suing Elections, I shall be agreeably disappointed if
that triumph is as temperately and forbearingly enjoyed here as was that
of February, 1848.

Lyons is now undergoing one of those periodical revulsions or
depressions which are the necessary incidents of the false system of
Industry and Trade which the leaders of Commercial opinion are bent on
fortifying and extending.--Here, at the confluence of the Rhone and the
Saone, is concentrated a population of nearly 200,000 souls, half of
whom attempt to live by spinning, weaving and dyeing Silks, while the
residue in good part busy themselves in collecting and buying the raw
material or in exporting and selling the product. But it is not best for
themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 Silk-workers should be clustered
on any square mile or two of earth; if they were distributed over the
world's surface, in communities of five to fifty thousand souls--if the
raw Silk were grown in the various countries wherein the fabrics are
required, where the climate and soil do not forbid, and taken there to
be manufactured where they do--the workers would have space, air,
activity, liberty, development, which are unattainable while they are
cooped within the walls of a single city. If those Silk-weavers, for
instance, whose fabrics are consumed in the United States, were now
located in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, &c. instead of being mainly
crowded into Lyons, they would there obtain many of the necessaries of
life at half the prices they now give for them, while the consumers of
their fabrics would pay for them in good part with Fruits, Vegetables,
Fuel, &c. which, because of their bulk or their perishable nature, they
cannot now sell at all, or can only sell at prices below the cost of
production. No matter if the Silks were held in money a fifth, a fourth,
or even a third higher than now, the great body of our consumers would
obtain them much cheaper, estimating the cost not in dollars but in
days' labor. The workers on both sides would be benefited, because they
would share between them at least three-fourths of the enormous tax
which Commerce now levies upon their Industry through the sale and
resale of its products, to distribute among its importers, shippers,
jobbers, retailers and lackeys of infinite variety. The bringing
together of Producer and Consumer, where Nature has interposed no
barrier, so that their diverse needs may be supplied by direct
interchange, or with the f