SEWING-MACHINE REVOLUTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1340, 4 August 1877, Page 19

SEWING-MACHINE REVOLUTION.

EFFECTS OF THE EXPIRATION OF PATENTS

At noon on Tuesday the last important patents held by the manufacturers of sew-ing-machines expired, leaving the market open for all who wish to compete. The leading makers immediately put down their prices from 40 to 50 per cent, and the others expressed the intention of speedily following suit; §60 machines thus sell for $30, and $70 for $40. A. B. Wilson's invention, used in the fouraction, rough-surface feeder, was the most important of the expiring patents, the others being the vibratory needle and reciprocating shuttle and the rotating hook. There are perhaps a thousand patents in force and now held by the various manufacturers, but the above were the last of the "foundation patents" — the patents needful in making a first-class machine. The Singer, Wheeler & Wilson, Grover & Baker, and Howe Companies are said to have held the monopoly of the Wilson invention ever since 1850, - pooling the enormous profits of its manufacture. Little fear is expressed by the leading companies that they will suffer by the reduction in price. Their manufactories are so large and so fully equipped, and their experts are so (diligently and constantly engaged in perfecting new tools for the cheap manufacture of machines, that they are confident that they can afford prices which would ruin new and less wealthy firms. There has been recently an illustration of this in England, where the Singer Company, after striving in vain to protect its name in the courts, finally put down prices so low as to involve the imitators and counterfeiters in great difficulties."

" Newspapers forget," said [the President of the Singer Company to a Tribune reporter, "when they say it only costs $15 to make a $60 machine, that this cheapness of manufacture did not exist a year ago, and that the increased facilities which are being reached year by year cost an immense sum of money which is not taken into consideration in the computations of- cost on a single machine." " The manufacturers declare that they will profit by the reduction' of prices, as they will now make* a great deal of difference between their cash and time terms. It is hoped by them that the system of payment' in instalments will go into a speedy decay, for although time payments are profitable to them when promptly made, so large is the extent of cheating by pretending purchasers, that the system has been a greater annoyance than benefit to them. It is better, they declare, to sell for cash at the reduced price than to take all the risks and losses of time payments. This is the verdict of all the companies. The' extent of the stealing by which the companies suffer is very, large. In this city alone are 150 machines taken from the Howe Company for which not one cent has been paid, and 300 more on which only one or two months' instalments have been received. ' Some of the holders of these machines, however, are people who intended to pay, but who found hard times pressing too heavily upon them. There is Btrong evidence that many more had no honest intention at all in the matter. All the companies make the same complaint, declaring that the press and the public both misjudge them upon the obnoxious system of time payments.—New York Tribune.

Boned Leg of Mutton. — Time, quarter of an hour to the pound. A small leg of mutton, weighing about seven pounds ; some veal stuffing ; and some good gravy. Prociire a nice small leg of mutton, and remove the bone carefully ; make a good veal stuffing (to which about three ounces of ham or bacon must be added), and fill up the hole from whence the bone has been taken with it ; cover the skin over, and sow it noatly up to secure the forcemeat. Tie it round, and roast it for about three hours before a bright, clear fire. When it is done, remove the string, place it on a hot dish, and place round it some good brown gravy.

The halo which surrounds the names and reputation of great men is dissipated by intimate contact with them. It is like removing the magnifying glass through which we ordinarily review them. Our experience is so much like that of JE3op' when he visited the Delphanis, snd we may express ourselves in his identical language : " They are floating sticks, which appear large at a distance, but are nothing when brought near."