The Sewing Needle

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 15, 24 October 1930, Page 32

The Sewing Needle

[Tz is 200 years since the steel needle, as we know it, was invented. The town of Redditch in Worcestershire (also famed for its sauce) claims the distinction of this advance. Obviously, however, there were needles of a sort before then. Can anyone give detailed information? As early as 1551 a comedy which was produced under the title of "Gammer Gurton’s Needle" develops humour from the fact that Dame Gammar, when mending her: husband’s breeches outside the cottage door, mislays the needle. Now what. sort of needle was that? And how did the ancient Bgyptians do their* sewing, the Greeks, and even the Hskimos? While as for HDve, just how did she manage her fig-leaf? The needle is so obvious a necessity that the remarks: of Epicurus seem to apply: "We: ought to be thankful to nature for having made those things which are necessary, easy to be discovered; while other things that are difficult to be known are not necessary." And that remark, incidentally, if analysed to its depths, would convey the implieation "non-necessary" to many: of those phases of modern life which are adding so appallingly to the cost of

living and loving.-

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