pecuniary reward or revenue—nothing but a gold medal or badge and a ribbon.
Among the great needs of the commonwealth was a machine for the rapid and cheap manufacture of nails. The great increase in the production of lumber by the invention of saw-mills made it possible to build a board bouse much more quickly than a log one, and when built it was more cleanly and sightly. But the cost of band-made nails, many of which were needed in a frame bouse, was a great drawback. Stimulated by promised rewards, and encouraged by the governor's bearing the expense of their experiments, some mechanics soon produced a practicable nail-machine, which, with a single attendant, could cut from a thin strip of iron as many nails in a day as a hundred men could make by hand in the same time. Building was thus cheapened in Aristopia, and nails were made for export. The machine was kept a secret, although it would hardly have been adopted in Europe if known, such was the prejudice against machinery in the old world. When some progressive person ventured to introduce a new machine in Europe, mobs of workmen destroyed it lest it should displace them, and
