M.Wolowski replies, that the rights of authors, without machinery, would be nil; that, without paper-mills, type foundries, and printing-offices, there could be no sale of verse and prose; that many a mechanical invention,--the compass, for instance, the telescope, or the steam-engine,--is quite as valuable as a book.
Prior to M.Montalembert, M.Charles Comte had laughed at the inference in favor of mechanical inventions, which logical minds never fail to draw from the privileges granted to authors.

"He," says M.Comte, "who first conceived and executed the idea of transforming a piece of wood into a pair of sabots, or an animal's hide into a pair of sandals, would thereby have acquired an exclusive right to make shoes for the human race!" Undoubtedly, under the system of property.

For, in fact, this pair of sabots, over which you make so merry, is the creation of the shoemaker, the work of his genius, the expression of his thought; to him it is his poem, quite as much as "Le Roi s'amuse," is M.Victor Hugo's drama.

Justice for all alike.

If you refuse a patent to a perfecter of boots, refuse also a privilege to a maker of rhymes.
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