Bates was always searching for new ideas, and he became interested in spiritualism and free love during the tumultuous 1860s. He saw these concepts as natural extensions of his anarchist leanings, and he began experimenting with them in his personal life. This led to some difficulties, both legal and personal, but Bates was never one to shy away from controversy.

In the 1870s, Bates became involved with a group of anarchists who were planning to bomb the U.S. Capitol building. He helped them design a new type of explosive that would be more effective than anything that had been used before. But when the time came to carry out the attack, Bates backed out at the last minute, feeling that it was too dangerous. The plot was uncovered and several members of the group were arrested, but Bates escaped prosecution by fleeing the country.

He eventually settled in England, where he continued to experiment with spiritualism and anarchism. He also became interested in socialism and wrote an influential book on the subject entitled "The New Salvation." In this work, which was highly controversial at the time, Bates argued that each person should be assigned a number at birth, and that this number would be their sole identifier for the rest of their lives. This would do away with the need for names, which he saw as an unnecessary and artificial division between people.

Bates's ideas were ahead of their time, and his book was largely ignored. But he continued to work on perfecting his numbering system, and in 1885 he finally patented it. The Bates Numbering System quickly became standard practice in the legal profession, and it is still in use today.

Edwin G. Bates was a man ahead of his time, an inventor and anarchist who challenged convention at every turn. His life was a fascinating and tumultuous journey, full of experimentation and controversy. He left a lasting mark on the world with his numbering system, which is still in use today, more than 100 years after it was first patented.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5195077&forum_id=2Reputation#45194614)