It was put on the market with real Yankee ingenuity. Some of us remember when Waterbury watches were given away with suits of clothes, and the pride with which, as youngsters, we exhibited our first watches thus obtained to our playmates who were less fortunate. The nine-foot mainspring required unlimited winding, which was one of its chief joys, and our friends often solicited the privilege of helping in the operation. Some of the more ingenious among us held the corrugated stem against the side of a fence and made the watch wind itself by running along the fence's length, while other children looked on enviously. In spite of the disadvantage of the time necessary for winding, perhaps in part because of it, the Waterbury watch became famous the world over and reached a very large sale for its day. It was more or less of a freak contrivance. People spoke of it with a smile. Minstrels opened their performances by saying, "We come from Waterbury, the land of eternal spring"; and there is a story of a Waterbury owner in a sleeping-car, winding until his arm ached and then passing it to a total stranger, saying, "Here, you wind this for a while," with the result that the stranger placed a large order for Waterbury watches to be sold by his agency in China. At the time that the Waterbury watch was well established, the world had advanced to a point fairly approximating the life of to-day. All the marvels of invention which had lifted so much of the earth's manual labor from the shoulders of mankind and which had been expected to shorten working-hours and to cheapen products until the standards of living of all classes would be raised through the possession of beneficial products inexpensively produced—these had gone far toward establishing the factory system. Machinery had come into vogue in place of hand labor. The steam-engine, the sewing-machine, the railway, the steamboat, the cotton-gin, the threshing-machine and the harvester, were indispensable aids. Photography and typewriting were novelties no longer, and the phonograph was becoming familiar. Electricity had taken its place as one of man's most valuable servants, able to transmit his messages, furnish him with power, and turn his night into day. These are but a few of the countless improvements that had contributed to the rapid rise of this country as a manufacturing nation instead of one chiefly agricultural. Millions had already found employment in the factories, the transportation systems, and other collective-labor establishments. Schools had multiplied throughout the country. Trains, for the most part, were run on schedule time. Business offices, accompanying the development of the great industrial concerns, employed thousands. The department store was beginning to appear. Public-utility organizations and government departments were growing complex and extensive.