not be capricious, to say that the equivalent shall be conferred on the inventor if he live fourteen years, but shall be denied him if he die before that time? This construction does violence to the common sentiments of humanity. In all ages mankind have been prone to continue their gratitude to the descendants of their benefactors. Hence, reversals of attainder, restorations of confiscated estates to the children of persons unjustly convicted, hereditary titles and domains, and all the splendid structures of monarchies and aristocracies. Our constitution and laws have guarded against all such abuses and dangerous institutions, but it has not been thought necessary to select the children of the great and the good and set them apart for peculiar and distinguished injustice.

The American continent seems to be rapidly falling under the political sway of our confederacy. The habitations of an hundred millions of people are to be erected by our artisans. Woodworth's machine reduces, in the proportion of seven tenths, the labour and expense of a necessary part of every structure, whether for use or ornament. If this argument seem to have been prolonged to a great

length, I hope the offence may find an apology in the importance of securing to the children of the inventor the reward allotted by a grateful country for so distinguished a benefaction.

EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK.

BY THE HONORABLE WM. H. SEWARD.

"There is scarcely more resemblance between the press as it now exists, and that institution as it was at the close of the Revolution, than between the present aspect of our inland regions and the forest garb they wore while inhabited only by the Iroquois. Then the ART, employed chiefly in printing the colonial statutes, almanacks, occasional sermons, and volumes of devotional psalmody, and publishing a semi-weekly record of events, was only auxiliary, in the hands of its managers, to the more important object of selling books, pamphlets, stationery, and sometimes other merchandise: now, labour saving machines, with mechanical and brute power, are substituted for

the arm of the pressman, and with the aid of stereotype foundries, the press has departments, distinctly separated, and as numerous as the divisions, and sub-divisions, classes, combinations, interests, occupations, studies and tastes of society. The book press seizes with avidity all new publications, whether designed to instruct or only to amuse, whether foreign or domestic, and prints and reprints, and scatters them over the continent with inconceivable rapidity. Works of fiction most adapted to the popular taste are now printed and sold, at prices less than, fifty years ago, were charged to subscribers for the perusal of such volumes by circulating libraries. The commercial press, morning and evening, records with accuracy every occurrence and every indication which affects trade; and the advertising columns are indispensable auxiliaries in every operation of commerce or finance. The political press, divided between contending parties, and again sub-divided with nice adaptation to the tempers and the tastes, the passions and the prejudices of the community, conducts party warfare with energy, zeal and unsparing severity; and the combatants, faithful

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through all changes, abide the trials and share the fortunes of their respective parties. The religious press furnishes to Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, and to each of the sects and denominations of those grand divisions of the Church, a devoted organ more effective than an army of Missionaries. The moral, the scientific, the literary, the legal, the medical, the agricultural, the military, the abolition, the temperance, the colonization and the association newspapers each represent a portion of society desirous to inculcate peculiar views of truth, and promote reforms which it deems essential to the general welfare. The emigrants from every foreign country communicate with each other through organs furnished by the press, and preserve mutual sympathies and endearing recollections of their father lands. The press was dependent on European facts, sentiments, opinions, tastes and customs: now it is in all things independent and purely American. metropolitan: now it is universal. The newspaper in each important town conveys intelligence of all interesting incidents which occur within its vicinity, to the central press, and receives in return

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and diffuses information gathered from all portions of the world.

The press studies carefully the conditions of all classes, and yields its reports with such a nice adaptation of prices as to leave no portion of the community without information concerning all that can engage their curiosity or concern their welfare. It no longer fears the odious information, or the frowns of power; but dictates with boldness to the government, and combines and not unfrequently forms the public opinion which controls every thing. Yet the press is not despotic. Its divisions distract its purposes, and prevent a concentration of its powers upon any one object. That the newspaper press is capricious and often licentious will scarcely be denied; yet if it assails, it arms the party assaulted with equal weapons of defence, and yields redress for the injuries it inflicts.

The ability, learning and spirit with which the press is now conducted, strikingly contrast with the dulness and superficial learning of its earlier period. Its editors, no longer regarded as mere chroniclers of events or pains taking mechanics,