The advantages which the civilized world owe to the invention of paper are beyond calculation, and almost out of the reach of thought. The great blessing of knowledge which it has conferred on mankind, together with its peculiar mission, renders it a subject of interest to all classes of society. The material of which the sheet of paper which the reader now holds in her hand, a few months ago, perhaps, hung with its ragged fellows from the back of some mendicant, fluttering along the street--or perhaps commenced its career in the lining of some dress, in all its purity of white and stiffening, and gradually descended through the various grades of usefulness, until at last it was fished up out of the gutter and thrust into the rag-picker's bag to meet a host of others that had travelled over the same despoiling scenes of ragdom. Rags have, at times, held no mean position in the political arena, for we read that "_the chiffoniers_, or rag-dealers of Paris, rose against the police some years ago, because it was ordered, in certain municipal regulations, that the filth of the streets should be taken away in carts, without time being allowed for its examination by those diligent savers of capital." Many experiments have been made upon substances proposed as substitutes for rags in the manufacture of paper. The bark of the willow, the beech, the aspen, the hawthorn, and the lime have been made into tolerable paper; the tendrils of the vine, and the stalks of the nettle, the mallow, and the thistle, have been used for a similar purpose; and bind of hops; and patents have been granted for making paper of straw. The process of bleaching the coarser rags, so as to render them fit for the purposes to which only those of the finest qualities were formerly applied, will, however, render the use of these inferior substances unnecessary for many years. The advance of a people in civilization has not only a tendency to make the supply of rags abundant, but, at the same time, to increase the demand. The use of machinery in manufactures renders clothing cheap; the cheapness of clothing causes its consumption to increase, not only in the proportion of an increasing population, but by the scale of individual expenditure; the stock of rags is therefore increasing in the same ratio that our looms produce more linen and cotton cloth. But then the increase of knowledge runs in a parallel line with this increase of comforts; and the increase of knowledge requires an increase of books. The principle of publishing books and tracts to be read by thousands, instead of tens and hundreds, has already caused a large addition to the demand for printing-paper. If, therefore, the demand for books in all civilized countries should outrun, which it is very likely to do, the power of each individual to wear out linen and cotton clothing to supply the demand, paper must be manufactured from other substances than rags.