TONAWANDA special to New York World: This town has been in a flutter of excitement all the week over a wonderful mechanical man which has been walking the streets each evening with the grace and ease of a human.
    Philip Perew, of this city, is the inventor of the latest novel mechanical device. It is made of wood, steel and brass, and viewed from a rod or two away it is almost impossible to distinguish it from flesh and blood.
    The first successful appearance of the dummy was made on the streets of Tonawanda last Monday evening, and since then it has walked up and down the pavement nightly.
    It was about a year ago that Mr. Perew conceived the idea of inventing a wooden man. He was possessed of ingenuity and necessary capital to carry out his plans. A shop was built expressly for the purpose and tilled with material to be used in the construction of his wooden wonder. After securing the services of M. S. Loucks, a master mechanic and experienced engineer, the work was immediately begun. Perew drew the plans and Loucks did the rest. In about six weeks man was finished and ready to appear before the public. It appeared, but was a failure. The Joints were stiff and the legs swung backward end forward as though they were working on a hinge joint instead of a ball and socket. Everybody laughed and winked at his neighbor, saying:
    “What did I tell you?”
    But Perew was not discouraged. He took the dummy back into the shop and smashed it to pieces. Then he began the work all over. His efforts seem to have been crowned with success at last. The new man is six feet high, very stout, wears number ten shoes and a smart cutaway suit of clothes. In the shirt front a small incandescent light glitters, having the appearance of an immense diamond. The figure draws, or appears to draw, a heavy steel carriage, in which is stationed an electric battery which furnishes light for seven incandescent lamps including the diamond In the shirt front.
    A gasoline engine of three and a half horse-power is also fixed within the covered carriage. Around this engine winds a network of wires and steel rods connecting with the mechanism in the interior of the man. At the rear of the carriage is an elevated seat for the engineer. A speed of about ten miles an hour can be attained. As the mechanical man walks or trots up and down the street the spectacle attracts a crowd.
    Perew Is Jubilant over his success, “This, without doubt, is my greatest invention,” he said. “The merry-go-round is not to he compared with the wooden man. I have spent over a year of hard labor and $5,000 on this machine, but I feel amply repaid when I think of what a big hit it will make.
    “How am I going to get my money back? Well, there has been a stock company organized and a number of outside capitalists are interested. We will place the machines on exhibition at fairs. We can use the wooden man in a thousand and one different ways to earn money.”

From—Lewiston Teller. (Lewiston, North Idaho), 27 Aug. 1896. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.