. Many improvements in the sewing machines are due to women, as
for instance: an aid for the stretching of sails and heavy stuffs; an
apparatus to wind up the thread while the machine is in motion; an
improvement for the sewing of leather, etc. The last of these inventions
was made by a woman who for years kept a saddle and harness shop in New
York. The deep-sea telescope, invented by Mrs. Mather, and improved by
her daughter, is an innovation of great importance: it makes possible
the inspection of the keel of the largest ship, without bringing the
same on the dry-dock. With the aid of this glass, sunken wrecks can be
inspected from the deck of a ship, and search can be made for
obstructions to navigation, torpedoes, etc. Along with these practical
advantages, its application in science is full of promise.

Among the machines, the extraordinary complexity and ingenuity of whose
construction excited great admiration in America and Europe, is one for
making paper bags. Many men, leading mechanics among them, had until
then vainly sought to construct such a machine. A woman, Miss Maggie
Knight, invented it. Since then, the lady invented also a machine to
fold paper bags, that does the work of 30 persons. She herself
superintends the construction of the machine in Amherst, Mass. That
German women have made similar inventions is not yet known.

The movement among women has spread even to Japan. In the autumn of
1892, the Japanese Parliament decided that it was forbidden to women to
figure as publishers or editors of newspapers, also of such papers as
are devoted to fashions, cooking, education of children, etc. In Japan,
even the unheard-of sight has been seen of a woman becoming the
publisher of a Socialist paper. That was a little too much for the
Japanese legislators, and they issued the above stated decree. It is,
however, not forbidden to women to act as reporters for newspapers. The
Japanese Government will succeed as little in denying their rights to
women as its European rivals of equal mental make-up.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] On this subject, the law for protection of working-women, adopted
by the people of the canton of Zurich in August, 1894, with 49,909 votes
against 12,531, contains an excellent provision. The law makes it a
penal offence for working-women to take from the shop, where they are
employed during the day, work to be done at home. This law goes further
than any other known to us for the protection of w