Samuel Slocum, of Connecticut, invented the first pin-sticking machine. It was introduced into Dr. II owe' factory in 1841. The modern stieking machine is worked by two children: one feeds the machine with pins, the other with pa pers. The first part of the machine is a box, about 12 inches long by 6 inches broad, and 4 inches deep: the bottom is made of small square steel bars, sullieiently wide apart to let the shank of the pin fall through but not the head, and they are just as thick as the space betWeell the papered pins. The lower part of the bottom of the box is made to detach itself as soon as the row of pins is complete, and row after row at regular intervals is received and passed down a corre sponding set of grooves. until they reach the paper, which, as loefore described, is pinched into regular folds and pierced to receive the pins. whieli, by the nicest. imaginable adjustments, come exactly to their places, and arc pressed into them.
The same general process is followed in the making of safety pins, only here the process is more complex, as not only must the wire be cut and pointed, but it tuust be bent to the desired shape, and in certain styles of pins it sheath or catch for the point must he attached.
The machines are entirely automatic in their ac tion, and require but little attention.
Enamel-headed pins arc largely made at Aix la-Chapelle, Germany. Creat quantities of needles are also made in the same city and the enamel headed pins were made, at first, to utilize the imperfect needles. Now, however, they are made in such quantities that wire shanks are specially prepared for this purpose. Enamel, or glass, is spun into a rod about three-sixteenths of an inch thick. The end of this glass is kept viscous by a gas jet. Into this soft substance the workman plunges the pM-shank, and by a complex whirling motion detaches a bulbous mass from the rod which adheres as a bead to the pin. It is said that a workman can head front 25,000 to 30,000 pins daily.
Black or mourning pins ;ire made of iron wire, heated in a muffle till the proper tint is obtained: or they are coated with a suitable varnish, which is afterwards hardened by storing the pins.