him to leave the service. Upon one occasion the Government was so much embarrassed that it could not pay the regiment of which he was a member. Mr. Howe promptly advanced the money, and his comrades were saved from the annoyances which would have attended the delay in paying them. He died at Brooklyn, Long Island, on the 3d of October, 1867.
Mr. Howe will always rank among the most distinguished of American inventors; not only because of the unusual degree of completeness shown in his first conception of the sewing-machine, but because of the great benefits which have sprung from it. It has revolutionized the industry of the world, opened new sources of wealth to enterprise, and lightened the labor of hundreds of thousands of working people. Many a pale-faced, hollow-eyed woman, who formerly sat sewing her life away for a mere pittance, blesses the name of Elias Howe, and there is scarcely a community in the civilized world but contains the evidence of his genius, and honors him as the benefactor of the human race.