Companion to the Almanac ; OB, YEAR-BOOK OF GENERAL INFORMATION FOR 1860. I. GENERAL INFORMATION ON SUBJECTS OF MATHEMATICS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, CHRONOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, FINE ARTS, PUBLIC ECONOMY, &c. II. THE LEGISLATION, STATISTICS, PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS, AND CHRONICLE OF 1859. LONDON: KNIGHT AND CO., 90 FLEET STREET. PRICE TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE; or, Four SHILLINGS CONTENTS. PART I. GENERAL INFORMATON ON SUBJECTS OF MATHEMATICS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, CHRONOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, FINE ARTS, PUBLIC ECONOMY, &c. I. The Necessity for Elementary Instruction in Political Page 5 II. The Patent Office, and Patent Museum; by GEORGE DODD 25 42 IV. The National Collection of Sculpture; by JAMES THORNE V. A History of Comets; by JOHN RUSSELL HIND, F.R.A.S. . VI. The War in Italy and its Antecedents VII. The Wreck Chart and the National Life-Boat Institution . 119 VIII. The National Debt; how it grew IX. Illustrations of the Funds and Rate of Interest at the 133 142 142 55 78 91 PART II. THE LEGISLATION, STATISTICS, ARCHITECTURE, AND PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS, AND CHRONICLE OF 1858-9. XI. Abstracts of Important Public Acts passed in the Third Session of the Seventeenth Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland : ing Munitions of War . 144 COMPANION TO THE ALMANAC FOR 1860. PART I. GENERAL INFORMATION ON SUBJECTS OF MATHEMATICS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, CHRONOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, FINE ARTS, PUBLIC ECONOMY, &c. I. THE NECESSITY FOR ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 66 "IF Political Economy is against us, then we are against Political Economy." This is not an original view of the Union Orator of 1859, although the shouts of his Hyde-park audience hailed it as a great discovery. It is a principle that has been steadily acted upon by the legislators of five centuries. At every stage of the conflict between legislation and political economy, the mighty men of the State, the almost exclusive possessors of knowledge, the great landed aristocracy, the merchant princes, have been beaten from the field by this all-compelling force. Thrones, dominions, principalities, powers," now bend their knees before their master, listen submissively to his lessons, and strive which shall best expound his immutable laws. The vast multitudes who have a belief, more or less confident, that, in their legal freedom to combine their physical strength, they must be irresistible, are wholly ignorant of the moral strength against which they hope to contend, when they exclaim, "If Political Economy is against us, then we are against Political Economy." It may not be amiss to glance historically at the success which has attended the principle of combination in other forms than those of a contest of labour against capital; and then to deduce an argument to show the futility of that form of combination which survives amongst us. A generation has not passed away since the belief very generally existed that the prosperity of this country depended upon an exclusive system of commerce-upon a combination, in fact, of manufacturers, agriculturists, and merchants, against the consumers of the products which they made, grew, or imported. Adam Smith, writing some eighty or ninety years ago, said, To expect that the freedom of |