Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/17

Rh it; but I think a complete reform in its system would add to its usefulness and respectability. As the subject of that chapter has been much discussed, I have thought it right to take a view of the various arguments which have been advanced, and to offer my own opinion respecting their validity:—and there I should have left the subject, content to allow my general character to plead for me against insinuations respecting my motives;—but as the remarks of some of my critics affect the character of another person, I think it but just to state circumstances which will clearly disprove them.

Mr. Fellowes, of Ludgate-street, who had previously been the publisher of some other volumes for me, had undertaken the publication of the first edition of the present work. A short time previous to its completion, I thought it right to call his attention to the chapter in which the book-trade is discussed; with the view both of making him acquainted with what I had stated, and also of availing myself of his knowledge in correcting any accidental error as to the facts. Mr. Fellowes, "differing from me entirely respecting the conclusions I had "arrived at," then declined the publication of the volume. If I had then chosen to apply to some of those other booksellers, whose names appear in the Committee of "The Trade," it is probable that they also would have declined the office of publishing for me; and, had my object been to make a case against the trade, such a course would have assisted me. But I had no such feeling; and having procured a complete copy of the whole work, I called with it on Mr. Knight, of Pall Mall East, whom until that day I had never seen, and with whom I had never previously had the slightest communication. I left the book in Mr, Knight's hands, with a request that, when he had read it, I might be informed whether he would undertake the publication of it; and this he consented to do. Mr. Knight, therefore, is so far from being responsible for a single opinion in the present volume, that he saw it only, for a short time, a few days previous to its publication.