Century after century our needle-makers have been improving in the manufacture of this simple but effective little machine. In the complicated civilization of the present time we have an almost infinite variety of needles: the ordinary sewing needle for the making of garments; smaller needles for lace work, the hemming of delicate handkerchiefs and the seam of fine silk goods; and coarse and heavy needles for carpet sewing, bagging, and leather work. [Illustration: SEWING BY HAND.] All this relates to sewing by hand, with a single needle and one thread. It is stitch by stich, first one, then another; it is like the brook,--"it goes on forever." It is like the clock that repeats its tick tock, tick tock by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the year. Perhaps many seamstresses would not recognize the duty of blessing the man who invented the needle. The poet Hood has told this side of the story in his famous poem, "The Song of the Shirt." "With fingers weary and worn. With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sits in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread-- Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt. * * * * * Work! Work! Work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work--work--work, Till the stars shine through the roof! * * * * * Band and gusset and seam, Seam and gusset and band, Till the heart is sick, And the brain benumbed As well as the weary hand." Indeed, the time had come long ago when some ingenious device was needed by which the seamstress could sew with less wear and tear of nerve and muscle. Efforts were made in England for machine sewing nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, but they were not successful. A sewing machine was invented by Thomas Saint about one hundred years ago which had some of the features of the sewing machine of to-day. It was left, however, for American inventors to produce machines that would do the work easily and successfully; the machines themselves had such simplicity and were so nicely adapted that they were not likely to get out of repair but would remain serviceable during a long period of years. Sewing machines in large numbers were invented during the period from 1830 to 1860. As early as 1818 a sewing machine was invented by Rev. John Adams Dodge, of Vermont. He used a needle pointed at each end with the eye in the middle. This machine would make a good backstitch and sew a seam straight forward. It was not patented and did not get into use to any considerable extent. In 1832 Walter Hunt, of New York, brought out a machine which used two threads, one being carried by a shuttle and the other by a curved needle with the eye in the point. This machine also was not patented.