points. As to paper, there is nothing to be objected till some great discovery supersedes the complication of writing by some undreamed-of way of communicating our thoughts with somewhat of the ease and rapidity of speech. But what a nuisance is ink! It is a barbarism altogether. We see this by the incessant efforts made to relieve us. We have inks of many colours and various consistence; and there is no end to the invention of inkstands: but all does not do. Every ink stains indelibly in the spilling; and where is the house in which there has never been any spilling of ink, in study, drawing-room, boudoir, or kitchen! Look at counting-house desks and school-room tables! Look at the dusty, brown, thick fluid in the vestry inkstand and the small shop! Look at the troubles of the traveller who would keep a journal in a far country! He might be living in Jack Cade's time by the ink-horn at his button,—still the least inconvenient way, by the testimony of travellers. In this direction we may hope for something from the Exhibition. We do not want more varieties ingenious inkglasses which, if they do not let the fluid escape, get clogged with it, or will not let it out when and as wanted. We want a new implement which requires no ink at all. Reporters in the galleries or pews of parliament, the courts, or churches do not use ink: but their pencils are a sad trouble: and the writing in their case need not be so black and so indelible as is requisite for books, deeds and letters. Can we not have, from some practical chemist, a kind of pencil which shall make black and indelible marks without being heavy, without needing cutting, and with out using up too fast? Till some magical method is flashed upon the world, whereby ideas may be recorded as the sunlight records form and shadow, we must demand more convenient implements.
Phonetic writers and shorthand writers expose with entire truth the complication of the ordinary method, with its vast apparatus of the alphabet and its million of combinations, arbitrary and burdensome accordingly; but the substituted methods they propose are not, and never will be, widely adopted. I need not go into the reasons of this. They have never commanded assent, as a great discovery always does; and their advocates will go on arguing as they do now, and with much the same result, till the hour arrives when some bright discovery shall enable us to record our thoughts by an act of the mind, without the slow mechanical labour of the hand. Then inkstands will become relics of antiquity, and no more will be heard of the great rag controversy; and the great steel-pen factories at Birmingham will be occupied for some purpose as little imagined as ship-armour and sewing-machines were at the opening of the century.
The complication of our dress is another barbarism. If it is true, as I have read and heard confirmed by those who should know, that the most moderate middle-class female wardrobe consists of not less than 167 separate articles (not counting pins individually), the absurdity is apparent enough. So it is when we consider the hardship to the new-born infant of being plagued with half-a-dozen garments, one on the top of another. Some people have a notion that such complication is a refinement: but they would not think so if they had witnessed the toilettes of any three or four savage nations. Even where these people wear little clothing, they save no time or thought by it. The girls in Nubia, who wear only fringes of leather, spend an infinity of time in twiddling their hair-braids, and soaking every single hair in castor oil. The Red Indian beau spends days in painting his person, as the New Zealander does in tattooing his skin. I need not point out the resemblance between the English and the African or Polynesian belle in the matter of ornament. When rows of shining articles are hung round the neck and arms, it matters little whether they are stones or shells, pearls or fish-bones, beads or sharks' teeth. When the flesh is pierced to hang ornaments in, it is of little consequence whether it is the flap of the ear or the lip, or the nose. The whole practice is essentially barbarous. What I more particularly refer to, however, is the heaping of a series of coverings on the body, to the embarrassment of its movements, and the waste of an infinity of precious hours to all the world. I remember that in 1851 a strong hope was repeatedly and widely expressed that one effect of the Exhibition would be the discrediting for ever of the hideous and irrational head-gear of Englishmen-the hat, which nobody defends; but why stop at any one article when there are so many which might be superseded at a stroke by some inspiration of good sense and taste? Any sensible man or intelligent woman could presently suggest a costume, consisting of a tithe of the present number of articles, which should be more convenient in the wearing than the present English dress, more suitable to the climate of any country, less costly in time and means, and incomparably more graceful. Such a change will not be wrought in a day, now or hereafter: but each Exhibition may prepare the way to it by suggesting a consolidation of articles, and simplifying the requisites of clothing.
Here we have glanced at most of the departments of our daily life—our dress, our writing and printing, our warming and lighting. Our housewives tell us of great simplification of the household ofiices within their experience. As the lucifer-match is to the tinder-box, so is the modern laundry apparatus to the ancient. Washing, drying, and smoothing are now done by machinery, and are superintended by skilled labour. Cookery is already much lightened. The chopping is done by the mincing-machine, far better than by knife and board. Squeezing, paring, mixing, kneading, rolling, cutting-everything will soon be done by the cook's head instead of her strong arms; and, on the housemaid's behalf, we need not despair of the beds making themselves, and the dust taking itself off by word of command, as the sewage of house, street, and city is learning to do. But what of our habitations themselves!
Some centuries hence, it will probably be cited, as proof of the barbarism of our age, that it was still a common practice to construct dwellings as coral edifices are constructed, by an aggregation of particles,—the process requiring an immensity of time and effort. The coral insects cannot help