ewest possible intermediates, is the simple
and only remedy for one of the chief scourges under which Industry now
suffers throughout the world.

"Very true," says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."--Will it,
indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual
agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong
side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk
trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the
manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the
Importer, the Jobber of our own country, has a like interest in keeping
the point of production as distant from their customers as possible.
Very often have I been told by wholesale merchants, "We prefer to sell
Foreign rather than Home-made fabrics, because the profit on the former
is usually much greater." This consideration is active and omnipresent
in Trade generally. The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple
Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is
unorganized, inert, and individually impotent. These Silk-Weavers of
Lyons are no more capable of removing to Virginia or Missouri and
establishing their business there than the Alps are of making an
American tour. Our consumers of Silks, acting as individuals, cannot
bring them over and establish them among us. But the great body of
consumers, animated by Philanthropy and an enlightened Self-Interest,
acting through their single efficient organism, the State, can make it
the interest of Capital and Capacity to bring them over and plant them
in the most eligible localities among us, and ought immediately and
persistently to do so. The inconveniences of such a policy are partial
and transitory, while its blessings are permanent and universal.

A RIDE ACROSS THE ALPS.

Railroads are excellent contrivances for dispatch and economy;
Steamboats ditto, and better still for ease and observation or reading;
Steamships are to be endured when Necessity compels; but an
old-fashioned Coach-and-Four is by no means to be despised, even in
this age of Progress and Enlightenment. While I stay in Europe, I wish
to see as much land and to waste as little time on blue water as
possible. So I turned aside at Lyons from the general stream of
Italy-bound travellers--which flows down the Rhone to Avignon and
Marseilles, thence embarking for Genoa and Leghorn,--and booked myself
for a ride across the Lower A