But the specific improvements in plain sewing machines, to which I have had
the honor of drawing your attention, do not exhaust the list, and, time
permitting, it might be considerably augmented. Nor must it be inferred
that advancement has taken place exclusively in those systems of sewing
machinery now before us.

_Accessories to Sewing Machines_.--The number of special attachments that
have been successfully adapted to plain sewing machines has multiplied so
rapidly of late, that only one or two of the more notable can be spoken of
on this occasion. Perhaps the most generally useful of these is the
trimmer, an arrangement consisting of a vibrating knife, which trims off
the superfluous edge of a seam as the machine stitches it. These are in
extensive use in the factories at Leicester, Nottingham, and elsewhere,
while Northampton and Norwich use the same device for paring the seams in
boot upper manufacture. The chisel-like knife is usually actuated by a cam
rotating with the main shaft, and one or two of the usual forms of this
attachment are to be seen here this evening on both lock and loop stitch
machines.

When machines are moved by the foot, there are many objections to running
the whole machine while winding the shuttle reels. We have, therefore,
several useful devices for releasing the balance wheel of the machine from
the main shaft, while winding. These are to be found both on Wheeler &
Wilson's manufacturing machine and upon Singer's highly finished "Family"
machine, which also carries a most ingenious automatic reel winder, capable
of doing all the work itself, and ceasing to act as soon as the bobbin is
filled.

The setting of the needle in a sewing machine was once quite a task.