All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

374 All About Inventions in which it is engaged in business, and when exigencies so compel it, establishes its local factory. Upon the lapse of Howe’s extended patent the business advanced even more rapidly. The long period during which tribute had to be paid in the form of royalties came to an end, and the public immediately received the benefit of the new order of things. The equivalent of the royalty was instantly knocked off the selling price of the article, notwith- standing the powerful position which the organisation had acquired at this time. In fact, upon the expira- tion of the master patent, additional energy appears to have become infused into the firm, because by 1878 the company was making and selling over 350,000 machines per year, which total was lifted to 800,000 machines per annum in 1896. Even the latter figure, although it appears to be huge compared with the sales in 1863, fades into insignificance besides the annual sales to-day, which exceed 2,000,000 machines per year. As may be supposed, enormous factories have been created to yield such a huge output. The parent factory is at Elizabethport, New Jersey, U.S.A., but it has been exceeded in dimensions by one of its family. The Singer factory at Clydebank, Scotland, ranks as the largest establishment in the world de- voted to the manufacture of sewing machines. In normal times its pay-roll comprises 14,000 employees. The company owns vast tracts of forests in America, whence all the timber required for Singer cabinet work is derived. Its consumption of steel and other metal reaches an enormous figure during the course of the year. The company maintains over 8,000 branches