The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-10-16


1t is curious to note to what all extent the adap-
taton of machinery to all sorts of uses has created
revolution not only in the field of labor but also
in old customs and habits. We are not going to
recount the marvellous changes that have been
wrought in the commerce of the world by WHIT
NEY's invention of the Cotton Gin, ARKwR1GHTs
Spinning Jenny, and CoNPToN's Mule. The SIM
plcation of labor produced by the application OF
these various machines to the cleaning and manu-
facture of cotton, is too well known to require
more than passing reference. Nor do they stand
so prominent in the catalogue of inventions for
which the last half century has been distinguished
as to exact special notice. What has been &C
complished for one particular branch of industry
has also been effected with equal success in such
multitude of others, for machinery has
been applied to almost every possible use
from the ponderous trip hammer that swedges
with ease huge masses of red hot metal,
to the delicate continuance which asserts pins
far more rapidly and dexterously than can be done
by the nimblest of human fingers, and sticks
them in slips OF paper with unsurpassed regular
ity and precision. Perhaps the best illustration
that can be given of the changes which inventors
may be drawn from a comparison between the old
mode of travelling and that which is in vogue at
the present day. But little more than
three quarters of century ago-or while we
were fighting the battle of Independence-the
family travelling carriage which LAFAYETTE was
accustomed 10 use in his own country, and which
even that fine gentleman, the Count RocHAMBEAU,
would not have disdained to occupy, was huge
wagon-like vehicle, composed of wicker-work
capable of holding from ten to twenty persons
the family and their attendants-and was drawn
by four or six horses according to the wealth and
rank of the owner-the usual rate of progress
when on journey, being rather more than two
miles an hour. People travelled, however, over
the better roads of England somewhat more
rapidly, even at that period, than they did in
France. PENNANT tourist and naturalist of
some emnence in his day, in giving an account
of his journey from Chester to London, describes
the Chester stage-coach as ''no despcable vehicle
'for country gentlemen" its speed being such
that it actually made Twenty miles in one
''dayp Still more expeditions than even the Ches-
ter vehicle, were the fast coaches which were
called par excellence "fying coaches, and which
had been known to achieve in the long days Of
summer, forty miles in twelve hours-an extraor-
binary feat that is duly and exutingly chronicled
A prudent old gentleman of that day also eau
tons his friends, through the columns of a maya
zine, to be sure, when they take journey in win
ter, to put on two shirts, as they will find them
much warmer than an additional waistcoat. Such
advice sounds oddly at this time, when people
spin along ''the ringing grooves at rates ofspeed
varying from twenty to sixty miles an hour, COM
fortaby boxed up, caring nothing for the vicissi-
tudes Of the weather. thinking only of foot-pads as
m obsolete institution, and calculating to minute
the exact time when they will reach their place of
destination. A similar change has taken place in
the speed of travel by The gallant little band
of adventures who formed at jamestown the first
permanent European settlement on Ibis Continent
were four months in making the VOYAGE from
Fnpland-cia the Canaries-to the mouth Of the
chesapeake The New England pilgrims who
came over in the May Flower were two months
and three days in crossing from Southampton to
Massachusetts Bay; whilst the Maryland colonsts
who took the circuitous route by way of Madeira,
the Cape de Verde Islands, and Barbados, didnot
succeed in anchoring their tempest-tossed vessels
in Hampton Roads until more than three months
had elapsed from the time they left England. If
voyage by steamer much exceeds ten days, at this