It has been stated on what is supposed to be good authority that the world's total output of pins is at the rate of 200,000,000 a day. If so it may seem: surprising that the world isn't becoming carpeted with pins. We know how easily they are lost—where do they go to? Most of them decay into nothingness, for actually, the pin is not such a time defying object as it seems. Every pin dropped in a damp place soon. turns into a few grains of rust.
With new pins turned out by machinery in such immense numbers, our grandmothers' maxims about picking up pins are forgotten, but in the 14th century, when pins were first introduced, they were valuable articles not. to be lightly lost, recalls "Everyday Science." An old law permitted the sale of pins on only two days of the year, the first and second of January. It was then the custom of all the women: folk to buy their pins for the following 12 months. As is still customary they went to their husbands or fathers for the wherewithal and hence the term
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.