cannot buy books.  Hundreds of thousands of persons are now out “on strike,” or are “locked out” by the gentlemen who advocate this “cheap labor” system; and the result of all this extraordinary cessation from labor can be none other than the continued growth of poverty, intemperance, and crime.  The picture that is presented by that country is one of unceasing discord between the few and the many, in which the former always triumph; and a careful examination of it cannot result in leading us to expect an increase in the desire to purchase books, or in the ability to pay for them.

Having looked upon that picture, let our authors next look to the one now presented by this country, as compared with that which could have been offered forty, thirty, or even twenty years since, and to obtain aid in understanding the facts presented to their view, let them read the following extract from a speech recently delivered by Mr. Cobden:—­

“You cannot point to an instance in America, where the people are more educated than they are here, of total cessation from labor by a whole community or town, given over, as it were, to desolation.  When I came through Manchester the other day, I found many of the most influential of the manufacturing capitalists talking very carefully upon a report which had reached them from a gentleman who was selected by the government to go out to America, to report upon the great exhibition in New York.  That gentleman was one of the most eminent mechanicians and machine-makers in Manchester, a man known in the scientific world, and appreciated by men of science, from the astronomer royal downwards.  He has been over to America, to report upon the progress of manufactures and the state of the mechanical arts in the United States, and he has returned.  No report from him to the government has yet been published.  But it has oozed out in Manchester that he found in America a degree of intelligence amongst the manufacturing operatives, a state of things in the mechanical arts, which has convinced him that if we are to hold our own, if we are not to fall back in the rear of the race of nations we must educate our people to put them upon a level with the more educated artisans of the United States.  We shall all have the opportunity of
 judging when that report is delivered; but sufficient has already oozed
out to excite a great interest, and I might almost say some alarm.”

Having done this, let them next ask themselves what have been the causes of the vast change in the relative positions of the two countries.  Doing this, will not the answer be, common schools, cheap school-books, cheap newspapers, and cheap literature?  Has not each and every one of these aided in making authors, and in creating a market for their products?  Having thus laid the foundation of a great edifice, are we likely to stop in the erection of the walls?  Having in so brief a period created a great market