Lynchburg Virginian

From the Baltimore Patriot.

Mr. Editor.—What a refined age we live in! and how rapidly the world goes on, improving! Steam, high-pressure and low-pressure, what ominous words! Hitherto only applicable to machines, mankind now directs them to Governments! Kings and Princes of Europe have long held out for the high-pressure system, until the low pressed in return, have with a certain kind of hand and locomotive engine (vulgarly called musket and cannon) pressed the mighty high out of their seats! Low pressure is therefore now the go, and if the safety valves, be not neglected, these kind of machines may go on very well, but there's the rub! What is every body's business is no one's, and it must not be a matter of surprise if now and then a boiler should burst, even with these safety promising concerns. All this may seem trifling to some people, and indeed were I to stop here, I would not pretend to having said much; so I must keep up my notion, of the application of steam to governments, a little longer, and say, that a governing steam machine, would be an excellent invention, and that a good premium should be offered for one, even by this happy people! Let me but enumerate all the advantages of such a machine, and I am certain the smile of my haughty self-opinionated reader, will change into a gentle shake of the head, if not perhaps into a deep sigh, and a wish that it might be invented. First of all there comes its greatest advantage—the nicety to which its power could be determined! 2d The exactness to which its velocity in all parts could be settled, 3d. The ease and harmony that could be kept up in its parts. 4th. Its first cost could so easily be calculated. 5th. Its maintenance would be the same at all times, and under perfect controul. 6th. The facility with which its parts could be renewed if any damage occurred.—7th. The few hands it would require to keep it in operation, and their limited influence on the same, together with many more, which I purposely leave others to find out! These seven will do for the present, and afford room enough for reflection.

But let us now look to the "best of governments," and it will appear that much good would have been done and less evil perpetrated, had it, in its operations resembled the machine somewhat more than it does. Our president should have been a Boiler, generating good projects, the Cabinet his safety valves, the Senate the great balance wheel giving regularity to the motion with its exact centre in the Vice President, and the rest of the machinery should have been found in the lower house, all well fitted in harmonious proportions, by the master's hand! But alas it is not so! Or if even the President be a Boiler, his safety valves are so curiously put together, that the efforts of the one to open and discharge the superfluous steam, are counteracted by the levers and weights of the other, and then it is rumoured that the screw of a certain press is put to them besides. I fear, too, the balance wheel hangs rather eccentric. No wonder, then, if the boiler should burst and we should hear before long the out-cry of sauve qui peut!

I have more to say about this Governing Steam Machine unless some better pen than mine should take up the conceit, FULTON.

November 3d, 1830.