Whither, I would thoughtfully and anxiously ask, do these facts, which stare us in the face from every quarter, tend? What is their mighty significancy? The unprecedented increase of the most cunningly adapted, durable, and economical machinery—on the one hand—to perform, in great part, the work heretofore done by us—the laborers; and—on the other hand—the sure and certain increase of that most reliable portion of humanity which we represent, and whose only capital is their muscles, and whose hope of bread for themselves and children is in the performance, to a large extent, of that same labor thus snatched from us by the offspring of invention. What wonder that the honest laborer, who knows no cunning but the use of the physical force which God has given him, or the mechanic who plies his trade, should stand aghast, and feel his heart sink within him, as he is forced from his legitimate occupation, to another and still another, and at last finds his employment altogether fitful and uncertain, from the number of his fellows driven to the same condition as himself. His labor is truly “a drug in the market,” and stern necessity is fast putting him, if it has not already, wholly at the mercy of capital. I could not but sadly ponder, as one—while watching the nicely adjusted movements of a cheap engine, which had ejected him and his fellow, in like condition, from the place whence, for years, they had obtained a livelihood for themselves and families—significantly observed to me that, “the best thing that could be done with _that thing_ would be to break it to pieces, and pitch it out of the window.” They saw wood about town now, when they can get it to do, as the _machinery_, which they have in such successful operation in Chicago and some other cities for that purpose, has not yet been introduced here. Their daughters, too, who have, till within a six month back, had work at $2 50 per week, in the factories, are now out of employ. This, you know, is but one of countless similar illustrations which take place every day in poor families. H. We have thus allowed our friend to state his whole case—though he only submitted it that we might comment on its substance—and we now solicit his attention to some thoughts by it suggested.