16 



THE STORY OF BREAD 



greater task than plate making. He had to educate 

 the public to the use of plates. It was a very diffi- 

 cult proposition to persuade men to buy plates from 

 which to eat bread, when it was next to impossible 

 to get the bread. It was very much like asking a 

 man to spend his last dollar for a pocketbook in 

 which to carry his money. Wedgwood furnished 

 plates fit for the Queen. It was in doing this that he 

 coined the word, " Queensware." But he could not 

 furnish bread. 



Truly, to borrow a line from Dickens, "It was the 

 best of times, it was the worst of times." 



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| O far as is known, Whitney's cot- 

 ton gin is the only invention 

 that ever actually brought on a 

 war. It so increased the value of 

 slave labor that the clash between 

 the North and the South could 

 not be longer staved off. If it is 

 true that the cotton gin caused the South to take 

 up arms, it is equally true that the reaper caused 

 her to lay them down again. To use the words 

 of Stanton, Lincoln's war secretary, "The reaper 

 was to the North what slavery was to the 

 South." That is to say, the reaper released the 

 young men of the farm for duty on the firing line 



