s ready, called into requisition to produce a coin which,
after all this labour and expense, is only a penny.

I come now to tell some of the things which can be accomplished and
produced for a penny. One of the earliest publications of any note was
the "Penny Magazine," which is endeared to my memory as having shown me
the earliest of George Stephenson's great works--the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway. This magazine has now passed away, but it has been
amply replaced by others of equal merit, carrying out its principles of
giving a sound and cheap literature to the people; it was a boon to all
who cared for instruction, and at the same time had to take care of a
penny. Now we have our daily papers at a penny, and of the 1711
newspapers issued (1876) in the United Kingdom, 808 are sold at this
small price. Look at those papers, the "Telegraph," "Standard," and
many others; are they not a light that has shone over our world, showing
what man has been enabled to do for his fellows, in being able to
disseminate the knowledge of what is transpiring over the world to their
readers, both near and far off, and all for only one penny! Has this
been done without labour? No. What has caused it but the earnest desire
to know the events of daily life in as short a time as possible. I do
not care to vouch for what I now say, but I should think that about
20,000 copies are thrown off of the "Daily Telegraph" in an hour, and
these can be bought for one penny each. This penny's worth has cost a
great amount of thought to bring about. Besides the various manufactures
which are required for this result, the daily paper also brings to its
aid the agriculturist as regards the paper; for though this was at first
only made of rags, we now produce it from straw, and I have made it from
thistles, whilst it has also been made from wood and other things. The
rags, of course, were derived from agriculture in as far as flax
required to be grown, but now the farmer gets his grain from the crop,
and the straw left is made into paper--the chief agent in distributing
through the world the thoughts of the learned in science, arts,
literature, and politics. With what eagerness do we look for our paper
in the morning, and with what pleasure do we pay our penny for it! A
penny's worth with respect to this material does not stop here. Look at
our beautiful and not costly decorations; see what a charming room we
can show, produced by a wall-paper at a cost