Bookbinding.-By thirty-four establishments, devoted to this branch of trade, the binding and boarding of books is conducted on a considerable scale. By means of highly skilled workmen, good tools, and improved apparatus of different sorts, the best kind of work is produced. There are, however, some peculiarities in the trade. A superior class of morocco and gilt binding is, strangely enough, executed cheaper in London than Edinburgh; but, on the other hand, work in half-calf and one or two other varieties can be produced at a considerably lower rate in Edinburgh than London. Latterly, much taste has been demonstrated in first-class cloth boarding, which, for style of finish, is quite equal to anything of the kind produced by metropolitan binders. One establishment (Messrs. Seaton and Mackenzie) employs 111 persons; and the work it turned out last year amounted to 624,570 volumes, the larger proportion being in cloth boards and paper covers. At another establishment (W. Hunter), where there are 74 hands employed, 276,493 volumes were bound or boarded in the past year, besides more than a million of periodicals stitched. As seen by the foregoing list, bookbinding in Edinburgh gives employment to 532 females, who are occupied chiefly as folders and sewers. As ministering to this trade there could be mentioned several die and stamp cutting establishments (Messrs. R. Sclater & Son, and Messrs. Alex. Kirkwood and Son).

Newspapers.-From the Edinburgh press there issue fourteen newspapers, four of which are published daily, namely, the Evening Courant, the Caledonian Mercury, Daily Review, and Scotsman. Since the abolition of the several taxes which affected the press, the newspapers of Edinburgh, as elsewhere, have, with increased sales, largely extended their influence; nor is it unobservable that while every shade of opinion is represented, no deterioration whatever has taken place either in the mechanical preparation, or in the literary qualities of the papers, since they were cheapened and popularised. In several establishments, improved machinery to effect rapid printing has been introduced, and of this indication of progress no better example could be given than that presented by the Scotsman, in the printing office of which there are consumed 230 reams, or seven tons, of paper weekly. Two machines work off impressions at the rate of 15,000 and 10,000 an hour respectively. The ordinary daily issue is about 17,000, with a separate weekly issue of 36,000. One hundred and twenty persons are employed in the establishment, besides 22 deliverers. Tho expenditure for wages and salaries alone in the several departments, mechanical, commercial, and literary, is nearly £200 per week, or £10,000 yearly.

Along with the Edinburgh newspapers may be classed two sheets consisting entirely of advertisements, and, with some special exceptions, delivered gratuitously. The oldest and best known of these papers is the North British Advertiser, begun in 1826: its actual impression is 17,190, but by an organised system of gratuitous lending and re-dispersal, it has a guaranteed circulation of 31,000 copies

weekly. Few instances could be given of greater perseverance and ingenious enterprise in connexion with the press, than that which is offered in the conducting of this successful undertaking.

Publishing, as above shown, is carried on by thirty-four firms, who issue among them thirty-six periodicals, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. They also, in 1862, as appears from advertising lists, issued 345 distinct works, but as many books and new editions are not so recorded, the number of miscellaneous publications produced yearly is probably about 450.

When conducted on the comprehensive plan already noticed, the Edinburgh publishing establishments constitute a curiosity in manufactures. The largest of this class is that of Messrs. Nelson and Sons, in which are found eleven steam-printing machines, seventeen hand-presses, fourteen steam lithographic machines and hand-presses, besides bookbinding and other machinery; a wood-engraving room, a printing-ink and an enamel and coloured paper manufactory. The entire number of persons employed is about 350. The quantity of paper used annually is about 250 tons. The weekly wages paid in 1862 amounted to £11,568; besides which, in the same year there was paid to authors and editors the sum of £3,325. An establishment not so extensive, but combining more of a literary character, is that of W. and R. Chambers. Besides eleven printing machines, it comprises every department connected with the preparation and dispersal of books and periodicals. Connected with it are two principal and six assistant editors, independently of a large number of casual writers; among whom, in 1862, was paid the sum of £3,714. The entire number of persons usually occupied in the establishment is 250, receiving in the aggregate upwards of £7,000 as wages per annum. The quantity of paper consumed in 1862 was about 220 tons. The large establishments of Oliver and Boyd, and of Fullerton and Co., present a similarly comprehensive union of departments, and that of Messrs. Blackwood embraces printing along with periodical and general publishing.

Favourably situated in many respects, as has been seen, for prosecuting the business of the publisher, Edinburgh undeniably labours under some drawbacks as a literary centre, which it would be a want of candour to conceal. The more prominent of these is the decline of brilliant literary talent in Scotland, whether arising from natural causes, or, as some might be inclined to think, from the distraction of mind and feelings towards subjects disconnected with, if not directly opposed to, imaginative writing. The consequence has been the want of available literary material from native sources, and the corresponding necessity for drawing supplies, at whatever inconvenience, from England. This deficiency is most sensibly felt in the conducting of periodicals of a purely literary character; and taken along with another cause of perplexity to the publisher, is forcing the migration of certain branches of the trade to London. I here allude to the scarcity of professional designers for the pictorial embellishments now required in the more popular class of periodicals.

In this department, Edinburgh publishers could not hope to compete with any chance of success, unless they contrived, at the expenditure of sums reckoned by thousands of pounds, to procure designs from metropolitan artists; but as even money cannot annihilate the inconveniences attending this species of importation, the tendency naturally has been to remove to London, and there carry on what could with difficulty be sustained in Edinburgh. That this local deficiency is not beyond remedy, is sufficiently obvious; and to judge from certain indications, we may expect that, with proper encouragement, the means of procuring fancy designs on wood will not in future be wanting.

With a shortcoming in original writing, it cannot be said that Edinburgh has adopted means to compete successfully even as regards compilation, in which department the publisher is liable at times to be put to considerable straits. While literary men in London are able to draw on the gigantic resources of the library in the British Museum, the literary man of Edinburgh is provided with no such accommodation. His chief reliance is on the library of the Faculty of Advocates, which, however liberally open to his researches, is on a far from satisfactory footing; for it is deficient in any proper space adapted for study or literary researches. Happily this defect is not irremediable. Were the Advocates' Library, which is enriched gratuitously with a copy of every work published in the United Kingdom, to be transformed, with the consent of parties, and under sanction of the Legislature, into a public library, freely and commodiously open to all, great would be the service rendered to the publishing trade of Edinburgh. Some attention on the part of local authorities to this matter of public concern seems to be eminently desirable, in order, as far as practicable, to sustain the reputation which our city has acquired as a centre of literary production.

Such is a short exposition of the publishing trade in Edinburgh. I have endeavoured to avoid everything like discursiveness or mere sentiment, such being inconsistent with the objects which the present meeting has in view. Enough, however, has been said to show that the trade, directly or indirectly, maintains a considerable number of individuals, and is the means of circulating in a steady way large sums of money-not the least of its benefits being that the trade affords a respectable remunerative employment to a numerous body of young women, who might otherwise be in straitened circumstances. I wish I could have added that the trade was in course of hopeful extension, which I am sorry it is not, at least as regards the issuing of high-class imaginative writings. In some branches, it is scarcely keeping its ground, a circumstance which I impute to no shortcoming in the enterprise or munificence of the publishers, but to other causes, to which I have taken the liberty to draw attention. Some of these, as I have said, are remediable, others are not, and perhaps, so far as they are remediable, any explanations I have offered may not be without a good effect. Clearly, the head and front of the difficulty we have to encounter is that of contending against

London, the great centre of attraction for men of letters, the place where every aid required by the publisher-artistic, mechanical, and commercial-is ready at hand at a moment's notice; and where also there exist those extensive means of advertising on which so much of the success of the publisher depends. Not that Edinburgh is devoid of these means, but intelligence of the kind I refer to is circulated most advantageously through channels that command attention in England, where the great book-buying population is to be found. That Edinburgh, under the disadvantages of its position, should have done so much as it has, is matter alike for surprise and gratulation, and just shows what may be effected by an indomitable spirit of perseverance. That this spirit will not give up the fight without a struggle, cannot be doubted; and I shall rejoice as much as any one if it should, even to the moderate degree of keeping its ground, come off victorious. Of course, whatever tends to promote broad genial-or, to coin a word, unlocal-sentiment in Scotland, for it is from such sentiment that literary inclinations and aptitudes spring, will materially contribute to this desirable end.

The Patent Question. By R. A. MACFIE.

IN treating of the patent question, we are called to consider the principles on which inventors ought to be rewarded or encouraged, the actual state of patent legislation, and the mode in which legislation may be brought into conformity with those principles. Without any formal division, these branches of this great subject will severally come under notice in the following notes.

The principles on which inventors ought to be dealt with will be best understood by obtaining a clear view of the rights and services of inventors.

With regard to these there prevails much misapprehension. Spurious sentiment is too frequently allowed to cloud the judgment of parties who seek to reform our patent legislation.

What, then, are the inventor's rights?

Unquestionably, the inventor has the right to use his own invention. It is a serious objection to patent laws that, unless he be the first to patent, he may lose this right. Quite commonly an invention suggests itself to a number of persons about the same time. In such a case, all but the one who is the first to use and patent it are deprived of the advantage of the improvement, though it is as much their as his original device.

Further, the inventor has the right to conceal his invention. As to the propriety of doing so, he must himself judge. Of course, also, he may reveal his secret and accept a consideration as its price. The inventor has no other natural right.

On the other side, what right affecting the invention has the

State? None. It cannot claim participation in, nor revelation of, the inventor's secret.

Yet has the State a duty. While protecting the inventor in the free exercise of his right of use, it should, on the other hand, maintain the natural right of all its citizens to do whatever they please, provided it wrongs nobody, and particularly to carry on their trades with their own machines, and in their own ways.

Here arise the questions-Does public use of an invention discovered by an individual do him a wrong? Are forms, combinations, processes, that he has introduced, his exclusively? We have already virtually answered in the negative. Hence, for the State to allow the inventor an exclusive privilege or right is to limit or trespass on the rights of others.

Statute law institutes in favour of inventors exclusive privileges, which become, or are called, their rights; but in doing so it preserves the principle of the right of the public, since, at the end of the period for which it grants these privileges, they cease. If they were natural rights of property, lapse of time would not make them null; and inventions could not become public property without positive enactment.

The privileges which statute law, rightly or wrongly, creates, are not granted in consequence of acknowledged or claimed right of property; nor are they the price whereby the State purchases from an inventor a right of property. They are the reward (or, be it the price) whereby it induces him to reveal his secret, and introduce his invention into use. The latter part of the contract-the introducing into use-is a condition too frequently neglected, perhaps now altogether lost sight of, and no longer insisted on either by courts or legislators, in the United Kingdom.

Here let us pause or digress, in order to make some observations intended to remove certain difficulties that may arise and embarrass some inquirers.

Right of property in inventions cannot be established by analogy from the case of property in things material. Take the case of a man who reclaims and occupies or uses a piece of land. If anybody besides intrudes, and proceeds to cultivate it, he interferes with this prior occupant. Both cannot have the full enjoyment of it, or of its fruits. But if that which the man reclaims and uses be something he makes available from the unexplored or waste parts of the world of mind-as, for instance, a method of improving land, and rendering it productive-ten thousand other persons may appropriate and enjoy it as fully as he himself does, without the smallest intrusion on their part, or any interference of one with another.

Or, take the illustration in a slightly different form a man makes and uses a plough. It cannot be used at the same time by his neighbour. But if he invents a new kind of plough, all his neighbours may make ploughs similar, without injuring him-that is, without taking his property-viz., the particular plough he made. The difference arises from the constitution of things. It has