The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-01-01
THE ART OF NEEDLE WORK.
NEAT SEWING Is AS GREAT AN ACCOM-
PLISHMENT AS EVER.

The complaint is often made that
the art of needlework belongs to the
past; that with so many peaceful arts
of the years gone by it has been super
seded by the genii of machinery. The
secrets of Aladdin's lamp for rearing
palaces in single night are almost
within the possibilities of modern man.
The theory of many people is that all
the gentle handicrafts of old must give
way to invention, and that machinery
can do all.
Whatever progress has SO far been
made in this direction, we have not
yet arrived at the point when we can
afford to do away with the steel nee
die, which was the wonderful inven-
tion of q few centuries ago, for all the
garments of Helen of Troy, all the
gorgeous court robes Of the court Of
Charlemagne. all the beautiful gowns
of Guinevere were made with wooden
thorns. At best, they were but bast-
ed together, in Il style that a beggar
Of to-day would despise. The machine
supplements the needle, and, strange
ly enough, since the time of Elias
Howe there has been but little change
in the scope of mechine work. In
spite of the vast improvements over
the first clumsy model, there has been
no new stitch. We have nothing that
takes the place of the hand hem, moth
ing that gathers in as perfect man.
ner as the handgathers, though most
machines have some sort of an attach
ment by which an awkward kind of
gathering is accomplished. We have
no machiue stitch that can darn, or do
the over-and-over stitch so necessary
i'll the making of pillow-cases and
sheets. No neat housekenper is con-
tent to have the selvages of her pillow
case cottons sewed up in seam,
though this is the way they are manu-
factured in the shops.
The neat seamstress is as useful and
as necessary as she ever was. yet for
some reason or other there is dispo-
sition to neglect the education of girls
in the art of needlework. Charity
sewing schools, it is true, have been
started in various large cities to meet
the continued demand for expert seam
stress work. But in spite of them.
the fact remains that the expert and
capable seamstress is one of the most
independent of modern workers, and
is more secure of her work because she
has more demands on her time than
she can possibly meet. If she rises to
that height in her calling where she
unites taste with Judgment and some
business ability, she can command a
fortune as a dressmaker. This is true,
indeed, of every trade in the world,
but it is especially noteworthy in this
branch of woman's work. No inequal-
ity of pay disturbs her. No trades un
ion is necessary, for there is no little
competition for her to meet on the
highest plane in such work as hers.
The great shops contend as sharply
for their expert women as they do for
expert men, and pay them fully as
high a price. 1t is not to the higher
class of needlework, where the knowl-
edge Of the skillful cutter is united to
that of the needlewoman, that We refer
50 much as to the simple seamstress
who knows only the simple stitches
taught in the sewing school, but who
knows them thoroughly and well.
Such a worker as this: who does her
work with eXactness, can always COM
mand fair price and continual work.
There is scarcely village and no
great city where there is such a super
huity of such workers as these. What
becomes, then, of the cry of the sweat
shop and of the suffering seamstress,
of which we hear daily and hourly!
1t must be answered that these peo-
pie are not exact workers. They are
incapables, who have picked up their
calling from necessity, and not from
any genuine desire to excel in it. They
have never learned to do any work ex-
actly end thoroughly. They are mere
human machines, in the power of over
srers. because of their own incapacity.
They are not the less to be pitied, not
the less to be helped and lifted out OF
their slavery. But their woes are not
those which would assail a capable and
intelligent seamstress. The chief rea-
son of the scarcity of exact workers in
this calling is the same that applies to
all trades, those of men as we'll as
women. People do not do their work
because of love tor it or respect for it,
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