Note 1 — MACHINERY AND MANUFACTURES.

“The Author of these pages, with one of his friends, was recently induced to visit this most interesting establishment, after midnight, during the progress of a very important debate. The place was illuminated with gas, and was light as the day:—there was neither noise nor bustle;—and the visitors were received with such calm and polite attention, that they did not, until afterwards, become sensible of the inconvenience which such intruders, at a moment of the greatest pressure, must occasion, nor reflect that the tranquillity which they admired, was the result of intense and regulated occupation. But the effect of such checks in the current of business will appear on recollecting that, as four thousand newspapers are printed off on one side within the hour, every minute is attended with a loss of sixty-six impressions. The quarter of an hour, therefore, 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 one 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.”