New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-07-18

to fight for light and trivial causes; the people
have grown wise, and kings have been obliged
TO give up their little games. The consequence
is that inventors, even in France, are quite as
great folk as the Marshals of the En-
pire; and he who finds out a labor
saving adaptation of the mechanical powers
is greater than he who taketh a city. 1t is
cheerful peculiarly of the time that he who
really hits upon a useful invention is sure of
being handsomely rewarded. The busy world
wants it, must have it, cannot afford to do
without it, and, however reluctantly, is obliged
to pay for it. 1t is true that the inventor is
sometimes lacking in prudence, and allows
himself to be swindled out of the due reward
of his ingenuity but the world Is not to blame
for this it pays somebody always, although it
may now and then settle with the wrong per
son. Such an error is occasionally inevitable,
and is probably no more frequent In matters OF
invention than in other branches of business.
The world, if any hing, is a little too credu-
Ous. 1t has encountered 50 many wonders,
and seen so many apparent mposslblllties
overcome that it is astonished by nothing,
and willing to believe in anything. The con-
sequence is that it gets great many Things
extremely useful and highly convenient, winch
otherwise it would be forced to go without.
Invention, duly encouraged, increases every
day in fecundity.
We do not care over much for the
Legion of Honor, but we confess to
little pride in the reflection that our own
country has been among the foremost III
this competition of usefulness II Yankees
have been devoted to whiting, they certainly
have Whitfield to some purpose. For good
many years the world has been laughing at
Yankee machines; lately it has been wiser-it
has been buying them. We are glad to have
our tasteful and artistic contributions noticed
and approved, because they bear testimony TO
the fact that while we make excellent loco
motives, and the best moving machines eXtant,
we are not unmindful of the graces and the
elegances of life. 1t proves something that
one Of the first objects of an American girls
ambition is to possess a pianO-forte. She
may be poor; she may be earning WIN
difficulty her own daily bread; but how
often she manages to buy the coveted
instrument, and to pay for it by little
installments, which imply great sacrifices and
close economy, the agents of the manufacturers
might tell us. This feeling is very seldom one
OF vanity IL NllHto oittH'ob ii'hi a. iN"i WV
of music and the desire of making some pro-
grcss in the practice of it. This demand has
created the manufacture If we make the best
pianos in the world, it is because we buy more
of them, and know the good ones from the
bad. We can remember when in whole VIII
lagcs there was not SO much as an old
fashioned spinet, while now almost every house
hold has a better piano-forte than Mozart or
Haydn ever played on. We doubt if there be
this general diffusion of the means of musical
culture anywhere else in the world, except,
possibly, in some parts of Germany And yet,
we are considered by the ignorant OF other ma
tions to be a hard, practical, penurious, grasp
Ing, and purely mechanical people. Probably,
we take the liberty of saying, there never was
n more laundering mistake made III the world
since it was created
The fate of all nationalities is governed by
so many circumstances which cannot be fore
seen that it i'll becomes us to boast of the
probable future of our dear country. This
much. however, is certain: We are rid of that
moral and economical incubus which brought
ut last upon us the distress and shame of civil
war That period of pain and calamity has
passed, and future of pure and consistent
freedom il before us There is n Legion of
Honor to which the Muse of History may admit
a whole people; and in the society of great,
consistent, and truly virtuous nations may we
be enrolled