thrown away; hence, the consumption being
perpetual, the production was continuous the year round.

I inquired of the proprietor how he accounted for the immense
consumption of these articles, without which the world had been getting
on comfortably for so many thousand years.

"Why," said he, "we have been fortunate enough to create a new want.
Perhaps we did not really create the want, but only discovered that an
unsatisfied one existed. It is all the same in either case. Any great
convenience, or luxury, heretofore unknown to the public, when fairly
set before them is sure to come into general use. It has been so, in my
experience, with many things that were not thought of twenty years ago.
I have been as much puzzled to account for the unlimited consumption of
cuffs and collars as you are to know why so much more clothing is used
now than before sewing-machines came into operation. But the increased
cheapness of a thing, whether old or new, and the convenience of getting
it, are the great stimulants to enlarged consumption,--and as these
conditions are present, so will be the latter."

"But when you began this business, did you expect to sell so many?" I
inquired.

"We did not," he replied, "and are ourselves surprised at the quantity
we sell. Besides, there are several other factories, which produce
greater numbers than we do. But when I reflect on the extent to which
the business has already gone, I find the facts to be only in keeping
with results in other cases. I have thought and read much on the very
subject which so greatly interests you. Some years ago I was puzzled to
account for the immensely increased circulation of newspapers,--rising,
in some instances, from one thousand up to forty thousand. I knew that
our population had not grown at one tenth that rate, yet the circulation
went on extending. One day I asked a country postmaster how _he_
accounted for it 'Why,' he replied, 'the question is easily
answered;--where a man formerly took only one paper, he now takes seven.
Cheap postage, and the establishment of news-agents all over the
country, enable the people to get papers at less cost and with only half
the trouble of twenty years ago. The power of production is complete,
and the machinery of distribution has kept pace with it. The people
don't actually need the papers any more now than they did then, but the
convenience of having them brought to their doors induces them to buy
six or seven where