,--because we could not compete with the skilled
and poorly paid labor of Europe. But during the last war with England
the question became as emphatic as it is now, and a practical answer was
given in the excellent watches made at Worcester in Massachusetts, and
at Hartford in Connecticut.

But these were merely prophetic protests. The best watches in use were
Swiss. Four-fifths of the work in making them was done by hand in
separate workshops, subject of course to the skill, temper, and
conscience of the workmen. The various parts of each were then sent in
to the finisher. Every watch was thus a separate and individual work.
There could be no absolute precision in the parts of different watches
even of the same general model; and only the best works of the best
finishers were the best watches. The purchase of a watch became almost
as uncertain as that of a horse, and many of the dealers might be called
watch-jockeys as justly as horse-dealers horse-jockeys.

A.L. Dennison, of Maine, seems to have been the first who conceived
American watch-making as a manufacture that could hold its own against
European competition. It was clear enough that to put raw and well-paid
American labor into the field against European skill and low wages, with
no other protection than four per cent., which was then the tariff, was
folly. But why not apply the same principle to making watches that Eli
Whitney applied to making fire-arms, and put machinery to do the work of
men, thereby saving wages and securing uniform excellence of work? There
was no reason whatever, provided you could make the machinery. Mr.
Dennison supplied the idea; who would supply the means of working it
out? He was an enthusiast, of course,--visionary, probably; for in all
inventors the imagination must be so powerful that it will sometimes
disturb the conditions essential to the practical experiment; but he
interested others until the necessary tools began to appear, and enough
capital being willing to try the chances, the experiment of making
American watches by machinery began in Roxbury in the year 1850. After
various fortunes, the manufacture passed from the original hands into
those of the present company, which is incorporated by the State of
Massachusetts.

"Do you think," whispered I to my watch, as I listened to these facts,
"that the experiment is still doubtful?"

My companion ticked so indignantly that my friend the manager evidently
suspected what que