ess
them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen
shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'

Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so
treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the
accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to
follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the
instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.

Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for their
occasional--and, to do them justice, it is but occasional--enmity to
machinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by the
hardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have to
seek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature is
not entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led to
this supposition by finding, in the sixth year of Edward VI., an act
'for the putting down of gig-mills.' It sets out with the principle,
that everything that deteriorates manufactured articles does evil,
continuing: 'And forasmuch as in many parts of this realm is newly and
lately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills called
gig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereof
the true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloth
thereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the said
gig-mills'--and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is a
general effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than those
which are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price,
which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear the
legislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the more
than compensating facility of production.

VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.

It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives
most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in
Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam
fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with
her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy.
In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all
avoid sending coal to Newcastle.

A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are
peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this
class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty,