Volltext Seite (XML)
8 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. through the loop made by the needle-thread, thus making a stitch by drawing it up on to one side of the cloth somewhat like Mr. Howe’s, there is no doubt. He advanced so far that he made a machine that would to a certain extent sew.” The machine made by Hunt was laid aside, destroyed, and the subject was not brought up until some years after the date of Howe’s patent. Justice Sprague further stated: “The great fact of this machine having been laid aside, as it was, is not accounted for, and is entirely inconsistent with the idea that it was a perfected or valuable machine at that time. The whole testimony leaves upon my mind no doubt that, however far Mr. Hunt advanced with his machine, it was never perfected in the sense of the patent law; that it was only an experi ment, and ended in an experiment, and was laid aside as an unsuc cessful experiment until the introduction of Mr. Howe’s machine.” Hunt did not apply for a patent until some eighteen years after his invention was made, and it would never have been considered of any value whatever had not the Howe invention and patent, and subse quent improvements by others, given new life to sewing-machinery. When considering the subject of sewing-machines, Hunt should have the credit of what he invented. In Hunt’s machine the material was suspended vertically between clamps moved automatically after each stitch. The machine could not be made to sew a seam longer than the clamp without being stopped, and the seam had to be substantially parallel with the parts of movement of the clamp. Howe’s machine was patented September 10, 1846. It employed two threads, one of which was projected through the cloth or material by an eye-pointed curved needle carried at the end of a vibrating arm. The needle used, and as improved by Howe, was grooved so as to receive and protect the thread from being broken during the rapid movement of the needle through the material. The point of this curved needle passed, with its thread, through the cloth about three- fourths of an inch, and left the thread, extending from the last stitch to the eye of the needle, stretched above the curved needle, something after the manner of a bow-string. A shuttle, with its point at one side, instead of at its centre, as usual, and having a bobbin provided with a second thread, was projected by an ordinary picker-staff (common to looms) through the space between the needle and thread, thereby leaving the shuttle-thread crossed over the needle-thread, so that, as the needle was withdrawn, the two threads were left locked together at the point where the needle perforated the fabric. A certain amount of thread was drawn from the spool containing the needle-thread before the needle penetrated the fabric, so as to afford sufficient slack thread