to be a draper, and how simple are the details of such a trade.  While there are so many other drapers in the same street, his going out of business would never be felt as an inconvenience.  He is perhaps not doing any real good to the public at all, but only interloping with the already too small business of those who were in ‘the line’ before him.  Let him think of the many hours he spends in idleness, or making mere appearances of business, and ask if he is really doing any effective service to his fellow-creatures by keeping a shop at all.  It may be a hardship to him to have failed in a good intention; but this cannot be helped.  He may succeed better in some other scheme.  Let him quit this, and try another, or set up in a place where there is what is called ’an opening’—­that is, where his services are required—­the point essential to his getting any reward for his work.  We sometimes see most wonderful efforts made by individuals in an overdone trade; for example, those of a hatter, who feels that he must give mankind a special direction to his shop, or die.  Half-a-dozen tortoise-like missionaries do nothing but walk about the streets from morning to night, proclaiming from carapace and plastron,[1] that there are no hats equal to those at No. 98 of such a street.  A van like the temple of Juggernauth parades about all day, propagating the same faith.  ‘If you want a good hat,’ exclaims a pathetic poster, ’try No. 98.’  As you walk along the street, a tiny bill is insinuated into your hand, for no other purpose, as you learn on perusing it, but to impress upon you the great truth, that there are no hats in the world either so good or so cheap as those at No. 98.  The same dogma meets you in omnibuses, at railway platforms, and every other place where it can be expected that mankind will pause for a moment, and so have time to take in an idea.  But it is all in vain if there be a sufficient supply of good and cheap hats already in that portion of the earth’s surface.  The superfluous hatter must submit to the all-prevailing law, that for labours not required, and an expenditure of capital useless as regards the public, there can be no reward, no return.

Sometimes great inconveniences are experienced in consequence of local changes; such as those effected by railways, and the displacement of hand-labour by machinery.  A country inn that has supplied post-horses since the days of the civil war, is all at once, in consequence of the opening of some branch-line, deserted by its business.  It is a pitiable case; but the poor landlord must not attempt to be an innkeeper without business, for then he would be a misapplied human being, and would starve.  Now the world uses him a little hardly in the diversion of his customers; that may be allowed:  we must all lay our account with such hardships so long as each person is left to see mainly after himself.  But if he were to persist in keeping his house open, and thus reduce himself to uselessness, he would not be entitled to