will bleach by a free use of that which will
not, cannot be refused under the existing
stress.

Let the government bear in mind that the
increase in paper made in the kingdom within
the last two years, under all the existing
difficulties, is twenty-three million pounds; and
that it would require, even at this rate,
a dozen new average mills to be set up
every year to meet the demands of the
mere increase of our population; and
they will see that the paper duty cannot be
sustained.

What other variety do we see in our American
survey?  Is that a paper-mill on the
banks of the Penobscot, in the midst of the
forest clearings, far up in Maine?  Yes,
indeed, it is: and to whom do you suppose
it belongs?  An Englishman would never
guess.  It belongs to four or five lumberers
(fellers and sellers of timber), who have put
a part of their earnings into this form, and
they believe they will not repent it.  But
why this form?  Because paper is in increasing
demand, and water-power and material are
at hand.  Here is the rushing river; here is
the wood to build the mill of, and keep up the
fires; and the metal work is easily got from
the towns below; and the river is as good as
a railway for carrying the paper to market.
Well: but where are the rags? They do
not use rags, except the few woollen ones that
are bought up from Irish immigrants. Those,
and some cotton-waste from the town-mills,
are the only fibrous material of that sort
used. The bulk of the substance required is
on the spot, in the shape of marsh hay and
wood shavings. Where there are clearings
there are presently marshes; and where
there are marshes, there is hay, too bad for
the food of animals that are carefully treated.
From this, from straw, from maize-stalks,
from the shavings in the lumberers' sheds,
together with a few Connaught tatters and
sweepings of cotton-mills, our little company
of speculators are making their fortunes.  If
they had not succeeded it would not have
mattered much, because they put only as
much of their earnings as they could well
spare into the enterprise; for there is no
unlimited liability of partnership there, to
make a man risk his whole fortune in a
partnership if he adventure the smallest fraction
of it.  And there is no exciseman, coming
down upon them for eighty or ninety
pounds a week, as his charge upon the six
tons of paper which they send down the river
weekly.  If the English law and the English
exciseman were there, there would be no mill
on that spot on the Penobscot; there would
be six tons of paper per week less in the
market; and the partners would be making
their fortunes at a much slower rate.

Turning from the extreme north to the south
—even to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico—
what do we find?  There are negroes
poking about in the swamps at the mouths of
some of the great rivers.  They twist about like
water-snakes in the channels among the
flowering reeds, gathering bundles of fibrous
stalks; and they make themselves a way
through acres of cane-brake, cutting the
canes on either hand, to carry them to the
paper-mill.  The demand for paper must be
pressing indeed to induce any one to set up
a manufacture of it under the conditions of
slave labour.  But, before us lies at this
moment a specimen of paper made from cane-
brake.  In colour it is a pretty good white,
and in quality it is fair enough for all ordinary
purposes.  It would not do for the Queen's
Speech.  Macaulay would not write his History
on it, nor Tennyson his lyrics; nor shall
we order a stock of it for our next novel.
But we should be glad to know that there
was a supply of it in the next stationer's
shop in the form of envelopes, large and
small, and letter and note paper, so that we
might do our part in saving the rags of the
world.

About that saving—can none of us help in
that way?  Do any of us burn rags, or allow
anybody under our roof to burn them?  Never
let such a thing happen again.  Let the
maids know that rags now fetch a pretty
penny; and let them have a rag-bag as a
regular part of the kitchen establishment.
As for the parlour, the shop, the office—from
the humblest tradesman's to the government
bureau—do we not waste paper unconscionably?
Is it not thought genteel and liberal
to send as many blank pages as possible in
an envelope?—to make our manuscript a
rivulet of ink in wide banks of margin?
This is foolish, and worse than foolish, when the
evil is not merely dearness but scarcity. In
a scarcity of flour, noblemen retrench their
puddings and pastry, not because flour is
dear, but because there is not enough, and
the poor will be starved if the rich do not
eat less of flour and more of other things.
Thus it is with the present scarcity of rags.
It is not meanness, but only justice to great
social interests, if public men and rich men
will enforce economy in the use of paper on
all whom they can influence, until a remedy
for the scarcity shall be found.

We do not insist very vehemently, or at
great length, on this, because it is a minor
matter.  Any palliation from that method
must be wholly insufficient for the occasion.
It is good as far as it goes; but we must
direct our exertions to obtain emancipation
from two restrictions which are fatal to a
fair supply of paper.  Now that we are
relieved of the soap and window duties, we
must get rid of the paper duty—of the duty
on coloured paper at all events, and of the
whole if we can.  We must also get
rid of that unlimited liability in partnership
which prevents ingenious men who
are not rich, from placing their ingenuity
at the public service; and which prevents
men who are rich from devoting a sufficient