and companionable servant of mankind but the "heat-engine," the marvel
of the eighteenth century, is a noisy and dirty creature for ever
filling the world with ridiculous smoke-stacks and with dust and soot
and asking that it be fed with coal which has to be dug out of mines at
great inconvenience and risk to thousands of people.

And if I were a novelist and not a historian, who must stick to facts
and may not use his imagination, I would describe the happy day when the
last steam locomotive shall be taken to the Museum of Natural History to
be placed next to the skeleton of the Dynosaur and the Pteredactyl and
the other extinct creatures of a by-gone age.

THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION

BUT THE NEW ENGINES WERE VERY EXPENSIVE AND ONLY PEOPLE OF WEALTH COULD
AFFORD THEM. THE OLD CARPENTER OR SHOEMAKER WHO HAD BEEN HIS OWN MASTER
IN HIS LITTLE WORKSHOP WAS OBLIGED TO HIRE HIMSELF OUT TO THE OWNERS OF
THE BIG MECHANICAL TOOLS, AND WHILE HE MADE MORE MONEY THAN BEFORE, HE
LOST HIS FORMER INDEPENDENCE AND HE DID NOT LIKE THAT

IN the olden days the work of the world had been done by independent
workmen who sat in their own little workshops in the front of their
houses, who owned their tools, who boxed the ears of their own
apprentices and who, within the limits prescribed by their guilds,
conducted their business as it pleased them. They lived simple lives,
and were obliged to work very long hours, but they were their own
masters. If they got up and saw that it was a fine day to go fishing,
they went fishing and there was no one to say "no."

But the introduction of machinery changed this. A machine is really
nothing but a greatly enlarged tool. A railroad train which carries you
at the speed of a mile a minute is in reality a pair of very fast
legs, and a steam hammer which flattens heavy plates of iron is just a
terrible big fist, made of steel.

But whereas we can all afford a pair of good legs and a good strong
fist, a railroad train and a steam hammer and a cotton factory are very
expensive pieces of machinery and they are not owned by a single man,
but usually by a company of people who all contribute a certain sum and
then divide the profits of their railroad or cotton mill according to
the amount of money which they have invested.

Therefore, when machines had been improved until they were really
practicable and profitable, the builders of those large tools, the
machine manufacturers, began to look for custo