employed in this establishment; and, during the session of parliament, at least twelve reporters are constantly attending the Houses of Commons and Lords; each in his turn retiring, after about an hour's work, to translate into ordinary writing, the speech he has just heard and noted in short-hand. In the mean time fifty compositors are constantly at work, some of whom have already set up the beginning, whilst others are committing to type the yet undried manuscript of the continuation of a speech, whose middle portion is travelling to the office in the pocket of the hasty reporter, and whose eloquent conclusion is, perhaps, at that very moment, making the walls of St. Stephen's vibrate with the applause of its hearers. These congregated types, as fast as they are composed, are passed in portions to other hands; till at last the scattered fragments of the debate, forming,
which the stranger may think it not unreasonable to claim for the gratification of his curiosity (and to him this time is but a moment), may cause a failure in the delivery of a thousand copies, and disappoint a proportionate number of expectant readers, in some of our distant towns, to which the morning papers are despatched by the earliest and most rapid conveyances of each day. This note is inserted with the further and more general purpose of calling the attention of those, especially foreigners, who are desirous of inspecting our larger manufactories, to the chief cause of the difficulty which frequently attends their introduction. When the establishment is very extensive, and its departments skilfully arranged, the exclusion of visitors arises, not from any illiberal jealousy, nor, generally, from any desire of concealment, which would, in most cases, be absurd; but from the substantial inconvenience and loss of time, throughout an entire series of well-combined operations, which must be occasioned even by short and casual interruptions.
