The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1865-09-21
4 iScottish opinion Of american
ingenuity.

No people are 50 full Of ingenious lit
tie eXpedients fer saving labor and MAJ
terial as are the Americans. The force
OF circumstances has made the Yankee
a master Ill the art of eXtemporizing lit
tie 'dodgeso in mechanism. Self-help
IS the great lesson q man receives when
he sets foot IN a new country, and it is
in the invention uf helps in metal and
Wood-helps which need no wages, and
Which never strike, or tire, or grow sick,
that the American eXcels. There is
nothing cut Of Il pantomime more lu-
dicrously clever than some of the inven-
tions which haze Of late years been in
troduced into this country from the
West. The process of making common
pals by machinery is SO rapid as to baf-
file the eye, and so comically instantane-
Gus that the stranger who witnesses it
torthe first time laughs over X as most
excellent practical joke. There is a
''Whlz" OF revolving wheels, a sputter of
Ilghtshavings,a procession of little staves
chasing ore another in the air, then an
other whiz Of the collected slaves, and
the bucket is hoped and made. Scarce
ly less amusing is the little mechanical
device for pairing apples by machinery
The machine is the veriest toy-simple
and cheap--but it brings off the rind
with an almost magical delicaty, and
while 1t pares the fruit with an accuracy
winch seems to bespeak a special sense
OF touch, it slices the apple and takes out
the core at the same time. Success in
such small matters has made the Amer
lean bold. and has trained him into hab-
its enumeration. SO far from dreading
novelty, he likes novelty for its own
sake, and TO secure it he often reverses
our way Of doing things. In bis steam
boats he builds up in the cabins tier over
tier upon deck instead of below, and he
suffers the engine to work high in air
above the many stories of cabins. When
he wants to put another story to a great
building he adds the new floor at the bot
tom instead Of at the top: and be it a
bank, hotel, or huge store. he is ready at
your command either to lift the entire
block or 80 slide it on its travels to a
eligible location. In printing news
papers he builds his type upon cylinders
instead Of laying it upon the slow-work-
ing table, and he makes the machine
''pick up" and ''ta1ze OFF, its own print
ed copies with a regularity da neatness
which no number OF trained hands can
equal. His gunb0ats are floating mar
tello-towers, that can tire fore and aft as
readily as from the side. His river
steamers are amphibioas, and may 30
anywhere where it is a little damp. lie
is partial to machinery because it does
not grumble, is not impudent, is not ex-
tortionate; and hence it comes that his
crops are gathered with patent reapers
his linen Is washed with wooden hands
his COWS are MIXED by the patent COW.
mixer, his potatoes as we'll as his apples
are pared by one Of the gueerest little
steel kitchen-maids, who has no ''follow
ers' and who wastes none Of the fruit
and even his chairs, his tables, and his
cabinet-worll in general come from man
uiactories large asourcotton-mills,w where
they are turned out in parts by swift
moving Observation-Disclosures -AdrerH
scr.
Nathl b. Meade. Esq, of Winchester, is .
candidate for the Virginia State senate from
Frcdericl, county