Patents were issued in one week to applicants from the western states for threading nuts; broom corn duster; threshing machine; school desk and seat; station indicator; binding screw; corn sheller; windmill; photograph skylight; corn husking thimble; land pulverizer; manufacture of sweet biscuit; railroad frog; dress pattern; two for plows; thread cutter for sewing machine; corn husking glove; wheel plow; bridle bit; railroad track wrench; cradle; paper file; garden hose holder; sawing machine; saw swage; scythe rifle; butter package; spring hinge; swage for forming horse shoes; automatic grain weigher; fire-place grate; potato digger; automatic gate; faucet; stock for mill-stone picks; piston valve for steam engine; car coupling; motive power; grain basket; dining table; portable fence; fishing torch; extension table; driving gear for hand car; horse collar; harrow; cross-cut saw handle; extension ladder; machine for cutting leather; bee hive; cloth measuring register; cutter for tonguing and grooving lumber; heating stove; rotary steam engine; manufacture of steel; blast furnace; compound for preventing incrustation; fruit press; fire extinguisher; two for cultivators; hub for heavy wheeled vehicles; horse-shoe attachment; egg carrier; hose pipe nozzle; cotton cultivator; shoe pegging and trimming machine; combined seed separator and drill; felloe; filter for corn-juice, oils, &c.; gate hinge; distilling of turpentine; cotton stalk knocker; automatic fan. The above comprises only a partial list of the patents issued in one week. Followed up for one year, the list of patents would swell to near 4,000; about one in twenty of which are of value, while the residue are of no value save to enable the patentee to defraud the people upon whom he imposes his patent, or to force the timid to pay him royalty. Of the immense number of patents obtained for improved churns and washing machines, but few are of any real value. The same is true of patent bridges, reapers, and mowers, of threshing machines, of seeders and planters, of fences, and almost all farming implements. So of sewing machines. Many of the patents obtained contained no new principle, discovery, or combination, but, by imposition and fraud, adventurers obtain letters patent for something in general use, for the purpose of levying blackmail, in the shape of royalty, upon those who, ignorant of any exclusive right claimed by any one, continue to use an article which has been in general use long before the letters patent were issued. But few farmers or mechanics have escaped the claims of these patent right sharpers. Rather than be at the expense of defending a suit in the United States court, they submit to the demands of the man who presents himself as the agent or assignee of the patentee demanding blackmail, well knowing that the rascal has no legal claim, but preferring to buy peace rather than to be annoyed by vexatious litigation.