“How, Mr. Midith, do you conduct your manufacturing industry?” asked Mrs. Uwins after Mr. Midith had finished speaking. “I suppose you manufacture a great many nice things.” “Our manufacturing is, of course, done on a large scale, and mostly in those localities where the natural resources are best adapted for it. The advantages of manufacturing on a _large_ scale are many and important. Let us exemplify this more fully. When every individual had to make his own garments and his own house, like primitive people do, both clothes and houses were scarce and poor, for several reasons which you undoubtedly understand. It is necessary, in order to manufacture a good article with little labor, first, to be a skillful workman, and, second, to have good tools and machinery to work with. The same person cannot be skilled in all trades, and, even if he could, he should still manufacture on a large scale; for it would require far too much needless labor for every person to own as good machinery and tools as many men can afford to own _together_, and the better the tools and machinery, the _more_ and the _better_ goods can be manufactured with the same amount of labor. Every individual can not own a good tailor shop, a convenient shoe factory and a large watchmaking establishment. ‘Division of labor’ should be as complete as possible, not only among individuals, but among communities as well. “For instance, we have very large flouring mills, which have all the latest improved milling machinery in them. This machinery is very costly, and it would not be wise to have such a mill in each community. Therefore, one community manufactures one article and another community manufactures another, and some do not manufacture much at all.” “Do you manufacture extraordinary fine cloth, jewelry, dress goods, etc.?” asked Viola somewhat inquiringly, as she glanced at Mr. Midith. Mr. Midith smiled with apparent satisfaction and replied: “Indeed, we make fine cloths, some elegant jewelry, but we manufacture no dress goods. You see we have no use for dress goods, because our ladies do not wear _dresses_ like you do.” “Do your ladies honestly wear no dresses!” exclaimed Viola astonishingly. “What a strange world! a world without a dress in it!” “Yes; our ladies wear no dresses,” responded Mr. Midith; “but we are digressing from our subject. Some other evening I shall fully describe our costume of both ladies and gentlemen.” “Does not, then, manufacture and mining give a denser population to a community than a community has which is engaged almost exclusively in agriculture?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Yes; they have a tendency to increase the density of population in a community above the average. But a mine or factory which employs 10,000 hands is quite large; and an increase of ten thousand in a community having in an average a population of 120,000 is not a large increase.”