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be disposed to adopt any of the plans I have recom- 

 mended, would take the trouble to examine whether 

 the workmen they employ really understand and are 

 disposed to follow the directions I have given ; or 

 whether they are not, perhaps, prepossessed with some 

 favourite contrivance and imaginary improvement of 

 their own ; or whether there is no danger of their 

 introducing alterations for the purpose of enhancing 

 the price of their work, or of the articles they 

 furnish. 



These are dangers of which those who have the 

 smallest acquaintance with mankind must be perfectly 

 sensible; and it would be unwise, and I had almost 

 said unjust, not to attend to them, at least to a certain 

 degree. 



All I ask is that a fair trial may be given to the 

 plans I propose, when any trial is given them; and 

 this request will not, I trust, be thought unreasonable. 

 And as I never presume to recommend to the public 

 any new invention or improvement that I have not 

 previously and repeatedly tried, and found by experi- 

 ence to be useful, it would perhaps be thought excus- 

 able were I to express a wish that my proposals might 

 not be condemned nor neglected merely in conse- 

 quence of the failure of contrivances announced as 

 improvements of my plans. 



The reader will not be surprised at my extreme 

 anxiety to remove those obstacles which appear to me 

 most powerfully to obstruct and retard the general 

 introduction of the improvements I am labouring to 

 introduce ; for anxiety for the success of an undertak- 

 ing naturally flows from a conviction of its importance, 

 and is always connected with that fervent zeal which 



