bit of copper--though now, for the good of our pockets, mixed with an
alloy--is made to minister to our wants in ways which I hope to lay
before you as plainly and shortly as possible. First and foremost we
must have that great and valuable thing heat, for without heat generated
by fire we could have no penny. One of the first things required to
produce this heat is wood. Now the wood must be grown,--trees attended
to with care and at great cost. Years pass before they are either fit
for beauty or use, yet, during the time of their growth, the smaller
branches that are lopped off form just what is required to set on fire
the coal and coke to produce the heat which is necessary for smelting
and blast furnaces, for our own domestic fires, and various other uses.
A faggot of these lopped branches can be bought for a penny. Having thus
found out, as a beginning, one thing which can be obtained for a penny,
let us go on to see what has to be attended to and encountered before
this valuable coin can be made. Sums of money have to be spent, risks
very great have to be entered into, and beautiful machinery constructed
before it can be placed in our pockets. The mines of Cornwall have to be
reached for both copper and tin--a matter of great cost to the pockets
of speculators, and of anxiety to the minds of engineers, who lay
themselves out to gain the material. Furnaces have to be built to smelt
the ore and bring it into a workable condition. The Mint is then, after
the metal is ready, called into requisition to produce a coin which,
after all this labour and expense, is only a penny.

I come now to tell some of the things which can be accomplished and
produced for a penny. One of the earliest publications of any note was
the "Penny Magazine," which is endeared to my memory as having shown me
the earliest of George Stephenson's great works--the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway. This magazine has now passed away, but it has been
amply replaced by others of equal merit, carrying out its principles of