The slowness with which improvements of every kind, make their way into common use, and especially such discoveries as are most calculated to be of an extended or general utility is very remarkable, and forms a striking contrast to the extreme avidity with which those unmeaning changes are adopted, which folly and caprice are continually sending forth into the world under the auspices of _fashion_. On the first view of the subject it appears very extraordinary, that any person should neglect, or refuse to avail himself of a proposed invention, or improvement, which is evidently calculated to economise his labour, and to encrease his comforts; but when we reflect on the power of habit, and consider how difficult it is for a person even to perceive the disadvantages or imperfections of former modes to which he has been accustomed from his early youth, our surprize will be diminished, or vanish altogether. Many other circumstances, besides prejudice, are unfavourable to the introduction of new and useful discoveries. Among these jealousy, malice, envy, and revenge, have too often their share in obstructing the progress of real improvement, and in preventing the adoption of plans evidently calculated to promote the public good. A plan like the present, which proposes not only to trench upon domestic habits, but to give an entire new direction to a portion of the skill and capital of the country, must necessarily encounter the most strenuous opposition. It is thus that some individuals have mustered all their strength against the introduction of this new art. An endeavour has been made to move the public opinion by dismal forebodings of the Greenland trade, and the subsequent loss of a nursery of British seamen. This objection is nothing more than the common clamour that is always set up against every new means of abridging labour, to which had the public listened, an interdict would have been laid upon the spinning and threshing machines, the steam engine, and a thousand other improvements in machinery.