Se ee ee Se es. lL, mr 
7 
bee dl 
neceflary to guard againft bad workmanfhip. But this argu- 
ment cannot bear fifting. Are not apprentices uniformly em- 
ployed in work by their mafters? Is not work as well executed 
in—Paifley, for example, as in any part of Europe, although 
the term of apprenticefhip is not half as long in Scotland 
as it is in moft other countries? Has any national difadvan- 
tage accrued from the act of parliament which exprefsly opens 
the linen trade in England to all perfons? In fine, are the 
manufactures of Manchefter, Birmingham, and Sheffield (which 
do not come within the ftatute of apprenticefhip) any difcredit 
to the people engaged in them? 
Some advantage to fociety may poflibly accrue from the 
quarantine of a probationary term being exacted from thofe 
who exercife a craft concerning workmanfhip in which every 
man is not qualified to judge by infpection. A man may 
be a bad attorney or a bad apothecary without being difco- 
vered to be fo by him who could inftantly difcover the coarfe- 
nefs of a hat or the clumfinefs of a boot; and the fortunes: 
and lives of the community may fuffer by mifplaced confi- 
dence in fuch men. But, after all, is their having ferved an 
apprenticefhip any teftimony of their fkill, or fecurity for their 
integrity? It may be faid that it affords a prefumption in their 
‘favour. But let fuch prefumptions be fuperfeded by proofs. 
Let an examination of their qualifications by perfons eminent 
in their art be inftituted as a teft of their competency, and 
let an examination of their workmanfhip by the fame perfons 
be reforted to as a teft of their honefty. [t has been well 
obferved that the fterlmg mark upon plate, and the ftamps 
upon 
