_High Arm Construction_.--Sewing machines, as now constructed, exhibit a rather short and very high arm, a form of framework that has been found to contribute in no small degree to the light running capabilities of fast speed machines. While it reduces the length of the various parts concerned in the transference of the motive power, it adds to their rigidity and diminishes their weight, maintaining at the same time the capacity of the machine to accommodate the largest garments beneath the arm. But the specific improvements in plain sewing machines, to which I have had the honor of drawing your attention, do not exhaust the list, and, time permitting, it might be considerably augmented. Nor must it be inferred that advancement has taken place exclusively in those systems of sewing machinery now before us. _Accessories to Sewing Machines_.--The number of special attachments that have been successfully adapted to plain sewing machines has multiplied so rapidly of late, that only one or two of the more notable can be spoken of on this occasion. Perhaps the most generally useful of these is the trimmer, an arrangement consisting of a vibrating knife, which trims off the superfluous edge of a seam as the machine stitches it. These are in extensive use in the factories at Leicester, Nottingham, and elsewhere, while Northampton and Norwich use the same device for paring the seams in boot upper manufacture. The chisel-like knife is usually actuated by a cam rotating with the main shaft, and one or two of the usual forms of this attachment are to be seen here this evening on both lock and loop stitch machines. When machines are moved by the foot, there are many objections to running the whole machine while winding the shuttle reels. We have, therefore, several useful devices for releasing the balance wheel of the machine from the main shaft, while winding. These are to be found both on Wheeler & Wilson's manufacturing machine and upon Singer's highly finished "Family" machine, which also carries a most ingenious automatic reel winder, capable of doing all the work itself, and ceasing to act as soon as the bobbin is filled. The setting of the needle in a sewing machine was once quite a task. Ofttimes it had to be adjusted by chance, in other instances by certain guiding marks upon the needle bar. It is gratifying to know that all this has been done away with, and that the needle has only to be inserted into the bar, and fastened by turning a small screw. These are styled self-setting needles, and are usually so arranged that they cannot be adjusted wrongly as to the position of the eye.