Probably no organized piece of machinery has ever been so systematically exploited, so thoroughly advertised, so persistently canvassed, and so extensively sold as the sewing machine. With their main central offices, their branch offices, sub-agencies and traveling canvassers in wagons, every city, village, hamlet, and farmhouse has been actively besieged, and with the enticing system of payment by instalments there is scarcely a home too humble to be without its sewing machine. The retail price of sewing machines bears no proper relation to their cost, but this price to the consumer results from the liberal commissions to agents, and the expensive methods of canvassing. In the early days of the sewing machine its sales were chiefly for family use, but this is now no longer the case. While almost every family owns a sewing machine, it is only brought into requisition for finer and special varieties of work, since nearly all the clothing of men, women and children can now be purchased ready made, at a price much less than the cost of the material and the labor of making it up. A man to-day buys a ready-made shirt for fifty cents, which fifty years ago would have cost him $2. This has largely transferred the sphere of action of the sewing machine from the family to the factory. Great factories now make ready-made clothing for men, women and children, shirts, collars and cuffs, shoes, hats, caps, awnings, tents, sails, bags, flags, banners, corsets, gloves, pocketbooks, harness, saddlery, rubber goods, etc., and all these industries are founded upon the sewing machine, which may be seen in long rows beside the factory walls, busily supplying the demand of the world. With this transition in the sewing machine foot treadles are no longer relied on, but the machines are run by power from countershafts. This, in turn, has opened up possibilities of much higher speed and greater efficiency in the machine. Inventors have found, however, that high speed is handicapped with certain limitations. Beyond a certain speed the needle gets hot from friction, which burns off the thread and draws the temper. Cams and springs, moreover, are not positive enough in action, as the resilience of the spring does not act quickly enough, and so more positive gearings, such as eccentrics and cranks, must be employed. Despite these difficulties, however, the modern factory machine has raised the speed of the old-time sewing machine from a few hundred stitches a minute to three and four thousand stitches a minute. The United States is the home of the sewing machine, and New York City is the center of the industry, probably 90 per cent. of the sewing machine trade being managed and handled there. German manufacturers are making great efforts to compete in this field, but American machines are generally regarded as the best in the world.