368. Progress of Invention.
368．发明方面的进展
The electric telegraph was now in common use. It enabled the newspapers to tell the people what was going on as they never had done before. Perhaps the invention that did as much as any one thing to make life easier was the sewing machine. Elias Howe was the first man to make a really practicable sewing machine. Other inventors improved upon it, and also made machines to sew other things than cloth, as leather. Agricultural machinery was now in common use. The horse reaper had been much improved, and countless machines had been invented to make agricultural labor more easy and economical. Hundreds of homely articles, as friction matches and rubber shoes, came into use in these years. In short, the thirty years from Jackson's inauguration to the secession of the Southern states were years of great progress. But this progress was confined almost wholly to the North. In the South, living in 1860 was about the same as it had been in 1830, or even in 1800. As a Southern orator said of the South, "The rush and whirl of modern civilization passed her by."
此时电报已经投入日常使用，它使得报纸可以告诉人们外界正发生着他们之前从没有做过的事。也许使得生活更为轻松的发明是缝纫机。伊莱亚斯·豪是第一个制作出真正可以使用的缝纫机的人，其他发明家对之做出改进，还使得缝纫机可以缝制布料以外的东西，如皮革。此时农业机械也得到普遍使用，马拉收割机已经得到大幅改进，人们发明数不清的机械使农业劳动变得更为容易和有效。在这些年间，数以百计如火柴、胶鞋这样的发明也投入使用。总而言之，从杰克森宣誓就职到南方各州宣布退出联邦的这三十年是取得巨大进步的三十年。但是，这些进步几乎完全是在北方取得，而在南方，1830年的生活和1860年的生活没有什么两样，甚至与1800年的生活也没有什么两样。一名南方的演讲家这样说南方："现代文明的激流和漩涡，与它擦肩而过。"