EATON, Seymour, American author: b. Epping, Ont., 1859; d. Lansdowne, Pa., 13 March 1916. After seven years of district school teaching he became a resident of Boston. He started later in Philadelphia the Booklovers Library and the Tabard Inn enterprise. The feature of the Booldovers Library was a de livery system whereby subscribers received the latest literature at their homes. Branches were opened in American cities and in Europe, and the business increased until Mr. Eaton felt it necessary to organize a subsidiary system called the Tabard Inn Library, which permitted purchasers to get books at the regular retail price and to ex change any volume for another on payment of five cents. Mr. Eaton founded next the Book lovers Magazine, which made a specialty of the reproduction of famous paintings. Then drug gists' specialties and food preparations were taken up, and finally Tabard Inn undertook the manufacture of artistic house furnishings. Tabard Inn became a $12,000,000 corporation and sold a good deal of stock before going into the hands of a receiver in 1905. After the in surance investigation of 1906 he became secre tary of the international policyholders' com mittee, but resigned after a dispute with the committee's managers. For five years he was
director of Drexel Institute in Chicago and for four years a daily contributor to the Chicago Record. He wrote 'The Teddy Bears Musical Comedy,' Prince Domino and Muffles,' 'The Telepath' ; 'Barzillai Brown, Bachelor,' 'The Mysterious Giver,' and a series of pamphlets setting forth short cuts to business success. He was long credited with being the "creator of the famous teddy bears." The fact is that the toy bearing that name was originated in Germany by Margaret Steiff, a poor woman, who became prosperous through the success of these toys and now has factories employing 5,000 persons. When first imported here the bears were not called "teddy bears.x' That name became at tached to them a year or two later, after illus trated verses by Mr. Eaton, dealing with the adventures of the "Roosevelt Bears,'" or the "Teddy Bears" were printed in the Sunday newspapers. So apparently Mr. Eaton is to be credited with the name, but not with the figures themselves.