings and sixpence. I had lodged at Thomas Joy’s
over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for
England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence.
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have cost me
more than three hundred pound.
Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young.
So much the worse for me you’ll say. I say the same. William
Butcher is twenty year younger than me. He knows a hundred year
more. If William Butcher had wanted to Patent an invention, he
might have been sharper than myself when hustled backwards and
forwards among all those offices, though I doubt if so patient.
Note. William being sometimes cranky, and consider porters,
messengers, and clerks.
Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was
Patenting my invention. But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a
man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do
good, he had done something wrong? How else can a man feel, when
he is met by such difficulties at every turn? All inventors taking
out a Patent MUST feel so. And look at the expense. How hard on
me, and how hard on the country if there’s any merit in me (and my
invention is took up now, I am thankful to say, and doing well), to
put me to all that expense before I can move a finger! Make the
addition yourself, and it’ll come to ninety-six pound, seven, and
eightpence. No more, and no less.
What can I say against William Butcher, about places? Look at the
Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the
Engrossing Clerk, the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of
the Patents, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the
Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and
the Deputy Chaff-wax. No man in England could get a Patent for an
Indian-rubber band, or an iron-hoop, without feeing all of them.
Some of them, over and over again. I went through thirty-five
stages. I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I ended with the
Deputy Chaff-wax. Note. I should like to see the Deputy Chaffwax.
Is it a man, or what is it?
What I had to tell, I have told. I have wrote it down. I hope
it’s plain. Not so much in the handwriting (though nothing to
boast of there), as in the sense of it. I will now conclude with
Thomas Joy. Thomas said to me, when we parted, ‘John, if the laws
of this country were as honest as they ought to be, you would have
come to London – registered an exact description and drawing of
your invention – paid half-a-crown or so for doing of it – and
therein and thereby have got your Patent.’
My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy. Further. In William
Butcher’s delivering ‘that the whole gang of Hanapers and Chaffwaxes
must be done away with, and that England has been chaffed and
waxed sufficient,’ I agree.
THE NOBLE SAVAGE
TO come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the
least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him a prodigious
nuisance, and an enormous superstition. His calling rum firewater,