The introduction of the linotype and other modern machines into printing offices has without doubt many times reduced and displaced manual labour, and caused at those times at least temporary suffering among employees. But statistics do not show that as a whole there are fewer printers in the land. On the contrary, the force seems to increase, just as the number of printing establishments increase, with the multiplication of new inventions. As in other arts, the distress caused by the displacement of hand-labour by machinery is local and temporary. The whole art rests for its development on the demand for reading matter, and the demand never seems to let up. It increases as fast as the means of the consumers increase for procuring it. One hundred years ago a decent private library, consisting of a hundred or so volumes, one or two weekly newspapers, and an occasional periodical, was the badge and possession alone of the wealthy few. Now nearly every reading citizen of every village has piled up in some corner of his house a better supply than that, of bound or unbound literature, and of a far superior quality. Besides the tons of reading matter of all kinds turned out daily by the city presses, every village wants its own paper and its town library, and every one of its business men has recourse to the typewriter and the printer for his letters, his cards, and his advertisements. To supply the present demand for printed matter with the implements of a hundred years ago, it would be necessary to draw upon and exhaust the supply of labourers in nearly every other occupation. Printing would become the one universal profession. The roar of the guns at Waterloo and the click of the first power printing press in London were nearly simultaneous. The military Colossus then tumbled, and the Press began to lead mankind. Wars still continue, and will, until men are civilised; but the vanguard of civilisation are the printers, and not the warriors. The marvellous glory of the nineteenth century has proceeded from the intelligence of the people, awakened, stimulated, and guided by the press. But the press itself, and its servitors and messengers, speeding on the wings of electricity, are the children of the inventors. These inventions have made the book and the newspaper the poor man’s University. They are mirrors which throw into his humble home reflections of the scenes of busy life everywhere. By them knowledge is spread, thought aroused, and universal education established. CHAPTER XVIII. TEXTILES.