Dividing and subdividing patent subjects into classes and sub-classes, and systematizing examinations to the extent it may be made to reach in the Patent Office, may, for a very long time to come, place this matter within the possibility of a reasonably good and conclusive search being made without additional cost to the inventor, provided what he now pays is all devoted to the furtherance of the Patent Office business. If, however, we hereafter make no examinations for novelty, an inventor is obliged to either make such a search for himself--with all the disadvantages of unfamiliarity with the best methods, inaccessibility to records, and incurring immensely more work than is required of the Patent Office examiner, who has everything pertaining thereto at his fingers' ends--or blindly pay his fees and take his patent under the impression that he is the first inventor, and run every risk of being beaten in the courts should any one essay to contest his claims; the probabilities of his being so beaten increasing in proportion as the number of inventions increase. The inventor pays to have this work done for him at the Patent Office in the only feasible way it can be thoroughly done; and the average inventor would, or should, be willing to have the present fees very largely increased, if necessary, rather than have the examinations for novelty abolished at the Patent Office; for, in the event of their abolition, it would cost him immensely more money to secure himself, as before the courts, by his own unaided and best attainable methods. The inventor now, however, pays to the Patent Office, as you well know, a good deal more money every year than the present cost of examinations, including of course all other Patent Office business; seeing a part of what he pays yearly covered into the Treasury as surplus, while his application is unreasonably delayed for the lack of examiner force in the Patent Office. Let the government first apply all the moneys received at the Patent Office to its legitimate purpose, including the making of these examinations, and, when this proves insufficient, you may depend that every inventor will cheerfully consent to the increase of fees, sufficient to insure the continuance of thorough examinations for novelty, rather than attempt to do this work himself or take the chances of his having reinvented some old device (which it is very well known occurs over and over again every day), and being beaten upon the very first contest in the courts, after, perhaps, investing large amounts of money, time, and anxiety over something which he thus discovers was invented, perhaps, before he was born.