, bone, ebony, and
leather, which it is desirable to save, because the demand for them
tends to increase faster than the supply. When a set of ivory
billiard-balls costs fifty dollars, and civilization presses upon the
domain of the elephant, it is well to make our combs and our
paper-knives of something else.

That inventions so valuable should be disputed and pirated was
something which the history of all the great inventions might have
taught Mr. Goodyear to expect. We need not revive those disputes which
embittered his life and wasted his substance and his time. The
Honorable Joseph Holt, the Commissioner who granted an extension to
the vulcanizing patent in 1858, has sufficiently characterized them in
one of the most eloquent papers ever issued from the Patent Office:--

"No inventor probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled
upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of
infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no
exaggeration of phrase, as 'pirates,' The spoliations of
their incessant guerilla warfare upon his defenceless rights
have unquestionably amounted to millions. In the very front
rank of this predatory band stands one who sustains in this
case the double and most convenient character of contestant
and witness; and it is but a subdued expression of my
estimate of the deposition he has lodged, to say that this
Parthian shaft--the last that he could hurl at an invention
which he has so long and so remorselessly pursued--is a
fitting finale to that career which the public justice of
the country has so signally rebuked."

Mr. Holt paid a noble tribute to the class of men of whose rights he
was the official guardian:--

"All that is glorious in our past or hopeful in our future
is indissolubly linked with that cause of human progress of
which inventors are the _preux chevaliers_. It is no poetic
translation of the abiding sentiment of the country to say,
that they are the true jewels of the nation to which they
belong, and that a solicitude for the protection of their
rights and interests should find a place in every throb of
the national heart. Sadly helpless as a class, and offering,
in the glittering creations of their own genius, the
strongest temptations to unscrupulous cupidity, they, of all
men, have most need of the shelter of the public law, while