better than the others, for reasons duly se forth.

What are we to think of all this? In the first place, we must recognise the old and familiar tendency of all inventors and patentees, manufacturers and shopkeepers, to advertise their wares to the best advantage. And in the second place, we must admit-the more freely as we better study the subject-that sewing machines are really very beautiful examples of delicate and minute mechanism. Not one of the many kinds above named is without its marks of subtle ingenuity, its thoughtful appliances for overcoming difficulties. The mode of obtaining tension or tightening of the threads (more necessary in some modes of construction than in others) is often exceedingly elegant in a mechanical point of view. And so are the methods of feeding-off the threads from the bobbins or reels, shifting the cloth or fabric a minute distance after each stitch, holding the cloth down smooth and flat while the needle is traversing up and down through it, and preventing the unravelling of the stitches. Great, too, is the ingenuity shown in making the foottreadle action easy to work. Where the machine, as in some cases, turns-in a hem besides sewing it, the little steel fingers perform movements as scientific as they are elegant in effecting the turningin. And indeed all the mysteries of sewing, seaming, hemming, felling, basting, stitching, tucking, frilling, quilting, binding, cording, braiding-really mysteries to the one sex, but familiar as household words' to the other are brought about in one or other of the machines by admirable contrivances, most delicate combinations of little bits of polished metal. So many of the movements are automatic-so little is left for the hands to do that the sewing machine deservedly takes rank among the best specimens of petite mechanical engineering. There is not one of them-except perhaps some of the low-priced kinds, which are only humble and imperfect imitations of the rest-to which this praise can be denied.

We mentioned above the Willcox and Gibbs machine as requiring a little separate notice. It is not easy to describe these matters in words without diagrams-and even diagrams are not much in favour with ordinary folk-but the arrangement is briefly as follows. Underneath the point where the needle penetrates the cloth, there is a sort of anchor-shaped piece of steel (so small that a threepenny-piece would almost cover it) called the looper, having hooks or arms pointing in opposite directions; with a flattened spur on the stem which twists and casts off the loop. When the needle has carried a loop of thread through the cloth, the loop is caught by one hook of the looper -or, to use our simile, by one arm of the tiny anchor-and by the rotation of this looper, the loop receives a twist before it escapes from the second hook or arm. The cloth is 'fed' or moved forwards a minute space; the needle descends again, carrying a second loop with it; this second loop is caught, as the first had been, by one hook of the anchor, just in the nick of time when the rear hook leaves the first loop twisted around the preceding one. This constitutes the peculiar feature of the twistedloop or Willcox and Gibbs stitch. Ladies (as we have already ventured to say) are not very learned in mechanical matters; they are more likely to manage pleasantly a sewing machine so simple in its action, than a duplication of reels, needles, or shuttles, any want of harmony in the action of which would bring them inevitably to grief. Moreover, there are numerous little devices by which this machine beguiles labour of its tediousness. The value of the simple contrivance by which it is prevented from turning the wrong way can hardly be appreciated by one who has not used a sewingmachine without a brake. The self-adjusting device by which the needle is fastened in the proper place, exactly as it ought to be, without even looking at it, is peculiar to this machine. There are others features, inconsiderable in themselves, which, in the aggre

gate, distinguish it for family use. Wonderful is it to see this machine making, in the hands of a lady, 1000, and when worked by power, 2000, and even 3000 beautifully-regular stitches in a minute, in such a noiseless manner.*

And so it would be, in this or that particular, if we analysed any other among the principal machines. The Howe, the Thomas, the Singer, the Grover and Baker, the Wheeler and Wilson, &c.-each has some merit or other in which it eclipses the others. Pity it is that every maker claims all the virtues. The real inventors would never do this; they can understand and appreciate the mental labour and creative ingenuity of their compeers, while fairly and honestly stating what are the principal points in which they believe themselves to have excelled. The names of these real inventors, indeed, are not always known to the public; in this, as in many other departments of invention, the brainwork sometimes is done by men who have little or no share in the results.

If we were tempted to trouble the reader with what are called statistics' of sewing machines, we should have some large numbers and handsome sums to talk about. More than 300,000 sewing machines at work in the United States so far back as five years ago; one factory making 800 of them in a week, and employing 500 men in so doing; one town earning 200,000l. a year by making shirt-collars by machine; something like 2000 applications for patents, for improvements in sewing machines, in America and England; 50,000l. realised in one year in license fees by the James Watt of this department of invention (Elias Howe); 160,000 machines made by one firm in four years; 150,000 made by twelve firms in America last year;

The makers of this machine have done a very useful thing in publishing a little pamphlet which, by the aid of about twenty woodcuts, elucidates the various modes in which the fingers and the machine co-operate in producing hemming, stitching, braiding, and other kinds of work-or, in other words, What to do, and How to do it.'

VOL. XV.-NO. LXXXV.

one New York clothing firm employing 400 machines to make 10,000 shirts per week; a saving of 1,500,000l. a year in New York alone, in making men's and boys' clothing, by using machines; 5000 machines employed in one county alone in Massachusetts, in stitching boots, shoes, and gaiters-such are the busy doings talked about. One ingenious person has calculated that there are over 20,000 stitches in a good shirt; that a good hand-sewer averages thirty-five stitches per minute; that some of the machines make from two to three thousand stitches in the same space of time; and that it is hence easy to see how strong is the temptation to substitute machine-work for hand-work whenever possible. It is on record that, one day during the late American war, at three o'clock in the afternoon, an order from the War Department reached New York by telegraph for 50,000 sandbags, such as are used in field-works: by two o'clock the next afternoon the bags were made, packed, shipped, and started off southward!

Once now and then there starts up evidence that ladies occasionally tire of their sewing machine, or do not rightly understand it, or disarrange it beyond their own power of readjustment, or think another form of machine would suit them better. In that curious medley of advertisements, the 'Exchange and Mart,' we find in one number the following odd bits:-'Excelsior sewing machine wanted. Will give white Limerick lace tunic, tucker, berthe, and sleeve trimmings, Connemara marble brooch, large butterfly hair ornament with long gold cord, large old-fashioned copper urn'-a most remarkable miscellany, surely. Wanted a Wheeler and Wilson lock-stitch sewing machine, in good condition and complete. Offered, in exchange, a very handsome, large, real gold and oriental rose topaz brooch, with handsome pendant.' Whether the lady considers the brooch to be really worth more than the machine, is not stated; but such is probably her belief. Another lady wants a Cleopatra machine, for which she

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'has many things to exchange.' Another is willing to exchange a pair of Cary's globes for a hand sewing machine. Another (perhaps not a lady) will accept a Wheeler and Wilson, a Thomas, or a Singer, for a large magic lantern. One wants to sell a Whight and Mann, another a Judkin, another a Weir; and one wishes to buy a Willcox and Gibbs. I have a beautiful modern guitar, with case, in perfect order, in exchange for a good sewing machine.' These are curious peeps into domestic life.

Let not any one imbibe the false notion that, as a matter of trade, the sewing machine injures the poor hardly-paid seamstress. Precisely the reverse is the case. The sad picture painted by Thomas Hood in his Song of the Shirt' is known to have been only too true; and it is also known that, in the early days of the Crimean war, poor creatures, working for sub-sub-sub-contractors, toiled eighteen hours a day at making soldiers' coats for something like sixpence sterling-three hours' work for a penny! No such starvation pay is connected with the use of the sewing machine; there are poor seamstresses, alack! but the very poor are those who, from various causes, have not come

within reach of the machine. America has the best right to say how the sewing machine has really operated; and the Commissioner of the Census in the United States, in some apposite remarks on this subject, says: 'It' (ie. the sewing machine) has opened a way to profitable and healthful employment for thousands of industrious females, to whom the labours of the needle had become wholly unremunerative and injurious in their effects. Like all automatic powers, it has enhanced the comforts of every class, by cheapening the process of manufacture of numerous articles of prime necessity, without permanently subtracting from the average means of support of any portion of the community. It has given a positive increment to the permanent wealth of the country, by creating larger and more varied applications of capital and skill in the several branches to which it is auxiliary. The Americans take a very direct and significant way of showing their estimate of this matter, seeing that they make the teaching of the sewing machine part of the routine of education, for young ladies in the higher-class seminaries as well as for poor girls in the humbler schools.