Manufacturing Establishments.

We have seen that the application of the Division of Labor tends to produce cheaper articles; that it thus increases the demand; and gradually, by the effect of competition, or by the hope of increased gain, that it causes large capitals to be embarked in extensive factories. Let us now examine the influence of this accumulation of capital directed to one object. In the first place, it enables the most important principle on which the advantages of the division of labor depends, to be carried almost to its extreme limits not merely is the precise amount of skill purchased which is necessary for the execution of each process, but throughout every stage-from that in which the raw material is procured, to that by which the finished produce is conveyed into the hands of the consumer-the same economy of skill prevails. The quantity of work produced by a given number of people is greatly augmented by such an extended arrangement; and the result is necessarily a great reduction in the cost of the article which is brought to market.

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Amongst the causes which tend to the cheap production of any article, and which are connected with the employment of additional capital, may be mentioned the care which is taken to prevent the absolute waste of any part of the raw material. An attention to this circumstance sometimes causes the union of two trades in one factory, which otherwise might have been separated.

An enumeration of the arts to which the horns of cattle are applicable, will furnish a striking example of this kind of economy. The tanner who has purchased the raw hides, separates the horns, and sells them to the makers of combs and lanterns. The horn consists of two parts, an outward horny case, and an inward conical substance, somewhat intermediate between indurated hair and bone. The first process consists in separating these two parts, by means of a blow against a block of wood. The horny exterior is then cut into three portions with a frame-saw.

1. The lowest of these, next the root of the horn, after under. going several processes, by which it is flattened, is made into combs. 2. The middle of the horn, after being flattened by heat, and having its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin layers, and forms a substitute for glass, in lanterns of the commonest kind. 3. The tip of the horn is used by the makers of knife-handles, and of the tops of whips, and for other similar purposes. The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in water. A large quantity of fat rises to the surface; this is put aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap. 5. The liquid itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased by cloth-dressers for stiffening.

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The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then sent to the mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for manure. 7. Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of the horn are applied, the clippings which arise in comb-making are sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year after they are spread over the soil they have comparatively little effect, but during the next four or five their efficiency is considerable. The shavings which form the refuse of the lantern-maker, are of a much thinner texture: some of them are cut into various figures, and painted, and used as toys; for being hygrometric, they curl up when placed on the palm of a warm hand. But the greater part of these shavings also are sold for manure, and from their extremely thin and divided form, the full effect is produced upon the first crop.

In many of the large establishments of our manufacturing dis tricts, substances are employed which are the produce of remote countries, and which are, in several instances, almost peculiar to a few situations. The discovery of any new locality, where such articles exist in abundance, is a matter of great importance to any establishment which consumes them in large quantities; and it has been found, in some instances, that the expense of sending persons to great distances, purposely to discover and to collect such produce, has been amply repaid. Thus it has happened, that the snowy mountains of Sweden and Norway, as well as the warmer hills of Corsica, have been almost stripped of one of their vegetable productions, by agents sent expressly from one of our largest establishments for the dyeing of calicoes. Owing to the same command of capital, and to the scale upon which the operations of large factories are carried on, their returns admit of the expense of sending out agents to examine into the wants and tastes of distant countries, as well as of trying experiments, which, although profitable to them, would be ruinous to smaller establishments possessing more limited resources.

When capital has been invested in machinery, and in buildings for its accommodation, and when the inhabitants of the neighborhood have acquired a knowledge of the modes of working at the machines, reasons of considerable weight are required to cause their removal. Such changes of position do, however, occur; and they have been alluded to by the committee on the fluctuation of manufacturers' employment, as one of the causes interfering most materially with a uniform rate of wages; it is therefore of particular importance to the workmen to be acquainted with the real causes which have driven manufactures from their ancient seats.

The migration or change of place of any manufacture has sometimes arin from improvements of machinery not applicable

to the spot where such manufacture was carried on, as appears to have been the case with the woollen manufacture, which has in great measure migrated from Essex, Suffolk, and other southern counties, to the northern districts, where coal for the use of the steam engine is much cheaper. But this change has, in some instances, been caused or accelerated by the conduct of the workmen, in refusing a reasonable reduction of wages, or opposing the introduction of some kind of improved machinery or process; so that, during the dispute, another spot has in great measure supplied their place in the market. Any violence used by the workmen against the property of their employers, and any unreasonable combination on their part, is almost sure thus to be injurious to themselves."

These removals become of serious consequence when the factories have been long established, because a population commensurate with their wants invariably grows up around them. The combinations in Nottinghamshire, of persons under the name of Luddites, drove a great number of lace-frames from that district, and caused establishments to be formed in Devonshire. We ought also to observe, that the effect of driving any establishment into a new district, where similar works have not previously existed, is not merely to place it out of the reach of such combinations, but, after a few years, the example of its success will most probably induce our capitalists in the new district to engage in the same manufacture and thus, although one establishment only should be driven away, the workmen, through whose combination its removal is effected, will not merely suffer by the loss of that portion of demand for their labor which the factory caused; but the value of that labor will itself be reduced by the competition of a new field of production.

It is of great importance that the more intelligent amongst the class of workmen should examine into the correctness of these views; because, without having their attention directed to them, the whole class may, in some instances, be led by designing persons to pursue a course, which, although plausible in appearance, is in reality at variance with their own best interests.-Babbage's Economy of Man.

The Mechanical Fiddler.

One of the most extraordinary and the best attested instances of enthusiasm, existing in conjunction with perseverance, is related of the founder of the F family. This man, who was a fiddler living near Stourbridge, was often witness of the immense labor

and loss of tine caused by dividing the rods of iron necessary in the process of making nails. The discovery of the process called splitting, in works called splitting-mills, was first made in Sweden; and the consequences of this advance in art were most disastrous to the manufacturers of iron about Stourbridge. F― the fiddler was shortly missed from his accustomed rounds, and was not again seen for many years. He had mentally resolved to ascertain by what means the process of splitting bars of iron was accomplish. ed; and without communicating his intention to a single human being, he proceeded to Hull, and, without funds, worked his passage to the Swedish iron port. Arrived in Sweden, he begged and fiddled his way to the iron foundries, where he, after a time, became a universal favorite with the workmen; and from the apparent entire absence of intelligence, or any thing like ultimate object, he was received into the works, to every part of which he had access. He took the advantage thus offered, and, having stored his memory with observations, and all the combinations, he disappeared from amongst his kind friends as he had appeared, no one knew whence or whither.

On his return to England, he communicated his voyage and its result to Mr. Knight and another person in the neighborhood, with whom he was associated, and by whom the necessary buildings were erected, and machinery provided. When at length every thing was prepared, it was found that the machinery would not act; at all events it did not answer the sole end of its erection-it would not split the bar of iron. F disappeared again; it was concluded that shame and mortification at his failure had driven him away forever. Not so; again, though somewhat more speedily, he found his way to the Swedish iron-works, where he was receiv ed most joyfully, and, to make sure of their fiddler, he was lodged in the splitting-mill itself. Here was the very aim and end of his life attained, beyond his utmost hope. He examined the works, and very soon discovered the cause of his failure. He now made drawings, or rude tracings; and having abided an ample time to verify his observations, and to impress them clearly and vividly on his mind, he made his way to the port, and once more returned to England. This time he was completely successful, and by the results of his experience enriched himself and greatly benefited his countrymen, who doubtless came to the conclusion that he at least fiddled to some purpose.

Corn Mills in Ancient Times.

Till about fifty years before the commencement of the Christian era, the ancients had no large mills forced round by water, but ground their corn in small mills of one stone rolling rapidly round upon another, and impelled by the hands of women-servants or slaves. The stones used for that purpose were circular, portable, nicely wrought, and adapted for turning; the upper one being the smaller of the two, with an iron or wooden handle fixed into its edge; the lower being larger, and probably harder-at least if we may infer from an expression in the book of Job, "hard as a piece of the nether millstone." An excellent quarry in the neighborhood of Babylon (we are informed by Xenophon) supplied all the countries of the East with such millstones.

That women, or maid-servants, generally performed this piece of domestic labor, we are assured by the very first mention made of grinding with mills, that in Exodus, (xi. 5,)" All the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon the throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; in which passage, from the contrasted states of dignity and meanness, it is plain, that, in Egypt at least, the drudgery of grinding was deemed the lowest possible. Two women were generally employed; they sat fronting each other, with the millstone between them, which was kept whirling by alternate impulsions of the hand. Slaves taken in war were frequently doomed to undergo this tedious penance; Samson "did grind in the prison-house of the Philistines;" the Hebrews, in their Babylonish captivity, were subjected to its degradation; "they took our young men to grind," says Jeremiah in his Lamentations; and Isaiah, in his prophetic declaration to Babylon of her impend ing state of captivity, bids her, as a proper badge of her servile subjection, "take millstones and grind meal." The piece of a millstone whereby Abimelech was slain, when he was attacking the tower of Thebez, was cast upon his head by a "certain woman," whom it befitted to wield as a weapon, the humble utensil of her daily occupation.

Portable millstones of this description must have been brought by the children of Israel from Egypt, and carried with them a the way through the wilderness, as we read in Numbers, (xi. 8,) that "the people ground the manna in mills." As by the laws of Athens no creditor was allowed to distrain the plough and other simple and necessary utensils of rustic labor, so by the laws of Moses, (Deut. xxiv. 6,) it was permitted to no man " to take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge"-in other words, to take