It is remarkable how long the world will be near a first-class invention without actually stumbling over it. The writer remembers, when examining the first sewing machine which came before him, how put out he was to find it but a simple adaptation to machinery of the common chain stitch so familiar to boys of the last generation, who had to make their own toys. Why could not some of these bright boys have invented this machine long before? It now appears from some of the mummy garlands unearthed in Egypt, that the florists of three or four thousand years ago, used the chain stitch in fastening the flowers to the wreaths. A long time to be so near a great discovery.