Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1851-04-03
New Inventions.

Do sCieHIlic discovery ana mecHanlcdl lHVeHIIoL
r promote human happiness! Some say that they
do not; that they unfavorable to liberty, with
out which, human happiness cannot be permanent
or secure; that they promote monopoly, enrich the
few and impoversh the many, and thus render the
many the vassals of the few; that they diminish
the demand for and consequently the value of, hui
man labor, and thus impoverish and enslave the
laborer And to prove all this, they refer to the
Chinese, who will not use modern machinery, be-
cause it deprives labor of employment. We have
already intimated that if progress be law of hu-
manity, discovery and invention are the results of
that law, and therefore must be beneficial; and
that if progress be not such law, then man can
have no higher destiny, at least in this world, than
the lower animals all of which are stationary, both
Intellectually and morally.
Let us examine the condition of the Chinese
If it be not better than that of progressive nations,
then the stationary policy does not deserve this
/ high commendation. And if it exhibit the same
evils which appear in progressive society, then
these evils are not mputable to progress and con-
servation is not their remedy. All accounts tell
us that monopoly, differences in condition, exorb-
tant wealth and excessive poverty, social discon-
tent and disorder, and political rebellion, exist in
greater degree in China, than in any other part
of the world excepting India. The poor of Can
ton and other large Chinese cities are nnumerable
and their condition far below that of the poorest
| in Europe. At the same time, fortunes may be
&b, ob
tant in England, Austria, Russia, or any other
country of excessive wealth. Therefore the per-
sistence of the Chinese in ancient customs, their
rejection of all improvements that save labor, have
not saved them from the very evils which their
eulogists ascribe TO scientific discovery and mecha-
nical invention.
Leaving the Chinese, let US compare the present
condition of the "masses' in Europe with their
condition in the middle ages. In the times of the
Crusades, even the nobility of England or France
were not so well taught, so well lodged, well clad,
well fed as the majority of mechanics and traders
of the same countries at the present day. William
the Conqueror or Richard the Lion Hearted knew
not the luxury of cotton shirt or silk stockings.
sheep-skins, would appear very coarse beside our
duffels and blankets. They dwelt in palaces,
which, for convenience light, ventilation, warmth,
and other means of health, were far inferior to
modern brick house of the first or second, or even
the third class. They were strangers to all the
refinements of modern cookery now common in
the dwellings of Independent mechanics. Carpets
were unknown in England, even SO late as the
reign of Elizabeth, whose royal floors were cover
ed with sand or rushes Before the days of Magma
Charta, few of either Norman or Saxon nobility
could write their names, and not a few of them
could not read. The majority of peasants dwelt
in houses about equal to the modern mud-cabins of
Ireland, In comparison with which, the log houses
of our pioneers are palaces As the compass was
unknown, navigation was confined to coasting, and
therefore tedious and dangerous. AS printing and
paper were unknown, books were confined to
parchment, and multiplied by the pen, and there
fore expensive and few Agriculture was confined
to the spade, the hoe, the scythe, and the rude
plough, still extant in the most benghted parts of
Europe. Even the spinning wheel was unknown,
and the loom was the rude contrivance long since
discarded from England.
In these rude ages, twenty men with their i'm
perfect means, could not accomplish so much in a
day, as one man now with modern machinery
Hence much less of anything was produced than
at present, and the majority of modern productions
were unknown. Let us consider printing alone
All the men and women now in Philadelphia could
not then furnish with pen SO many copies of any
book in year, as the printers alone of the same
city will now furnish in day. Nor could they
furnish so many yards of wollen cloth in a year,
as the cloth manufacturers of the same city will
now furnish in week. Newspapers could not
then exist and books were rarties, mostly confined
to the clergy and lawyers Hence very few peo-
pie. even of the high ranks, could read, and con-
could acquire knowledge only from OBJ
seryation or narration. Now the most ignorant
farmer, mechanic, trader is better informed in
every science, physical or moral, in agriculture,
commerce, manufactures, in religion, in morals, in
politics, than the great majority of the nobility in
those barbarous ages And these differences are
caused by discovery and invention.-Ledger
An lTashnan, upon seeing squirrel shot from
a tree, said "faith and be Jabers that was waste
of powder, the fall itself would have killed the
squirrel.