Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/22

xii "on speculation,"—they were purchased because the public demanded them. The two first houses on the list, for instance, subscribed 150, and if they will publish the dates of their orders, the world will be able to judge whether they took the remaining 760 "on speculation."

I have put an asterisk against the names of five houses, whose numbers taken "on speculation" are correctly stated.

It is right that I should add, that the delay which many have experienced in procuring the volume, has arisen from the unexpected rapidity of the sale of both Editions. I have made such arrangements that no disappointment of this nature is likely to arise again.

The main question, and the only important one to the public, is the, and the Booksellers have yet advanced nothing in its defence. The principles of "free trade," and the importance of diffusing information at a cheap rate, are now too well understood to render the result of that combination doubtful; and the wisest course in this, as in all such cases, is—timely concession to public opinion. I shall now dismiss the subject, without fear that my motives for calling attention to it can be misunderstood, and hoping that the facts which I have elicited will advance the interests of knowledge.