The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1899-12-01

slavery OF t0II! Bui. more IMAM iHdt, Iet
there be monumental copmemoration
OF Elias Howe, the inventor Of the first
complete sewing machine. VIVA, il has
saved of sweat and tears God only can
estimate. In the making OF mems and
boys clothing in New ! ork city in one
year it. saved 81, 500, eco. and in Massa-
chusetts, in the making of boots and
shoes. in one year il saved 81, 900, COG.
Nowonderthat at some OF the learned
institutions. like the New J~erseyState
normal school, and the Rutgers female
institute, and Eimira female college.
acquaintance with the sewing machine
is a requisition, a young lady not being
considered educated until she under
stands it. Winter is coming on. and the
household must be warmly clad. THE
Last Rose Of Summer" will sound bet
ter played on a sewing machine than on
a piano. Roll on. o wheel of the sewing
machine. until the last shackled woman
of toll Shall be emancipated! Roll on.
Secondly. | look into the agricultural
world to see what the wheel has accom-
p.ished. Look at the stalks of wheat
and oats, the one bread for man. the
other bread for horses. Coat off and
with a cradle made out of five or six fin
gers of wood and one of sharp steel. the
harvester went across the field, stroke
after stroke, perspiration rolling down
forehead and cheek and chest, head
blistered by the consuming sun and lip
parched by the merciless August air,
at noon the %workmen lying half dead
under the trees. One of my most pain
full %boyhood memories is that of my
father in harvest time reeling from ex-
haustion over the doorstep, too tired to
eat, pale and fainting as he sat down.
The grain brought to the barn, the
sheaves were unbound and spread on a
thrashing floor, and two men with fails
stood opposite each other, hour after
hour and day after day, pounding the
wheat out of the stalk. Two strokes.
and then a cessation of sound. Thump.
thump, thump, thump, thump, thump!
Pounded once, and then turned over to
be pounded again, slow. very slow.
The hens cackled and clucked by the
door and picked up the loose grains and
the horses half asleep and doing over
the hangers where the hay had been.
But bark to the buzz of wheels in the
distance. The farmer has taken his
throne on a reaper. He one walked:
now he rides; once worked with arm of
flesh, now with arm of iron. He starts
at the end of the wheattieid, heads his
horses to the opposite end of the field,
rides on. AT the stroke of his iron char
lot the gold of the grain is surrendered,
the machine rolling this way and roll
ing that, this way and that, until the
work which would have been accom-
plished in many days is accomplished
in a few hours. the graintield PROSTATE
before the harvesters.
What quick, clean work the wheel of
the reaper does make! Soon after the
horses are fastened to the thrashing
machine back of the barn. The iron
toothed cylinders are ready for their
prey. The horses start. the unbound
wheat is plunged into the vortex, and
the broken straw is in one place and
the pure st. Louis wheat is in another
place. The driving wheel strapped, the
cylinder humming with terrible We
locity, the inexperienced warned off for
fear of accident, the ground aquake
with the mighty revolution, ! stand in
awe and thanksgiving at the agricu!-
trr,1 ,np,I,aIt nrI nrr nnf with the
text: 80 WHEEL"
Thirdly look to see what the wheel
has done for the travelling world. No
one can tell how many noble and self
sacrificing inventors have been
crushed between the coach wheel and
the modern locomotive, between the
paddle and the ocean steamer.
] will not enter into the controversy
as to whether John Fitch or Robert
Fulton or Thomas Somerset was the
inventor of the steamboat. They all
suffered and were martyrs of the
wheel. and they shall be honored.
John Fitch wrote:
The 2lst OF January, f43. was the fatal
of bringing me into existence, | know
of nothing so perplexing and vexatious to
man of feeling as a turbulent wife and
steamboat building. ! experienced the
former and quit in season, and had | been
in my right senses I should undoubtedly
have treated the latter in the same manner;
but for one man to be leased with both, he
must be looked upon as the most unfor-
man in the world.
Surely, John Fitch was in a bad
-.-l I a. 1rt1np |
did not blow him up, his wife would.
In all ages there are those to proph-
esy the failure of any useful inven-
ton. You do not know what the in
ventors of the day suffer. When it was
proposed to light London with gas,
Sir Humphry Davy, the great philos-
opher, said that he should as soon
think of cutting a slice from the moon
and setting it upon a pole to light the
city. Through all abuse and carica-
ture Fitch and Fulton went until yon-
der the wheel is in motion, and the
the first steamboat, is going
up the North river, running the dis
tance-hold your breath while l tell
you-from New York to Albany in
80 hours. But the steamboat wheel
multiplied its velocities until the Lu-
cania, of the cunard, and the Majes-
tic, Of the White Star line, and the
New York. of the American line, and
the Kaiser Wilhelm, of the North Ger
Lloyd line, cross the Atlantic
ocean in six days or less, communica-
ton between the two countries so
and so constant that whereas
once those who had been to Europe
took on airs for the rest of their NOR
tai lives-and to me for many years
the most disagreeable man I could
was the man who had been to
desnisinr all American mic.