he history of our country when
the demand for meritorious inventions was so great as the present. The
conveniences of mankind, in all his varied vocations and callings,
require continual changes and improvements in the apparatuses and
implements used in order to save time, labor, and expense, and to keep
pace with the never-ceasing progress of civilization.

At no time in the past has there been so deep an interest manifested by
the public generally in the inventions of our bright-minded men and
women, and at no time has capital been more readily interested and ready
to invest in any practical improvement which can offer a fair chance of
monopoly under the patent laws.

Business men, capitalists, and manufacturers are ever on the alert for
new and desirable inventions, which will supersede in utility those
which are already on the market. By purchasing such inventions, they
secure novelties which will not only enable them to avoid the keen
competition and to a great extent monopolize the trade in their own
respective lines of business, but also to make sales more easily, and
thus make their business more profitable.

[Sidenote: Monopoly in Patents.]

Every well-informed person knows that a monopoly is the desideratum of
business men. The monopoly or protection of an industry afforded by the
patent laws is, perhaps, the one monopoly that directly benefits the
world. Were it not for the protection and monopoly offered inventors by
governments, for a certain number of years, to disclose their
inventions, inventors would simply keep them secret, or if used at all,
would do so only in such a manner as would prevent the world at large
from learning of or utilizing them, thus debarring the public as a whole
from their benefits. This monopoly in patents has had much to do with
the material progress of the world during the century just ended.

Anyone having a monopoly of a good trade article is assured of a
fortune. If capitalists and manufacturers can secure the control of any
new invention of merit for their sole use and purposes, which can be
manufactured and sold more cheaply than those now on the market, and
which will perform its work in a quicker and better manner than the
devices now in use, they will be only too willing to pay patentees
handsomely for patents covering such inventions.

There are numerous staple articles of commerce whose manufacture is open
to all, and which every mercantile house in the country i