chicanery may be abolished, and in which the poor inventor may not be overwhelmed by the long purses of the unscrupulous. The inventors do not ask any favour from the community. They pay a tax of some score thousands per annum to acquire a right in the property of their own brains, and this revenue is poured into the public treasury. They ask only that a portion of their annual thousands shall be paid as salary to competent judges, especially fitted by skill and experience to deal with questions of invention, and to strip away the fallacies with which they are surrounded by interested rhetoricians. A lawyer of unblushing front once assigned as a reason why patents should be abolished, “that inventors could no more help inventing than hens could help laying eggs,” and that, therefore, the public would have the inventions without paying for them. Probably this may be true; but there is no security for their hatching their inventions, if they may be taken from them when they have arrived at chickenhood. The public is really interested in their arriving at full growth, and should therefore leave the charge of them wholly to their parents.
A patent is granted for three years on the payment of 25l., for seven years for 75l., and for fourteen years for 175l. Now it is notorious that scarcely any patent gets into use under seven years, and in many cases the fourteen run out without return. Why should not the inventor have the right instead of the favour of renewal, for another payment at the end of the fourteen years? And if the renewal is to be made a question of specific profits as royalty, why should it be left at an arbitrary amount, depending on the opinions of gentlemen perhaps not conversant with the subject? Why should there not be some mode of calculation analogous to payment for vested interests? If it can be demonstrated that the public gain a million a year by an invention, why should not the inventor obtain a small percentage during a prolonged period in his life-time? If one man combines a number of words in the form of a book, he obtains a per-centage for its use, fixed by himself or his descendants for three generations. Why should not an inventor have a claim for a longer or shorter period for a combination of mechanical principles? It may be said, that he shuts out the public from their free use. Not so: his reward will only serve to stimulate others to make new combinations, in which case competition brings down the per-centage. The world gets a hundred new inventions by the process of fairly rewarding one, and stimulating the rest. Stop property in inventions, and trade societies will immediately arise, and manufacturers will pass their time in trying to steal each other’s secrets, as the American cotton planters stole the cotton gin of Eli Whitney, and thereby defeated his patent.
Even now, the stitching-machine is paling its power, and other machines are planning, that shall give us cloaks, and tunics, and trousers free from seams. The tailor (tailleur), or figure studier, will become the manufacturer’s artist to design for him so many sizes and proportions, as will take in the whole human race; and stitches, as we now understand them, will cease to be an integral part of men’s garments. Fashion changing from month to month may continue to prevail with those who have a passion for mere change, and money in abundance to pay for it; but the great mass of manhood, including the Volunteers, will be as gracefully clad as the succinct or draperied Greeks of old, with their clothing prepared for them by machines instead of by human slaves.
What possible harm could result to a nation, though the inventor of such machinery should obtain a million instead of a thousand pounds for his reward? By the sweat of the brow shall the sweat of the face be dried up, and human drudgery be lessened. There are many more thoughts in the human brain than have yet come out of it, and the nation that can most intelligently recognise the value of originality by removing obstacles from the path of originators, will—other things being equal—wield the greatest amount of power.
AMATA.
Who has not known Amata,
And bowed him to her thrall,
The despot of the drawing-room,
The peerless of the ball?
Amata looked, and longed for
Three seasons now or so,
’Neath pertest hat the brightest face
At noontide in the Row?
She moves in graceful glory by,
She glistens through the dance,
The cynosure of every wish,
The aim of every glance,
In such a light of loveliness
As crushes to eclipse
The sheen of wreathed bandeaux,
The swim of silken slips.
The proudest forms bend round her
In homage to her will;
Still she is woo’d Amata,
Unwon Amata still.
I wonder, in the dawning
When she is borne away,
And early sparrows chirp along
Her partner’s homeward way,
When he checks the music-memories
To think of her between
The refrain of “Dinorah”
And the ripple of “Lurline,”—
I wonder if a conscience smite
That eligible swain,
How wild his least ambition were,
His lightest hope how vain!
For, if I read Amata right,
(I often think I do,)
The curling of her dainty lip,
The fair cheek’s changeless hue;
The listless hand on proffered arm,
The guile of soft replies,
With restless face averted
To dazzle other eyes;
