In 1846, an invention was made by Elias Howe, that does not belong at all in the same category as that of the pneumatic tire, because it was utilized almost immediately. This is usually spoken of as the sewing-machine; but the essence of the invention was not a machine, but merely an instrument; for it consisted of a needle in which the eye was near the point, instead of at the other end, as in existing needles. The machine afterwards produced was merely an obvious means for using the new kind of needle. The invention of the sewing-machine was one rich in influence on subsequent progress; and all the story connected with it is interesting in many ways. But the most wonderful fact connected with the invention is that it was not made before! Many inventions have not been made because the conditions at the time did not demand them, or make their successful utilization possible: and yet some inventions, like the Voltaic arc, were made despite the unfavorable conditions. But what conditions were unfavorable to the utilization of Howe's sewing-machine, even as far back in history as the days when the pyramids were built? The Howe sewing-machine was not so complicated an apparatus as the ballista, or the chariot, used by the Assyrians and the other nations in the "fertile crescent," that curved from Alexandria to Babylon; and it was much easier and cheaper to make. Its construction required immeasurably less scientific knowledge and carefulness than the printing press, the gun, the telescope and the microscope, and a score of appliances that had preceded it by several centuries. Why was the sewing-machine not invented before? Why, why? This question continually presents itself to the mind, when certain simple inventions appear, that (so far as we can see) could have been invented and ought to have been invented, long before. In 1846, the printing-telegraph was invented by House. No such question as that just discussed is presented to our minds by this invention, because we realize that it could not have been invented before some means of generating continuous electric currents had been invented. The printing-telegraph was not an invention of the same order of influence as the sewing-machine; but it has assisted the work of the telegraph in supplying news, especially in reports of stock fluctuations.