for the reason assigned by M. Chevalier. The unhealthiness of an industrial operation which is of a mechanical character is as sure a promise of its suppression by machinery as the quantity of work to be done: and the act of sewing, when carried on for hours together, is more hurtful to health than is at all imagined by men (except some few doctors) or by women who have never tried the experiment. The incessant repetition of the act of drawing the needle, while the rest of the frame is unused, occasions a singular distress, muscular and nervous; and when the hours of labour grew inordinately long, so that the aching shoulders and head, and the attacks of “fidgets,” became a serious evil, it was tolerably certain that machinery would soon come in to relieve the distress. So it was said, by others besides myself, twenty years ago and more. We have the Sewing-machine accordingly.
The usual opposition to new labour-saving machinery was expected in this case: and we have seen something of it: but it has been much less than was at all anticipated. We were threatened with our homes and property being stormed by multitudes of desperate women, demanding of Government the banishment of the sewing-machine, and needlework and pay enough for every woman who needed it. Instead of this, there have been a few strikes in the shoe trade,—short and manageable; and many alarms and tears among the helpless women, who could do nothing but cry about their bread being taken out of their mouths. It was clear to all persons whose humanity was worth anything that nothing could be done for this wretched class in the way of their occupation; and that nothing must be attempted which could postpone the advantage derivable by others from the sewing-machine. Even if the poor needlewomen had to go en masse to the workhouse, this was a less evil than trying to keep them out of it as bad needle-workers in conflict with a good one, which was sure of victory from the beginning. It was certain that, according to all precedent, the machine would, sooner or later, employ more workers than it had at first superseded; and, in the interval, the women who were driven out must be helped to other occupations, or enabled to emigrate, or otherwise kept from starvation.
The merest mention of the money-saving to any country by the sewing-machine suffices to show the absurdity of any resistance to its use. In the United States, five years since, the annual money-value of the necessary sewing which could be done by the machine was estimated at 58,000,000l. On the clothing of men and boys the saving at that time made in the city of New York alone was a million and a half (not dollars, but pounds sterling) annually; and Massachusetts saved as much on her great manufacture of shoes and boots. Besides creating new branches of manufacture, the machine had revolutionised forty already existing. This is not an invention which can be opposed or neglected.
One of the industrial branches which it is clearly destined to revolutionise is that of making ladies’ dresses; and it seems to me that Mary Ann Walkley’s dying bequest to society, and to every one of us in it, is the duty of seeing the condition of the dressmaker ameliorated by the due application of this most effectual means.
I know the objections well enough: but they go for little with those who will look into them. The sewing-machine is in use. It is all very well in the tailor’s or shoe-maker’s work-room; but it is not the thing for ladies’ gauzes, and trimmings, and niceties of all sorts. It is objectionable in the same way as extra hands are—the new hand spoils everything she attempts to do for a fortnight at least. It will only do seams, hems and the like; and it is too costly an apparatus for doing what is mere apprentices’ work. The oil may spot the fine materials of dress; and so forth.
The answers are, that the machine is not by any means in common use, as the first objection says. One may be seen here and there in a dressmaker’s room; but much too seldom; and its use is not half developed. There is no reason why it should not act upon gauze as well as upon cloth or leather. I have myself seen the finest cambric beautifully stitched by it; and if any difficulty is found, it is by want of skill in the worker. The same is the answer about the oil-spots. Such soil would be a disgrace to the worker, that is all: and this reminds me of the complaint, now so frequent, and to my mind so pathetic, for which the machine is the obvious remedy,—that the delicate colours and textures of fine dresses are apt to be injured by the hot hands of the needlewomen. Not the cause of the hot hands to the workwomen, but the effect of them to the customer or the employer, is the subject of solicitude. The steel plate of the machine is cool enough; and if it and the needle are oily, the disgrace is the same as dirty hands would be to the human instrument.
As for the waste caused by novices, it surely cannot compare for a moment with the saving of their time even during the first few weeks after they have become qualified workers. I have watched the process of learning the use of the machine, from printed instructions only; and my testimony is that the chief mischief is from the breaking of the needles, the cost of which any reasonable employer would be ashamed to complain of on an occasion which will not recur. The use of old or valueless material for practice is so evidently proper, that there is no use in talking of waste in that direction. The damage by a new hand is, in fact, the loss of about a fortnight’s sewing, and the spoiling of ten or a dozen needles at the most; and this is the price for saving a hundredfold afterwards in time and money. It is not true now, however it may have been till lately, that the machine will achieve nothing higher than joins and hems. It will also embroider, and it will flounce; it will quilt and it will quill; it will turn out gathers, and ruches, and plenty of other things that my lady readers can explain to curious inquirers. Instead of doing mere apprentices’ work, the machine deserves the character of mingled power and refinement. It emulates the elephant’s trunk. Where that tears up a tree or picks up a pin, this can undertake any task, from George Fox’s leathern suit to a royal infant’s christening robe.
This machine is apparently to be the saviour of