The tests of time and actual service have been applied to the original features of both machines, and these, at least, know no favoritism. It matters not in these tests how broad or loud is the claim of any man; history may be blinded for a time, but the “survival of the fittest” is the inexorable law in useful inventions. None of the devices used by the man who claims to have “invented the sewing machine” can be found in any successful shuttle machine to-day. Thirty years of actual service have swept away every vestige of Howe’s original machine except the eye-pointed needle, invented twelve years before by Walter Hunt, and used by both Singer and Howe. Meanwhile every feature of Singer’s original machine has been adopted by every successful machine builder of the class to which these machines belonged, with the single and unimportant exception of the adjustable arm; and in nearly every case when a device of Howe’s has been found worthless, and been abandoned, it was Singer’s device which was substituted, as the foregoing table explicitly shows. In the clear light of such facts it is not difficult to understand to whom the world is really indebted for the inestimable boon of the sewing machine. CHAPTER IV. GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS. Starting with a capital of _forty dollars_, and that borrowed from another man, this poor mechanic launched upon the stormy sea of commercial life. Discouragements and disappointments met him at every turn. People had learned to look upon the Sewing Machine very much as we look upon the “Keely Motor.” Every man who pretended to have a working machine was considered an impostor. Thousands had bought machines on the faith of inventors’ statements, which they were obliged to throw aside as useless. Whoever now attempted to introduce the Sewing Machine must face all the consequences of previous failures, and this Mr. Singer quickly learned to his sorrow. Everywhere he found people unwilling to believe that a successful sewing machine had actually been built, and repeatedly he was shown to the door the moment he had stated his business. Mr. Blodgett advised him to give up manufacturing, and sell territorial rights. He said he was a tailor by trade and knew more about sewing than Singer possibly could; that the Blodgett machine had been the leading machine in the market, and he could rest assured that “sewing machines would never come into use.”