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The Sewing Machine 357 The result of Thomas purchasing the British rights in the American invention was to bring the two investigators together. Thomas forthwith devoted his energies to rendering Howe’s machine practicable, the inventor co-operating by entering the corsetier’s employment. About three years’ patient study and experiment were devoted to the machine, but the two were baffled by the lock-stitch problem. At last Howe, unable to make any advance beyond the point to which he had carried his idea, severed his connection with Thomas, and receiving the where- withal, returned to his native country. Thomas, determined not to be outdone, continued his work with the assistance of one or two of his other mechanical employes. Howe, in the seclusion of the tiny vessel ploughing the broad Atlantic, appears to have devoted his thoughts to the one absorbing subject, and at last, as if in a flash, the solution of the problem occurred to him. Simulta- neously Thomas, by his diligence, also discovered the means to the end for which the two had been labour- ing for so long. The situation is not quite clear. In some quarters it is averred that Thomas subjugated the difficulties almost immediately after Howe had left him, but, fearing the severity of the competition which would ensue in his particular business if the machine were extensively adopted, thus depriving him somewhat of the fruits of his endeavours, he decided to keep the invention to himself. It is stated that he built machines for his own workshops only, and in this manner secured a firmer, more profitable, and more extensive hold upon the corset industry, because he