England alone--the center of civilization--has 21,268 firms fabricating
and selling explosive substances.[E] But the centers of the dynamite
trade, of infernal machines, and other such results of modern
civilization, are chiefly at Philadelphia and New York. It is in the
former city of "Brotherly Love" that the now most famous manufacturer of
explosives flourishes. It is one of the well-known respectable
citizens--the inventor and manufacturer of the most murderous "dynamite
toys"--who, called before the Senate of the United States anxious to
adopt means for the repression of a _too free trade_ in such implements,
found an argument that ought to become immortalized for its cynical
sophistry--"My _machines_," that expert is reported to have said--"are
quite _harmless to look at_; as they may be manufactured in the shape of
oranges, hats, boats, and anything one likes.... Criminal is he who
murders people by means of such machines, not he who manufactures them.
The firm refuses to admit that were there no supply there would be no
incentive for demand on the market; but insists that every demand should
be satisfied by a supply ready at hand."

That "supply" is the fruit of civilization and of the publicity given to
the discovery of every murderous property in matter. What is it? As
found in the Report of the Commission appointed to investigate the
variety and character of the so-called "infernal machines," so far the
following implements of instantaneous human destruction are already on
hand. The most fashionable of all among the many varieties fabricated
by Mr. Holgate are the "Ticker," the "Eight Day Machine," the "Little
Exterminator," and the "Bottle Machines." The "Ticker" is in appearance
like a piece of lead, a foot long and four inches thick. It contains an
iron or steel tube full of a kind of gunpowder invented by Holgate
himself. That gunpowder, in appearance like any other common stuff of
that name, has, however, an explosive power two hundred times stronger