The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

188 fflSTORT OP THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES IN AMERICA.
CHAPTEE. XXXVI.
THE judge's •
FIEST BIDE.
Since this photograpli has been in the possession of
the author, he has been often asked why the engine and
train are represented in the unique and sombre style in
which they appear in profile, or black outline. To
this inquiry he will reply by informing those who are
not familiar with the facts, that, from his earliest recol-
lection, he has been gifted with a rare and peculiar
talent or faculty (entirely intuitive in him) of executing
with wonderful facility and accuracy the outlines or
form of any person or object from a single glance of the
eye, and without any machinery whatever, but with a
pair of common scissors and a piece of black paper.
This peculiar style of outline portraiture, or shaping
exact resemblances of persons or objects with black
paper, and commonly known as profiles, was invented,
according to the elder Disraeli, in 1757, in Paris, and
called by the French silhouette. In the author this
faculty was not confined to shaping the mere outlines of
persons or faces, but was extended to portraying entire
family groups, military companies, fire companies with
their engines and hose-carriages, sporting-scenes, racecourses,
and marine views, representing a harbor and
shipping. All were executed in black paper, and with a
pair of scissors. Hence, in the same style he executed the
above-mentioned likeness of the locomotive " De Witt
Clinton," with the cars and passengers, and afterward
presented the same to the Connecticut Historical Society.
This rare and peculiar faculty or gift was so strongly
developed in the author, that all objects, when once
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