POINTS ABOUT PINS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue VIII, 23 February 1895, Page 191

POINTS ABOUT PINS.

Thorns were originally used in fastening garments together. Pins did not immediately succeed thorns as fasteners, but different appliances were used, such as hooks, buckles and laces. It was the latter half of the fifteenth century before pins were used in Great Britain. When first manufactured in England the iron wire, of the proper length, was filed to a point, and the other extremity twisted into a bead. This was a slow process, and four or five hundred pins was a good day's work for an expert hand. The United States has the credit of inventing the first machine for making pins. This was in 1824. The inventor was one Lemuel Wellman Wright. Many remarkable improvements have followed, and the machines of the present day send off, as if by magic, whole streams of pins, and these fall so nicely adjusted for the papers pricked for them that two small girls can put up several thousand papers in a day.