19
IV. Unhappy are they who die with their shoes on. Wm. Mesny."
Virtually the last item in the final volume of the Miscellany was an acknowledgement of the receipt of No 4 Volume 1 of the Shanghai monthly magazine The Far East. Mesny heartily commended the work to Sinologues, wished Editor Fink every success and then added ‘and wish we could follow his good example in the matter of illustrating Mesny's Miscellany.' This again highlighted the shoe string on which the Miscellany had been published.
Mesny wrote in 1895 on his use of pawnbrokers. It was an aside that having lost the ticket for some gold ornaments pawned by him in Shanghai he had obtained surrender of the articles by giving a description of them and an acknowledgement, backed by two local shopkeepers, as security for his assertion. This was his only reference to his use of pawning to raise ready cash.
Having been deprived of half of his property when he was legally separated from his wife in his late sixties he appears to have drifted into a menial job, probably paying a nominal salary, which kept him going until he died. There has been no indication that he was supported by either his son or daughter, nor for that matter whether they kept in touch with him.
Apart from two specific instances of inventions, one which he failed to patent, but described in his Miscellanies, he implied that he had been the inventor of a number of items as well as having a fertile imagination for schemes to aid both China and his pocket. There is no doubt whatsoever about his ability to improvise and modify equipment when required but nothing specific appears to have been created and marketed by him and been a resounding success. If it had been so we would have been told about it and not just once. The invention he failed to patent and which he claimed was taken up by an American firm was a cartridge extractor for horse pistols. He explained that he had had enormous difficulties with the pair he had used in action as the spent cartridges remained within the chamber and had had to be pushed out with, amongst other things, a chopstick. The other invention which he patented in both England and France in 1878 and manufactured one gross of was a ship's life jacket-cum-pillow. We hear no more about it.
19
IV. Unhappy are they who die with their shoes on. Wm. Mesny."
Virtually the last item in the final volume of the Miscellany was an acknowledgement of the receipt of No 4 Volume 1 of the Shanghai monthly magazine The Far East. Mesny heartily commended the work to Sinologues, wished Editor Fink every success and then added ‘and wish we could follow his good example in the matter of illustrating Mesny's Miscellany.' This again highlighted the shoe string on which the Miscellany had been published.
Mesny wrote in 1895 on his use of pawnbrokers. It was an aside that having lost the ticket for some gold ornaments pawned by him in Shanghai he had obtained surrender of the articles by giving a description of them and an acknowledgement, backed by two local shopkeepers, as security for his assertion. This was his only reference to his use of pawning to raise ready cash.
Having been deprived of half of his property when he was legally separated from his wife in his late sixties he appears to have drifted into a menial job, probably paying a nominal salary, which kept him going until he died. There has been no indication that he was supported by either his son or daughter, nor for that matter whether they kept in touch with him.
Apart from two specific instances of inventions, one which he failed to patent, but described in his Miscellanies, he implied that he had been the inventor of a number of items as well as having a fertile imagination for schemes to aid both China and his pocket. There is no doubt whatsover about his ability to improvise and modify equipment when required but nothing specific appears to have been created and marketed by him and been a resounding success. If it had been so we would have been told about it and not just once. The invention he failed to patent and which he claimed was taken up by an American firm was a cartridge extractor for horse pistols. He explained that he had had enormous difficulties with the pair he had used in action as the spent cartridges remained within the chamber and had had to be pushed out with, amongst other things, a chopstick. The other invention which he patented in both England and France in 1878 and manufactured one gross of was a ship's life jacket- cum-pillow. We hear no more about it.
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