ruined cities of Ceylon. As, however, I do not think they are so well known in England, I give a detailed drawing of this curious myth. It is also of one block of stone, and measures five feet by four.

This creature is called in Tamil, Yánei-Yáli, which has the same signification, viz., "Elephant-Lion," and is one of the vehicles of Durga, a form of the goddess Parvati, who, in consequence, is called "Yáli Yúrthi," she who rides on a Yáli.

LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE'S CITY.*

NO. V.-HOW THE DEVIL WAS BAULKED
BY A DAME.

NIGHT or day the foul fiend never rested after the trick the men of Aix had played him by giving him a wolf's soul instead upon of a man's, in return for his help with their Minster. And, cruellest cut of all, it had passed into a proverb that the men of Aix were sharper than the Devil. Nursing his wrath to keep it warm, he hit on the dark design of burying minster, palace, city, men, women, and children in one common ruin. So, one day he went to the sea-shore, saw a great hill of sand, which just suited his purpose, put it on his back, and laughing in his sleeve, set out to crush the city and all it contained. Panting and sweating under his burthen, he came near the town gate called the "Pont-thor," when a breeze sprang up from the east, blew some of his sand into his eyes and nearly blinded him, so that, enveloped in a perfect simoom, he could not find his way to the city.

Now, it so happened that a decent old woman came up on her way to market, while he was trying to get to the town. He accosted her most courteously, saying:

the name of San Salvator's Berg, St. Saviour's Hill, and a cross is erected on its summit.

That the hills had come into their present position from the sea-shore was firmly believed by the burghers of old, who would cite, as proof positive of the truth of their story, that scallops and other sea-shells, turned to stone from their long rest inland, are found bedded in the soil, while there is not a trace of them in any part of the country round.

Ever since the hills were landed in their present station the devil has let the Aix folk alone; and the clever way in which they took him in gave rise to the proverb, "De Aechen sind der Duevel ze lous," which means in their dialect, "The Aix folk are craftier than the devil himself."

Tale and legend fail in fitly portraying his wrath, now that the destined instruments of his vengeance have become two smiling hills, from which the traveller views the lordly sight of City and Minster rising proudly and unharmed from the plain below. Still greater must have been his fury when one of Charlemagne's successors, Louis the Pious, built a church and monastery on St. Salvator's Berg.

THE LOUP-GAROU.

A LEGEND OF AUVERGNE.

[THE following verses are founded on a superstition once prevalent in various parts of France, and not unknown to other countries. The Loup-garon is the Aukávoρwжоs of the Greeks, and the were-wolf of our own ancestors-a human being with the power of selftransformation into a wolf. Marie de France, the Anglo-Norman poetess of the thirteenth century, in her "Lai du Bisclaveret," states that this human-wolf was, in her time, called "garwall" in Normandy, "bisclaveret" being the Breton name. Her editor, M. de Roquefort, says that "garwall" is a corruption of the "wer-wolf" of the Teutons, or the English "were-wolf." In Medieval Latin, its equivalent was "gerulphus." Madlle. Bosquet ("La Normandie, Traditions et Legendes "), quoting Collin de Plancy, "Dictionnaire Infernal." states that the Emperor Sigismund summoned the most learned theologians to discuss before him the question of the reality of the

At that very instant, by rare good luck, she caught a glimpse of the cloven foot. Most luckily, the dame had all her wits about her, for she straightway pulled out her rosary beads, and, catching their cross, made the holy sign upon the sand-hill in the twinkling of an eye. Forthwith the devil's power all passed away. He vanished then and there, and dropped his load so suddenly that it split in two. In memory of the good woman's cleverness, the larger mound was and is called the Lous Berg, the Hill of Craft. The smaller one goes by

*See vol. ix., p. 573.

was the unanimous recognition of it as a well-authenticated fact, to dispute which was a heresy, "et se déclarer partisan d'une incrédulité damnable." Marie de France thus describes the loup-garou or garwall :

"Garwall si est beste salvage;
Tant cum il est en cele rage,
Humes dévure, grant mal fait,
Es granz forest converse è vait."

Garwall is a savage beast,
And he loves on man to feast;
Great the ravages he makes
Roaming through the forest brakes.

According to Madlle. Bosquet, there are many instances of loups-garous having a paw severed in contests with the hunters, which afterwards became a human hand.]

THE MECHANICAL SEMPSTRESS.

:

OUR mechanicians should have perfected the sewing-machine. The land that invented the steam-engine and the power-loom, ought, in the ordinary nature of things, to have crowned its work by the final device which was to sew together the textile fabrics its cunning mechanics had so deftly woven. Indeed, an Englishman did perfect a clever mechanical arrangement for embroidery purposes, which absolutely included some of the most important parts of the first practical sewing-machine; but he actually did not recognise the fact that he was just touching a contrivance that would have made his fortune. This inventor, Mr. John Foster, of Nottingham, was a very young man, only nineteen, when he first contrived his embroidery machine, and, in conjunction with his moneyed partner, Mr. Gibbons, in December, 1844, brought it into practical use. Yet neither of them could see that the road they had fairly entered upon, if followed up, would inevitably lead to fame and wealth. Their machine to them was an embroiderer, and nothing more, although Mr. Fothergill, in a paper read at the Society of Arts last year, states that he saw this very machine sew most effectually indeed, by the use of needle and shuttle, it produced a lock-stitch of precisely the same character as those now in use. No progress was made with this machine further than to employ it in embroidery, and the patents were not extended. It is supposed that the seeds of this invention, however, were not altogether lost some workmen of the original patentee, it is said, proceeded to America, and there they disseminated the original idea. There is no evidence of this further than the emigration of the trained workmen who were in possession of the secret to New York; but it is very possible they did make some valuable use of their knowledge. It certainly does not appear, however, that either of these workmen was ever in communication with the man who eventually constructed the sewing-machine which is the parent, and contains the fruitful germs of all the sewing-machines in existence. We allude to Elias Howe, a native of Massachusetts, in America, who, nearly a quarter of a century ago, first conceived the idea of making a mechanical sempstress. The history of this working-man is remarkable, and in some respects it presents a happy contrast to that of other great inventors whose genius only brought them trouble and penury throughout life. When only twenty-two years of age, whilst working as a mechanic, he conceived the project of making a sewing-machine. This

was about the year 1841, at which time he was married, and had a little family around him, for whom he had to labour hard throughout the day. In after hours he might have been seen labouring in his humble garret, at Cambridgeport, contriving the various movements of his machine. The patient endurance, the intelligence, and the perseverance of this mechanic were destined in the end to overcome all the difficulties in his way; and on the 10th of September, 1846, he obtained his first patent. Singularly enough, his fellow-countrymen did not at once see the merit of his invention, and its introduction to the public was first made in England. Shortly after his patent was obtained he sent over a machine to this country, and disposed of the English patent to Mr. Thomas, for, we believe, 200l.! Mr. Howe himself visited this country soon after the arrival of his machine, and superintended its adaptation to the work required to be done by Mr. Thomas-staymaking. Beyond the 200l., we do not see that poor Howe did any good for himself over here; for in 1849 he returned again to America, so poorly off that he was obliged to work his way home before the mast. Once again in America, however, fortune began to favour him. In 1853 he granted his first licence, and by degrees was enabled to repurchase the patents he had sold during the season of his adversity. In 1855 he was in possession of the whole of them; and he now receives a royalty upon every sewing-machine manufactured in the United States, which produces an income of 50,000l. a year: not so bad a prize for a humble mechanic to earn in his old age; yet incomparably trifling to the benefit he has conferred upon the world at large, by the gift of his labour-saving machinery, and especially his own country, where all labour is so dear. The establishment of the sewingmachine as a working fact set the minds of ingenious mechanics at work to make improvements upon it; and since the first patent was registered, more than 300 patents have been taken out in this country for improvements in its different parts; whilst in America, within the same time, upwards of 600 patents have been obtained, and no less than 1200 have failed. The large majority of these patents, however, are for trifling additions, added more for the purpose of enabling the makers to call them their own machines, than for any other object. There are, however, several valuable sewingmachines patented by Americans, which differ in many points from Howe's, although the whole of them are yet obliged to pay him a royalty for some part or other of their machines which is identical with parts comprised in his first patent. The principle of action of

all sewing-machines, however, is the same, although accomplished by different means. There is a needle with its eye at the point which thrusts a loop of thread through the material to be sewn, whilst on the under side there is an arrangement by which this loop is caught and traversed by another thread, the fastening being accomplished in many diverse manners. It may be said that, for endurance, there is but one kind of stitch that is truly valuable, and that is the lock-stitch-an arrangement by which the under and upper thread interlock in the centre of the material, and therefore is not likely to wear out in the washing, or the friction to which all the surfaces of materials

are liable. Howe's is the premier lock-stitch machine, the under thread being passed through the loop made by the needle by means of a shuttle, which traverses backwards and forwards just as it does in a weaving-machine. Singer's sewing-machine also employs a shuttle. These are large and powerful machines, especially adapted for manufacturing purposes; but the clatter they make certainly renders them objectionable for the drawing-room or work

room.

In the machines of Messrs. Wheeler and Wilson, this implement, the shuttle, is done away with, and a rotating hook takes its place. It is difficult beyond measure to describe popularly the action of intricate machinery; but this rotating hook may be described as a stationary shuttle, catching the upper thread, interlooping the under one with it, and doing its work with a noiseless rapidity which makes the machine an almost perfect invention. There is also one grand improvement in the Wheeler and Wilson machine which places it in the very first rank. We allude to the four-feed apparatus,—an arrangement which enables the manipulator to turn the work upon the plate in any direction with the utmost rapidity. This improvement, together with the rotating hook, which saves all the time uselessly spent by the shuttle traversing backwards and forwards, renders it the most rapid and the most noiseless machine in use for light household work, and for the sewing of all the ordinary household fabrics, especially those requiring ornamental stitching: in collarstitching and in shirt-making it is especially useful; indeed, it is mainly used in the manufactories employed in the making of these articles of dress. We visited, the other day, the workshops of Messrs. Blenkiron, at Hoxton, where 150 of these machines and 500 young women are employed in doing nothing but making collars. A greater contrast to the scene in the garret, as drawn by Hood, where the wretched sempstress slowly dies rather than lives, could

not be presented than by the work women tending these machines. The motion of the sewingmachine itself is a vast improvement upon the monotonous movements used in common sewing. There is a certain diversion for the mind in the very action of guiding the work, which takes off much of the weariness caused by mere handsewing; and then the exercise caused by using the treddle to drive the wheel produces an active circulation throughout the system, which tends to abolish the sempstress headache, to which all poor hand-sewers are but too subject. We saw these machines working at the rate of 1200 stitches a minute, stitching on the average twelve gross of collars a day, or twelve dozen dozen, a number which must seem nothing less than marvellous to the poor needlewoman. It will be asked what can become of all the collars produced at this extraordinary rate in all the manufactories of these articles in the metropolis? The answer is plain; the sewing-machines have so cheapened the rate of production of all wearing apparel, in which the cost of sewing forms a heavy item, that the increase in the rate of their sale is absolutely prodigious; indeed, so great, we are told, is the increase in the sale of shirts and collars, that one is lost in wonder at the number of persons who must either have gone without them, or at least must have used them in the most sparing manner, before these machines came into use.

There are some single-thread machines which are sold at a low price; but these make what is termed a chain-stitch, the disadvantage of which is, that it makes an unsightly ridge on the under side of the cloth, and is apt to unravel; indeed, you may take the end of the thread and pull the whole sewing out. These chain-stitch-making machines are therefore to be avoided. All sewing-machines, it must be remembered, require special appliances for hemming, binding, braiding, tucking, &c. These are procurable with the machine at a very small extra cost; and with their aid every operation can be performed with two exceptions, namely, sewing on buttons and stitching button-holes ; and we believe a special contrivance to perform the latter operation is about to be brought out.

The sewing-machine is very much more largely employed in America than in England, and is far more universally known. This seems strange, considering that it was introduced to the British public two or three years before it was in use in the States. We are told that whilst in America the number at work is estimated at 300,000, in Great Britain and Ireland, with a larger population, only from 50,000 to 60,000 are at work. This singular fact is accounted for in two ways. Firstly, the

high price of hand labour across the Atlantic is so great that it is reasonable to suppose the Americans are more ready than ourselves to accept any contrivance to lessen it; the second, and perhaps the more forcible reason for the backwardness of the British manufacturers and private persons in bringing these machines into use, is to be found in the fact that up to the year 1860 the patents of Howe's machine, the only one we had, were in the hands of Mr. Thomas, who refused to allow any competing machines using his patents to enter the country, which, of course, he had a perfect right to do ; but he also refused to admit them on a payment of a royalty for the parts of their machines covered by the patents he held. The consequence was that there was no competition, and, comparatively speaking, no sale; indeed, the great public knew but little about sewing-machines until Thomas's patents for Howe's invention expired in 1860. Then, it will be remembered, Americans seemed to have suddenly seized upon the corner shops, and all those well placed in great thoroughfares, in which they exposed their various machines, worked by handsome young girls, in full view of the gaping crowd outside. The sudden publicity given to the mechanical sempstress in this manner sold more of them in six months than the English patentee had sold in the fourteen years it had been in his possession. America the system of giving other makers the right to construct machines, after paying a royalty to the holder of the patent, works admirably, and is just to the public as well as profitable to the inventor. We question if Howe, by becoming their sole manufacturer, would ever have realised the splendid income he is now doing by the royalty other companies pay him. Every year the manufacture and sale of these machines are increasing in America and England in an extraordinary degree. In America especially; for we find that between the years 1853 and 1858 the number of sales had been from 2509 to 17,587, and in the succeeding year they had risen to the extraordinary number of 46,243. What the numbers would have risen to, during the reign of the great army-clothing contractors, we should scarcely like to guess. The Americans estimate that the annual value of the saving effected by the sewing-machines in their country is not less than 29,000,000l.

In

In England their use is rapidly spreading. All our great army contractors now use them; and in the manufacture of shirts, collars, stays, mantles, dresses, coats, trousers, caps, trimmings, and boots and shoes, they are being adopted. Upwards of 3000 sewing-machines are employed by the boot and shoe makers alone;

and the rapid fall in the price of these articles is to be attributed to their use. It certainly is somewhat extraordinary that in England, where so much mechanical genius exists, so little yet has been profitably employed in the invention of sewing-machines. There is, we believe, but one effective machine of this kind of home production. Possibly we have allowed the Americans so far to get the start of us in this particular manufacture, that there is no inclination to contest the point with them.

The sewing-machine across the Atlantic has acquired such renown, and is so much in demand, that joint-stock companies with ample capital are engaged in their production. For instance, the Wheeler and Wilson Company, at Bridgeport, Connecticut, manufactured no less than 38,285 of these machines in the year 1861. Labour is so dear in America that labour-saving machines are exclusively employed in producing every portion of these machines, even down to the minutest screw. By this means absolute accuracy and identity of parts is obtained; and the various portions of these sewing-machines may be gathered promiscuously from every part of the world, and then put together immediately without the necessity of being touched by a tool for the sake of proper adjustment. Those who have seen how the rifles are made at the Government factory at Enfield, will be able to realise the exact method employed by the Wheeler and Wilson Company in the construction of their useful sewing implement. The advantage of this identity of parts is of the greatest value to the public, as any portion of a machine may be renewed by simply obtaining a duplicate of the damaged part at the depôt of the company. The Wheeler and Wilson machine can be driven by steam-power at the rate of 2000 stitches a minute; and the following estimate has been made of the time the hand is capable of producing certain garments in, as compared with those made by the machine driven by the manipulator's foot :

The ordinary Wheeler and Wilson machine is par excellence the domestic machine,—the cheery sprite in the house, saving the eyes and the time of the housewife. It will work all kinds of linen, do mantle work, and sew ordinary cloth; but it is not adapted for manufacturing purposes. The heavy works of harness-making, the tough sewing of boots and shoes, the great pilot-coats of seamen, and the sacks of commerce, are more fitted for the powerful machines of Howe, Singer, Grove, Baker, and others; indeed there is the same difference between the nature of the work the former instrument is capable of doing and that accomplished by the latter, as there is between the rough strong hands of the sail-maker and the delicate fingers of the fine-work sewer. The home of the one is the domestic hearth and the female workroom; that of the other the crowded man's workshop; and this distinction should not be lost sight of by the public when about to make their selection of instruments. Messrs. Wheeler and Wilson make a special machine indeed for heavy work; but the two machines are adapted for different purposes, and both kinds of sewing cannot be expected out of either of them.

But it has been argued, of what use is there in introducing machinery which does the work eight or ten times as quickly as the human fingers, whilst so many poor sempstresses are starving for want of work? It is the old cry of iron arms against human muscles, and it is an equally ludicrous one. When the locomotive was first started it was asked, with as much sense, what will become of the old coachmen? and yet we now see that for one of these worthies displaced a thousand artisans are now employed. The introduction of sewing-machines will have just the same effect upon the employment of female labour. Where one miserable wretch earns her pitiful sixpence a day, a thousand, by means of the introduction of the sewingmachine, will be earning good wages; and not only doing so, but in a manner a hundred times more healthful and happy. We were delighted to witness the cheerful, merry labour in the crowded workroom of the Messrs. Blenkiron. In place of squalor and hunger and dirt, haggard eyes and tired frames, worked for sixteen hours a day, we saw healthful faces, heard merry voices-for the talking was perpetual, and that alone, we are convinced, is a great source of health and comfort to the female mind; and, moreover, we heard that the wages were very liberal, so liberal that to the ordinary sempstress they would appear marvellous, ordinary hands earning twelve shillings a week, and superior ones twenty shillings The sewing-machine, then, is one of the greatest boons that has ever been presented