became necessary. It is common to speak of two kinds of revenue. That which we have mentioned,—the profits of capital,—is called neat revenue; while the name of gross revenue is given to the whole return made to the capitalist; that is, his reproduced capital and his profits together make his gross revenue, and his profits alone make his neat revenue. When the price of bar-iron fell, the gross revenue was of course less than it had been; so that when the capital was replaced, a smaller neat revenue than usual remained. The partners immediately did what all wise men do in such a case,—they diminished the expenses of living. Mr. Bernard dismissed two of his household servants, and did not indulge his children with a journey that year, and bought very few books, and left off many luxuries. Mr. Wallace laid down his curricle; and his lady sent away her maid and got her hand in again, as Paul would have said, to dress her hair. These retrenchments did not effect all the partners wished, and, for the first time since they opened their concern, they added nothing to their capital at the end of the year. The next year, though they retrenched still further, their neat revenue was not enough for their family expenses, and they were compelled to consider what retrenchments they could carry into their business as well as their domestic management. They knew that the grand point they must aim at, for the sake of all, was to keep their capital entire; for the less capital they laid out, the less labour they could employ, and the less iron they would send into the market, and their gross and neat revenue would dwindle away year by year. It was evident that their fixed capital must be left as it was. Whenever any change was made in that department, it must be to add to it; not by building more furnaces, but by substituting machinery,—hoarded labour,—for the labour which demanded wages; but this would not be done till the effect of a reduction of wages had been tried. Whatever change was made, therefore, must be with respect to the reproducible capital. Could any economy be carried into the preparation of the iron-stone? The different parts of the process were pondered frequently with this view; and the result was, that no change could at present be made in the first fusion of the metal, but that the cinder which came from the refinery and the forge might, by being mixed with a particular kind of earth, be made to produce an inferior sort of iron which would sell well for certain purposes. The experiment was tried and succeeded to some extent, though not so triumphantly as was expected by Francis and his brother, who had turned their attention long and industriously to this point. They had hoped that the piles of cinder which formed so ugly an object in their view would disappear by degrees under their new process; but they were obliged to be content with using up that which was daily thrown off in the manufacture of the superior kinds of iron.