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Show THE FIRST SEWING MACHINE IN ENGLAND. In the days when the sewing machine was in its earliest infancy, a lady residing in India imported one, and for a long time kept its mysterious working hid from the ken of her native tailor. This functionary was the slowest of his proverbially slow "cast", and wasted no end of time drawling over hem and stitch. One day his mistress comes to him arm-laden arm laden with yards upon yards of some dress fabric. 'Dirzee,' says she, 'how long will it take you to run these breadths together?' 'Tree day, Missis,' replies Dirzee. 'Missis, please, plenty too much.' 'Three days? Nonsense! Three hours, you mean. You are a very lazy man, and I'll cut your pay. Give me the stuff ; I'll do it myself.' Then the lady retires to her boudoir, from the inmost penetrates of which a sharp and continuous click and whirr reach the tailor's ears. He can't make out what the sound is, and he is much too lazy to speculate on it. He continues to 'chew betel,' and yawningly to ply needle and thread. After an hour or two, 'Missis' comes back, and throwing it at Mr. Dirzee's feet the raw material now fashioned into a completed shirt, says : 'There! See! You wanted three days, you sleepy fellow, to finish this, and I have done it already.' Astonished, Dirzee turns over the drapery, examines the seams, scrutinizes the stitch, and satisfies himself that all is proper and according to tailors' rule. He is confounded. It passes his understanding. There lies the work done and no mistake. But how? He springs up from the mat on which he has been squatting ; he kicks over the little brass vessel which holds his drinking water, he scatters right and left thread, needles, thimble; he stops not to put on his sandals or to adjust loosened turban and waist cloth. Scared and bewildered, he runs for very life into the bazaar, shouting as he goes along 'Shitan! Shitan! (The Evil one! the Evil one!) He do tailor business that Mom's house. I listen! I hear! He cry 'Cleck, cleck!' Two hour time he neber stop cry. Den Plenty too much true his word I tell. Every bit true. All work done finish! I not go back dat bungalow.' And he never did. -- Chamber's Journal. |