and in the foreign-looking woman, however | pressed it "most harmlessly disguised, most certainly AILIE! They were landing when she first observed them. On seeing the man who had been the companion of her walk running towards them, they stood still. Then James Frere leaped back again into the boat, holding out his hand to his companion, who lightly followed his example; and he pushed off from the shore just as the breathless smuggler reached the water's edge. The man shouted and swore; Frere laughed, and shook an oar menacingly at him. Then a boy, lying at the bottom of the boat and a man in her, whom they had not yet perceived shook out the sail, and with a bound and a dip in the waters she was off again, soon to appear only like a white speck in the distance! The smuggler stood a while watching that boat as she danced over the waves. Then he slowly returned to the spot where Neil had rejoined Lady Charlotte. "Good evening, ma'am," he said, "and thank you! As to yon man, I'll have him yet. His things are all here. He'll need to come back before many days are outI'll give information." And he strode away slowly over the sands. If Lady Charlotte could have doubted the accuracy of her own vision, all doubt would have been removed by Neil, who, flushed and eager, said to her, as he came up, "There's that man I saw change his clothes in the railway he's in the boat. I can't mistake him he has a most strange countenance. It is he I'll swear to him. Look, Mamma Charlotte!" talking about the washing of her fine muslins and embroidered cuffs with an old washerwoman, whose pride it was that "she was the principallist laundress of these parts, and washed for the principallist gentry by the sea-side." The good old soul continued ironing all the time she talked, and looking down with affectionate smiles upon the linen benefited by her manipulation. - "Ah!" she said, "all the visitors comes to me that can; and it's a real treat to me to see the valets, and lady's-maids, and such folk, coming here as soft-spoken as need be, a-begging and a-praying of me to give their lady or their gentleman the preference for I can't do all. But I mostly prefers the gentlemen's, and some of them is really wonderful Lord Sinclair's - his be pretty shirts enough, to iron- werry smooth, soft linen. And Captain Greig's, them are beauties; all worked across the breastesses. to be sure, how they be worked! And Colonel Vavasour's - his be wonderful, too. And Mr. Gordon's his'n has little frills down the fronts; they be a deal o' trouble, surely, them little frills; but they're a real pleasure to look at, when the Italian iron's been under 'em. And here's a thing was sent me to wash, that looks for all the world like somebody's skin, but was sent here by a woman they calls a West Injian. They did say she was a wild savage she be wery unlike my notion of the creatures, for she's as soft a spoken woman as ever I seed; but this thing is made of pink flannel, to cover her from head to foot, for she shivers with the cold here, and she comes from some warm island - I'm sure I forgets the name but it's beyond seas, and there's a governor, and he's as good as king there. but, if she be a savage, "La! if she ain't coming this minute, and I not half ready." The aged washerwoman ironed with redoubled diligence; but, before the ironing was done, the door of the cottage was darkened, and in came a sad-looking, sallow woman, past the flower of youth, but still with claims to beauty, her eyes passing languidly over all objects as she advanced, as if nothing in life was much worth noticing, and resting at last in quiet contemplation on the pink flannel garment. You saw at once that she was a Creole, but a gentlewoman. "Is it finished?" she said, with a soft drawl. "Give it me if it is finished." The old washerwoman passed a final sweep of the warm iron over the sleeves of the garment in question; flattened, folded, and again passed the iron over; and then, pinning it in a white handkerchief, presented it to the new-comer. As she did so, the threshold of her cottage was again shadowed, and close to Lady Charlotte close to the Creole passed in James Frere, followed by Alice Ross. The latter started visibly at sight of Lady Ross's mother. Fearless as she was, her presence of mind forsook her. She grasped James Frere's arm anxiously. "Oh, come away; come away from this place!" she said, in an agitated whisper. But James Frere was absorbed in another recognition. Another hand lay on his arm, and the languid Creole's eyes were warm with wonder and anger. "Ah, James, do I see you at last! You cruel James!" There was an effort on the part of Frere to affect unconsciousness, to affect strangeness; but he also seemed, in the bewilderment of the moment, to lose his self-possession. "Anita!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you cruel! Anita! And now she has found you, she will not again be left. Oh, James, how could you leave me without one word? To wake and find you gone! Oh, James!" Alice Ross had hitherto stood speechless and motionless, her glittering eyes only, seeming to have some movement in them, rippling like a green gleam over the ocean wave. But, as the Creole accompanied the last words by a passionate seizure of Frere's arm, she sprang upon her like a tigress, and shook her off, crying with shrill anger, "Woman, how dare you call my husband JAMES? How dare you call him by his Christian name before me, whatever your intimacy may have been? 66 My intimacy? Your husband?" laughed the Creole. "This man is married as much as law can marry him, to ME. I am his wife, his lawful wife, and I will claim him - for I have a son- even though he deserted me in Jamaica." not that I will forego my claim. All is not for myself. Will you not prosecute for bigamy, as they can in your country? If not, that will I do." "Nothing "Nothing but his mistress!" but his mistress!" The words beat backwards and forward in Ailie's brain. At last, she spoke: she hissed the words fiercely through her teeth: 66 Deny it!" she said, without looking at him; "deny it!" "Nonsense!" said Frere, contemptuously. "You must have known it was so. In the bitter gossip reported to Sir Douglas it was told. You knew it. Don't be affected. You knew it." The light in Ailie's eyes flickered like a flame of phosphorus. "I did not know it!" she said; and then, looking the Creole over from head to foot, she said, as if to herself, "Did he marry a slave?" "I am no slave, but a planter's daughter!" angrily retorted the Creole, "and you had best keep your contempt for your own position. I am as educated as you are- richer than you are. My father is dead, and I have come to England. I claim my husband; but he shall be punished. My many nights of tears- - he shall pay them. I will prosecute him by your laws - I will prosecute him." Ailie looked at the man whose evil influence had joined with her evil, to create confusion in her destiny. A chill trembling seized her. 66 Yes,' she said, "you shall suffer. Call vainly on me when your punishment comes call vainly. I will crush you, I will tread you into the earth. Deceiver!" Two or three boatmen gathered round the door, attracted by the sound of voices in dispute. Others joined them. Among them came the smuggler. He sprang on Frere, and wrestled and strove to hold him. In a moment a knife glittered in the air; it grazed the bending head of Alice in its descent, and struck the smuggler's breast; was lifted once more, the warm blood dropping from its pointed blade on the women's dresses, and the linen the aged washerwoman had been garrulously gossiping about, and descended yet more vehemently. They seized him. "Devils, let me go!" he said, and turning, shook himself free, and fled over the shore. He was pursued, but not taken. Swift of foot, and wiry of limb, he reached an almost inaccessible crag, lifted a huge broken piece of stone, and flung it below, scattering his pursuers as it rolled down with dust and fragments of the rock from one pointed peak to another, and coming at last with a dead resounding thump upon the shore. When they looked up, he was gone! Some said he had himself fallen into the ocean, in his frantic efforts to crush those who stood below; some that he had slid down the smooth face of the cliff, and endeavoured, by swimming and diving, to reach a distant point where there was a pathway which led to the sea. But this much was certain, that, stare as they would along the yellow curves and indentations of the sandy shore, or up by the grey rocks where the sea-fowl sat mute or rose screaming into the air, no object re sembling a human form dotted the distance. James Frere was dead, or had escaped. And Ailie, too, had vanished, when Lady Charlotte at last recovered sufficiently from the horrors of the scene to look consciously on objects near her. Ailie had vanished. Only the Creole woman stood there; wiping her bespattered shoulder and neck, and gazing down as in a dream on the smuggler, stretched on the floor; his strong right hand still vainly clutching the folds of linen he caught as he fell, caught, as the drowning wretch catches at the bending reed, that goes down with him into the darkness and the depths of overwhelming death. From the Galaxy. WHO INVENTED SEWING-MACHINES ? To state this proposition would seem to be enough to condemn it. To furnish the slightest basis for so rapacious a claim, it would be first of all necessary for Mr. Howe to magnify his own inventions at the expense of others. Foremost among inventors of sewing-machines stands Walter Hunt. The gross injustice done to this great name in the magazine just referred to demands reparation. It is not the purpose of the present article to discriminate between the existing sewingmachines. Its object is rather to vindicate the memory of a man whose invention overtops them all, in the grand merit of originality, and whose successful labors so far antedated all others that there need be no dispute about his laurels. That Mr. Howe, especially, never can deprive him of his hard-earned fame, we shall easily be able to prove. We assert and can show : IN the "Atlantic Monthly" for May there appeared a lively article, by a skilful and popular author, called "History of the Sewing Machine." The substance of that sketch fell far short of its title; for it turned out mainly to be a glorification of Elias Howe, Jr., a single one of many patentees. Its tone was that of an article written expressly to promote the pecuniary interests of Mr. Howe, and in opposition to the interests of the public. It is generally understood among the patentees and manufacturers of sewing-machines that Mr. Howe, after having enjoyed the monopoly given him by his patent of September, 1846, for the original term of fourteen years, and having had an extention of it for seven years longer, and having received from the public for the use of his invention about two millions of dollars, now actually designs to apply to Congress for a further extension of his patent. The question, then, is simply this: Shall Mr. Howe, who has already been overpaid for his inventive labors, even had they the merit he claims for them, and who has enjoyed all the monopoly the law ever contemplates, it. now be favored by special act of Congress Second. Howe was not the original inwith a gratuity of two million dollars more?ventor of the valuable devices contained in First. Elias Howe was not the first patentee of a sewing-machine. No less than six different patents for sewing-machines were secured in France, England and the United States before the date of Howe's patent, and before the date of his alleged invention. This is matter of historical record, and there can be no mistake about the machine patented by him. The spe- out other new inventions, and selling them Third. Walter Hunt, of the City of New York, was the original and first inventor of the sewing-machine in which an eyeappointed needle and a shuttle were successfully employed to make the interlocked stitch. The records of the United States Patent Office, since the month of May, 1854, have contained the evidence accessible to all the world that Walter Hunt made the invention in question, and completed, and exhibited, and sold a sewing-machine ten years before Howe pretends that he constructed his first machine. It was between the years 1832 and 1834 that Walter Hunt, in his own workshop in Amos Street, in the City of New York, invented, built, and put in full and effective operation a machine for sewing, stitching, and seaming cloth. This first machine was made principally by the inventor's own hands and, on its successful completion, one or more others were built, Walter Hunt's brother, Adoniram, assisting him. It was the pioneer sewing-machine of America, and the first really successful one of the world. There had already been a French invention, a tambour machine for ornamenting gloves, of very little general utility. These machines of Walter Hunt all contained the invention of the curved needle with the eye near the point, the shuttle and their combination, and they originated the famous interlocked stitch with two threads. Many samples of cloth were perfectly sewn by these machines, and many of the friends and neighbors of the inventor came to see them work. At length one G. A. Arrow smith was so well satisfied with the working of the machines, that he bought them, in 1834, and therewith the right to obtain letters-patent. But no sooner had Arrowsmith got this right (which the thousand other schemes of Walter Hunt's teeming brain induced him to part with on easy terms), than he became impressed both with the vastness of the undertaking and with the prejudice which any scheme apparently tending to impoverish poor seamstresses wuould awaken. At the same time he became involved in pecuniary disaster from speculations and from unlucky business projects, and for years did nothing with the machine. Meanwhile, Hunt was turning Fortunately for his fame, many people had seen his machines work, and had seen them sew a good, strong and handsome stitch, and form seams better than hand-sewing. Of these, no less than six directly testified to this fact in a suit afterward brought (hereafter alluded to), and established the fact beyond question that Walter Hunt invented the first sewing-machine, and that it contained the curved, eye-pointed needle at the end of a vibrating arm with a shuttle. The case itself was decided upon another point. These affidavits are still in existence. But this was not all. Fifteen years after he had sold his machines to Arrowsmith, who lost a fortune and a name in not devoting himself to their reproduction, Walter Hunt from memory gave a sworn written description of his first machine in every part, and, to clinch the matter, afterward constructed a machine from that description, which was the counterpart of the machine of 1834, and worked perfectly. Finally, one of the original machines sold to Arrowsmith in 1834 was preserved, though in a dilapidated condition, and by him was sold to Singer & Co., who have it in safe keeping yet. Walter Hunt then undertook to make a new sewing-machine, which should be an operative instrument, and should contain all the parts which were preserved of the old machine, with such others as were necessary to present the machine in the same shape that the original one possessed. Mr. Hunt did this successfully, and the restored machine, still operative and ready to sew good strong seams, is in the possession of the Singer Manufacturing Company. Early in the year 1853, Singer & Co. accidentally discovered an old letter written in 1836 by A. F. Hunt, a brother of Walter Hunt, which spoke of the sewing-machine, and alluded to other persons who had seen it in operation. The sewing machine in question, having been made for Arrowsmith in 1884, was taken by him and A. F. Hunt to Baltimore, Md., in 1835, and was there exhibited in operation. In a short time, Singer & Co., following out the clew thus obtained, discovered no less than eight new witnesses, all testifying positively that they saw the Hunt machine in 1834 or 1835, and that it was a working machine, which sewed good seams and made the interlocked stitch with needle and shuttle. One of these witnesses worked as a machinist upon some parts of the machine the very same machine of which the broken parts are still in existence. He saw it put together, and saw it sew, and saw it afterward exhibited In 1846 Howe obtained a patent upon a by Hunt and Arrowsmith to other persons. sewing-machine, upon which there have since This witness, though a working machinist been many improvements by others. Hunt in 1834, had become a substantial cotton now claims priority to all these, upon the manufacturer when he was examined in ground that he invented the sewing-machine 1854. Another of these new witnesses was substantially as described in his specification, previous to the invention of Howe. He proves Solomon Andrews, Esq., a distinguished that, in 1834 or 1835, he contrived a machine inventor and mechanician. He examined by which he actually effected his purpose of the machine, and saw it operated by A. F. sewing cloth with considerable success. Upon Hunt in Baltimore. He fully understood a careful consideration of the testimony, I am its method of operation. Ten years later, disposed to think that he had then carried his in 1845, Mr. Andrews called at the office of invention to the point of patentability.. Thomas P. Jones, Esq, who had been at The very idea of carrying on this delicate and one time Commissioner of Patents, but was difficult operation by machinery was a bold one. The contrivance of a machine that should then practising as an agent for procuring patents for inventions. There Mr. Andrews that machine was so imperfect as not to supercarry out the idea was patentable, although saw the Howe machine, for which Mr. Jones sede the ordinary mode of sewing. I underwas just preparing the specification and stand from the evidence that Hunt actually drawings to obtain a patent. Mr. Andrews made a working machine, thus even going thereupon stated to Mr. Jones that Hunt further than was absolutely necessary to entitle was the original inventor of that kind of him to a patent, had he then applied for it. . . . sewing-machine, and explained to him what The papers in the case show that Howe. he had seen in Baltimore in 1835. This obtained a patent for substantially this same explanation to the patent agent shows invention, in 1846. The presumption is that why Howe made his specification of claim since that time the invention has been in pubiic use or on sale. Now Hunt, by the sale to in the peculiar way he did. He did not Arrowsmith, had given his consent that any then venture to claim as his the eye-pointed person, or all the world, might use the invitaneedle or the shuttle, or even a combination tion. Therefore it was in public use and on of the two in a sewing-machine; but he sale with the consent of the inventor and pressimply clained the forming of a seam by ent applicant. means of a curved needle or a shuttle, "under a combination and arrangement of The Commissioner of Patents then departs, substantially the same with that decided that Hunt was not entitled to a patscribed." This language indicates that the patent agent knew, and presumptively Mr. Ilowe knew, that he had no right to claim the needle and shuttle. Such is the simple story, supported beyond cavil by hundreds of pages of sworn testimony, of the origin of sewing-machines. It shows that Walter Hunt invented the great central feature of all such machines the combination of the shuttle with the needle, having the eye near the point. All other things, contrived by Howe and others later, are trivial and temporary, and liable to be superseded. Some months prior to May, 1854, Hunt applied for a patent for his original invention, and the United States Patent Office declared an interference between such application and the patent then held by Howe. Numerous witnesses were examined on behalf of Howe and Hunt upon the question of priority of invention, and argument was heard by the counsel of the respective parties. Then the Hon. Charles Mason, Commissioner of Patents, and well known to be a very able lawyer, decided the case and filed a written opinion, from which the following extracts are taken : ent, for the reason that, in 1834, he had The reader who has followed us thus far, may desire to learn something more of the character and career of the inventor of sew |