to sell or use the invention without his consent. Under the present law it is simply a special favor, in shape of an exclusive right, granted to an individual to defraud the persons with whom he deals. The law should be so modified as to make the government or the examining officer responsible in all cases when patents issued for pretended discoveries or inventions prove to be neither new nor useful. If such were now the law, there would be less complaint of frauds practiced by pretended inventors, and the utter failure of patented articles to answer the purposes for which they were intended. The law should be so amended as to prevent oppressions and extortions in the sale and use of articles of real merit, for which the inventor should be rewarded, and should have an exclusive right to use and sell his invention. There should be some limit to the price of the article. Government has given him an exclusive right; he should be restricted to such prices as would fairly compensate him for his discovery. His case is not like that of other men, who in their dealings come in competition, and where this competition and the laws of demand and supply fix the prices of the commodities in which they deal. He has the whole business in his own hands, and any attempt on the part of others to interfere with his exclusive right is forbidden and punished. We have already stated that machines sold in this country for $75 could be bought in England for less than half that sum. Most of the articles and machines of different kinds patented in this country, and used in Europe, are sold by the patentees, their agents and assigns, at less than half the sums demanded here at home. In Europe, where they have no monopoly, no exclusive right, they come in competition with others; hence they sell at fair prices. But in this country, where they have an exclusive right, they extort from the purchaser from one hundred to five hundred per cent on the cost of the article. This, government should prevent. But a better way to adjust the whole matter between the public and the inventor would be for the government to pay a premium according to merit, for all new and useful inventions, and remove all restrictions. Let all be free to make, use, and sell, not the invention, but the thing invented. This course would require careful and thorough examination and experiment before the principle was indorsed by the government, and the premium paid. Or, if his invention proved to be new and useful, let government pay to the inventor such sum as would fairly and liberally compensate him, and give the invention to the public. Government has bestowed immense grants of land upon railroad companies, for the avowed purpose of assisting in the development of the country; with greater justice could it bestow upon the whole people all useful discoveries and inventions. Such a course, adopted and executed in good faith, would make it impossible for adventurers, sharpers, and swindlers to impose