Mr. Robert
Stephenson, then building the tubular bridge at Montreal, was taken with
the venture, and ordered an extra edition for his own use. The London
TIMES correspondent also noticed the paper as a curiosity of journalism.
This was a foretaste of notoriety.
Unluckily, however, the boy did not keep his scientific and literary
work apart, and the smoking-car was transformed into a laboratory as
well as a printing house.
Having procured a copy of Fresenius' QUALITIVE ANALYSIS and some old
chemical gear; he proceeded to improve his leisure by making
experiments. One day, through an extra jolt of the car, a bottle of
phosphorus broke on the floor, and the car took fire. The incensed
conductor of the train, after boxing his ears, evicted him with all his
chattels.
Finding an asylum in the basement of his father's house (where he took
the precaution to label all his bottles 'poison'), he began the
publication of a new and better journal, entitled the PAUL PRY. It
boasted of several contributors and a list of regular subscribers. One
of these (Mr. J.H.B.), while smarting under what he considered a
malicious libel, met the editor one day on the brink of the St. Clair,
and taking the law into his own hands, soused him in the river.
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