Sc. and
destruction . . ."
A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer
in or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in
anticipating a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse
of him is lecturing on "rubber and rubber substitutes," to the
Society of Arts--he had become manager to a great plastic-substance
manufactory--and at that time, it is now known, he was a member
of the Aeronautical Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the
discussions of that body, preferring no doubt to mature his great
conception without external assistance. And within two years
of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily taking out
a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways
the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying
machine possible. The first definite statement to that effect
appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man
who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after
his long laborious secret patience seems to have been due to
a needless panic, Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack,
having made an announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as
an anticipation of his idea.
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