“——terrific as the lairWhere the young lions couch.”
“——terrific as the lairWhere the young lions couch.”
I left Settle by the last evening train, journeying for the third time over the same ground, and came to theDevonshire Armsat Keighley just before the doors were locked for the night.
Keighley—Men in Pinafores—Walk to Haworth—Charlotte Brontë’s Birthplace—The Church—The Pew—The Tombstone—The Marriage Register—Shipley—Saltaire—A Model Town—Household Arrangements—I isn’t the Gaffer—A Model Factory—Acres of Floors—Miles of Shafting—Weaving Shed—Thirty Thousand Yards a Day—Cunning Machinery—First Fleeces—Shipley Feast—Scraps of Dialect—To Bradford—Rival Towns—Yorkshire Sleuth-hounds—Die like a Britoner.
Keighley is not pronounced Kayley, as you might suppose, but Keatley, or Keithley, as some of the natives have it, flinging in a touch of the guttural. Like Skipton, it is a stony town; and, as the tall chimneys indicate, gets its living by converting wool into wearing apparel of sundry kinds. You meet numbers of men clad in long blue pinafores, from throat to instep; wool-sorters, who thus protect themselves from fluff.
The factory people were going to work next morning—the youngsters clattering over the pavement in their wooden clogs—as I left the town by the Halifax road, for Haworth, a walk of four miles, and all the way up-hill. The road runs along one side of a valley, which, when the houses are left behind, looks pretty with numerous trees and fields of grass and wheat, and a winding brook, and makes a pleasing foreground to the view of the town. The road itself is neither town nor country; the footpaths, as is not uncommon in Yorkshire, are paved nearly all the way; and houses are frequent, tenanted by weavers, with here and there a little shop displaying oaten bread. An hour of ascent and you come to a cross-road, where, turning to the right for about a furlong, you see Haworth, piled from base to summit of a steep hill, the highest point crowned by the church. The road makes a long bend in approaching the acclivity, which, if you choose, may be avoided by a cut-off; but coming as apilgrim you will perhaps at first desire to see all. You pass a board which notifiesHaworth Town, and then begins the ascent painfully steep, bounded on one side by houses, on the other—where you look into the valley—by little gardens and a line of ragged little sheds and hutches. What a wearisome hill; you will half doubt whether horses can draw a load up it. Presently we have houses on both sides, and shops with plate-glass and mahogany mouldings, contrasting strongly with the general rustic aspect, and the primitive shop of theClogger. Some of the windows denote an expectation of visitors; the apothecary exhibits photographs of the church, the parsonage, and Mr. Brontë; and no one seems surprised at your arrival.
TheBlack Bullstands invitingly on the hill-top. I was ready for breakfast, and the hostess quite ready to serve; and while I ate she talked of the family who made Haworth famous. She knew them all, brother and sisters: Mr. Nicholls had preached the day before in the morning; Mr. Brontë in the afternoon. It was mostly in the afternoon that the old gentleman preached, and he delivered his sermon without a book. The people felt sorry for his bereavements; and they all liked Mr. Nicholls. She had had a good many visitors, but expected “a vast” before the summer was over.
From the inn to the churchyard is but a few paces. The church is ugly enough to have had a Puritan for architect; and there, just beyond the crowded graves, stands the parsonage, as unsmiling as the church. After I had looked at it from a distance, and around on the landscape, which, in summer dress, is not dreary, though bounded by dark moors, the sexton came and admitted me to the church. He points to the low roof, and quotes Milton, and leads you to the family pew, and shows you the corner whereshe—that is, Charlotte—used to sit; and against the wall, but a few feet from this corner, you see the long plain memorial stone, with its melancholy list of names. As they descend, the inscriptions crowd close together; and beneath the lowest, that which records the decease of her who wroteJane Eyre, there remains but a narrow blank for those which are to follow.[E]
[E]This stone, as stated in the newspapers, has since been replaced by a larger one, with sculptured ornaments.
[E]This stone, as stated in the newspapers, has since been replaced by a larger one, with sculptured ornaments.
Then the sexton, turning away to the vestry, showed me in the marriage register the signatures of Charlotte Brontë, herhusband, and father; and next, his collection of photographs, with an intimation that they were for sale. When he saw that I had not the slightest inclination to become a purchaser, to have seen the place was quite enough; he said, that if I had a card to send in the old gentleman would see me. It seemed to me, I replied, that the greatest kindness a stranger could show to the venerable pastor, would be, not to intrude upon him.
On some of the pews I noticed small plates affixed, notifying that Mr. Mudbeck of Windytop Farm, or some other parishioner of somewhere else, “hath” three sittings, or four and a quarter, and so forth; and this invasion by ‘vested rights’ of the house of prayer and thanksgiving, appeared to me as the finishing touch of its unattractive features.
The sexton invited me to ascend the tower, but discovered that the key was missing; so, as I could not delay, I made a brief excursion on the moor behind the house, where heather-bloom masked the sombre hue; and then walked back to Keighley, and took the train for Shipley, the nearest station to Saltaire.
It was the day of Shipley feast, and the place was all in a hubbub, and numbers of factory people, leaving for a while their habitual manufacture of woollen goods out of a mixture of woollen and cotton, had come together to enjoy themselves. But no one seemed happy except the children; the men and women looked as if they did not know what to do with themselves. I took the opportunity to scan faces, and could not fail to be struck by the general ill-favoured expression. Whatever approach towards good looks that there was, clearly lay with the men; the women were positively ugly, and numbers of them remarkable for that protruding lower jaw which so characterizes many of the Irish peasantry.
Saltaire is about a mile from Shipley. It is a new settlement in an old country; a most noteworthy example of what enterprise can and will accomplish where trade confides in political and social security. Here, in an agreeable district of the valley of the Aire—wooded hills on both sides—a magnificent factory and dependent town have been built, and with so much judgment as to mitigate or overcome the evils to which towns and factories have so long been obnoxious. The factory is built of stone in pure Italian style, and has a truly palatial appearance. What would the Plantagenets say, couldthey come back to life, and see trade inhabiting palaces far more stately than those of kings? The main building, of six stories, is seventy-two feet in height, and five hundred and fifty feet in length. In front, at some distance, standing quite apart, rises the great chimney, to an elevation of two hundred and fifty feet; a fine ornamental object, built to resemble a campanile.
The site is well chosen on the right bank of the Aire, between the Leeds and Liverpool canal, and the Leeds and Lancaster railway. Hence the readiest means are available for the reception and despatch of merchandise. A little apart, extending up the gentle slope, the young town of Saltaire is built, and in such a way as to realize the aspirations of a sanitary reformer. The houses are ranged in parallelograms, of which I counted sixteen, the fronts looking into a spacious street; the backs into a lane about seven feet in width, which facilitates ventilation, admits the scavenger’s cart, and serves as drying-ground. Streets and lanes are completely paved, the footways are excellent; there is a pillar post-office, and no lack of gas-lamps. The number of shopkeepers is regulated by Messrs. Salt, the owners of the property; and while one baker and grocer suffices to supply the wants of the town others will not be allowed to come in. A congregational chapel affords place for religious worship, and a concert-hall for musical recreation, or lectures, The men who wish to tipple must go down to Shipley, for Saltaire, as yet, has no public-house. If I mistake not, the owners are unwilling that there shall be one.
My request for leave to look in-doors was readily granted. The ordinary class of houses have a kitchen with oven and boiler, a sink and copper; a parlour, or ‘house’ in the vernacular, two bedrooms, and a small back-yard, with out-offices. The floors, mantlepiece, and stairs, are of stone. The rent is 3s. 1d. a week. Gas is laid on at an extra charge, and the tenant finds burners. The supply of water is ample, but the water is hard, and has a smack of peat-bog in its flavour. A woman whom I saw washing, told me the water lost much of its hardness if left to stand awhile. Each house has a back-door opening into the lane; and every stercorarium voids into the ash-pit, which is cleared out once a week at the landlord’s cost. The pits are all accessible by a small trap-door from the lane; hence there is no intrusion on the premises in thework of cleansing. The drainage in other respects is well cared for; and the whole place is so clean and substantial, with handsome fronts to the principal rows, that you feel pleasure in observing it.
The central and corner houses are a story higher than the rest, and what with these and the handsome rows above referred to, there is accommodation for all classes of the employed—spinners, overlookers, and clerks. After building two or three of the parallelograms, it was discovered that cellars were desirable, and since then every house has its cellar, in which, as the woman said, “we can keep our meat and milk sweet in hot weather.” What a contrast, I thought, to the one closet in a lodging in some large town, where the food is kept side by side with soap and candles, the duster, and scrubbing-brush! And though the stone floors look chilly, coal is only fivepence-halfpenny a hundred-weight.
No one is allowed to live in the town who is not in some way employed by the firm. Most of the tenants to whom I spoke, expressed themselves well satisfied with their quarters, but two or three thought the houses dear; they could get a place down at Shipley, or Shipla, as they pronounced it, for two-and-sixpence a week. I put a question to the baker: “I isn’t the gaffer,” he answered.
“Never mind,” I replied; “if you are not the master, we can talk all the same.”
He thought we could; and he too was one of those who did not like the new town. ’Twas too dear. He lived at Shipla, and paid but four pounds a year for a house with a cellar under it, and a garden behind; and there he kept a pig, which was not permitted at Saltaire. There was “a vast” worked in the mill who did not live under Mr. Salt; they came from Bradford, and a train, called the Saltaire train, “brought ’em in the morning, and fetched ’em home at night.”
The railway runs between the town and the factory. You cross by a handsome stone bridge, quite in keeping with the prevalent style of architecture. The hands were returning from dinner as I approached after my survey of the colony, and the prodigious clatter of clogs was well-nigh deafening. My letter of introduction procured me the favour of Mr. George Salt’s guidance. First, he showed me a model of the premises, by which I saw that a six-story wing, if such it may be called, comprising the warehouses, projects at a rightangle from the rear of the main building, with the combing-shed on one side, the weaving-shed on the other. In that combing-shed 3500 persons sat down in perfect comfort to a house-warming dinner. The weaving-shed is twice as large. Then there are the workshops of the smiths, machinists, and other artisans; packing, washing, and drying-rooms, and a gasometer to maintain five thousand lights; so that in all the buildings cover six acres and a half. Include the whole of the floors, and the space is twelve acres. Rails are laid from the line in front into the ground-floor of the building; hence there is no porterage, no loading and unloading except by machinery; and the canal at the back is equally convenient for water-carriage. In front the ground is laid out as an ornamental shrubbery, terminated at one corner by the graceful campanile.
Then I was conducted to the boilers, a row of ten, sunk underground in the solid rock, below the level of the shrubbery. They devour one hundred and twenty tons of coal in a week; but with economy, for the tall chimney pours out no clouds of dense black smoke. The prevention is accomplished by careful feeding, and leaving the furnace-door open half an inch, to admit a full stream of air. I was amazed at the sight of such a range of boilers, and yet they were not enough, and an excavation was making to receive others.
Then to the engine-room, where the sight of the tremendous machinery was a fresh surprise. Here are erected two separate pairs of engines, combining 1250-horse power, by Fairbairn, of Manchester. You see how beauty of construction consorts with ponderous strength. Polished iron, glittering brass, and shining mahogany, testify to the excellence of Lancashire handicraft in 1853, the date of the engines. The mahogany is used for casing; and here, as with the boilers, every precaution is used to prevent the escape of heat. As you watch the great cogged fly-wheels spinning round with resistless force, you will hardly be surprised to hear that they impart motion to two miles of ‘shafting,’ which weighs in all six hundred tons, and rotates from sixty to two hundred and fifty times a minute. And this shafting, of which the diameter is from two to fourteen inches, sets twelve hundred power-looms going, besides fulfilling all its other multifarious duties.
Then we went from one noisy floor to another amongtroops of spinners, finding everywhere proofs of the same presiding judgment. All is fire-proof; the beams and columns are of cast-iron; the floors rest on arches of hollow bricks; and the ventilation, maintained by inlets a few inches above the floor, and outlets near the ceiling, where hot-water pipes keep up a temperature of sixty degrees, is perfect, without draughts. The top room in the main building, running from end to end for five hundred and fifty feet without a break, said to be the largest room in Europe, is an impressive sight, filled with ranks of busy machines and busy workers.
In the weaving-shed, all the driving gear is placed beneath the floor, so that you have a clear prospect over the whole area at once, uninterrupted by the usual array of rapid wheels and flying straps. Vast as is the appetite of those twelve hundred looms for warp and weft, it is kept satisfied from the mill’s own resources; and in one day they deliver thirty thousand yards of alpaca, or other kinds of woollen cloth. Multiply that quantity, reader, by the number of working days in a year, and you will discover to what an amazing extent the markets of the world are supplied by this one establishment of Titus Salt and Co.
Some portions of the machinery do their work with marvellous precision and dexterity,
“——as if the iron thought!”
“——as if the iron thought!”
and it seemed to me that I could never have tired of watching the machine that took the wool, one fringe-like instalment after another, from assiduous cylinders, and delivered it to another series of movements which placed the fibres all in one direction, and produced the rough outline of the future thread. Another ingenious device weaves two pieces at once all in one width, and with four selvages, of which two are, of course, in the middle of the web, and yet there is no difference in appearance between those two inner ones and those on the outer edges. The piece is afterwards divided along the narrow line left between them. Even in the noisome washing-room there was something to admire. The wool, after a course of pushing to and fro in a cistern of hot water by two great rakes, is delivered to an endless web by a revolving cylinder. This cylinder is armed withrows of long brass teeth, and as they would be in the way of the web on their descent, they disappear within the body of the cylinder at the critical moment, and come presently forth again to continue their lift.
In the warehouse, I was shown that the wool is sorted into eight qualities, sometimes a ninth; and the care bestowed on this preliminary operation may be judged of from the fact, that every sorting passes in succession through two sets of hands. There, too, I learned that the first fleece of Gimmer hogs is among the best of English wool; and, indeed, it feels quite silky in comparison with other kinds. The quality loses in goodness with every subsequent shearing. The clippings and refuse are purchased by the shoddy makers, those ingenious converters of old clothes into new.
Where alpaca and other fine cloths are so largely manufactured, the question as to a continuous supply of finest wool becomes of serious importance. Mr. Salt has done what he can to provide for a supply by introducing the alpaca sheep into Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.
On my coming, I had thought the counting-house, and offices, and visitors’ room too luxurious for a mere place of business; but when I returned thither to take leave, with the impression of the enormous scale of the business, and the means by which it is accomplished fresh on my mind, these appeared quite in harmony with all the rest. And when I stood, taking a last look around, on the railway bridge, I felt that he whose large foresight had planned so stately a home for industry, and set it down here in a sylvan valley, deserved no mean place among the Worthies of Yorkshire.
I walked back to Shipley, and there spent some time sauntering to and fro in the throng, which had greatly increased during the afternoon. There was no increase of amusement, however, with increase of numbers; and the chief diversion seemed to consist in watching the swings and roundabouts, and eating gingerbread. Now and then little troops of damsels elbowed their way through, bedizened in such finery as would have thrown a negro into ecstacies. “That caps me!” cried a young man, as one of the parties went past, outvying all the rest in staring colours.
“There’s a vast of ’em coom t’ feast, isn’t there?” replied his companion; “and there ’ll be more, afore noight.”
“Look at Bobby,” said an aunt of her little nephew, who had been disappointed of a cake; “Look at Bobby! He’s fit to cry.”
“What’s ta do?” shouted a countryman, as he was pushed rudely aside; “runnin’ agean t’ foaks! What d’ye come poakin yer noase thro’ here for?”
“Ah’m puzzeld wi’ t’ craad” (crowd), answered the offender.
After hearing many more fragments of West Riding dialect, I forced my way to the railway-station, and went to Bradford. Few towns show more striking evidences of change than this; and the bits of old Bradford, little one-story tenements with stone roofs, left standing among tall and handsome warehouses, strengthen the contrast. Bradford and Leeds, only nine miles apart, have been looked upon as rivals; and it was said that no sooner did one town erect a new building than the other built one larger or handsomer; and now Bradford boasts its St. George’s Hall, and Leeds its Town Hall, crowned by a lofty tower. But what avails a tower, even two hundred and forty feet high, when a letter was once received, addressed, “Leeds, near Bradford!”
Your Yorkshireman of the West Riding is, so Mrs. Gaskell says, “a sleuth-hound” after money. As there is nothing like testimony, let me end this chapter with a brace of anecdotes, and you, reader, may draw your own inference.
Not far from Bradford, an old couple lived on their farm. The good man had been ill for some time, when the practitioner who attended him advised that a physician should be summoned from Bradford for a consultation. The doctor came, looked into the case, gave his opinion; and descending from the sick-room to the kitchen, was there accosted by the old woman, with,
“Well, doctor, what’s your charge?”
“My fee is a guinea.”
“A guinea,—doctor! a guinea! And if ye come again will it be another guinea?”
“Yes; but I shall hardly have to come again. I have given my opinion, and leave the patient in very good hands.”
“A guinea, doctor! Hech!”
The old woman rose, went upstairs to her husband’s bedside, and the doctor, who waited below, heard her say, “He charges a guinea. And if he comes again, it’ll be another guinea. Now what do ye say?—If I were ye, I’d say no, like a Britoner; and I’d die first!”
Though very brief, the other illustration is not less demonstrative. A friend of mine, whose brother had just been married, happening to mention the incident to a friend of his, during a visit to the town, was immediately met by the question:—
“Money?”
“No.”
“Fool!” was Bradford’s reply.
Bradford’s Fame—Visit to Warehouses—A Smoky Prospect—Ways and Means of Trade—What John Bull likes—What Brother Jonathan likes—Vulcan’s Head-quarters—Cleckheaton—Heckmondwike—Busy Traffic—Mirfield—Robin Hood’s Grave—Batley the Shoddyopolis—All the World’s Tatters—Aspects of Batley—A Boy capt—The Devil’s Den—Grinding Rags—Mixing and Oiling—Shoddy and Shoddy—Tricks with Rags—The Scribbling Machine—Short Flocks, Long Threads—Spinners and Weavers—Dyeing, Dressing, and Pressing—A Moral in Shoddy—A Surprise of Real Cloth—Iron, Lead, and Coal—To Wakefield—A Disappointment—The Old Chapel—The Battle-field—To Barnsley—Bairnsla Dialect—Sheffield.
“What is Bradford famous for?” was the question put at a school-examination somewhere within the West Riding.
“For its shoddy,” answered one of the boys. An answer that greatly scandalized certain of the parents who had come from Bradford; and not without reason, for although shoddy is manufactured within sight of the smoke of the town, Bradford is really the great mart for stuffs and worsted goods, as Leeds is for broadcloth.
I had seen how stuffs were made, and wished now to see in what manner they were sent into the market. A clerk who came to the inn during the evening for a glass of ale and gossip, invited me to visit the warehouse in which he was employed, on the following morning. I went, and as he had not repented of his invitation, I saw all he had to show, and then, at his suggestion, went to the ‘crack’ warehouse of Bradford, where business is carried on with elegant and somewhat luxurious appliances. I handed my card to a gentleman in the office, and was not surprised to hear for answer that strangers could not be admitted for obvious reasons, and was turning away, when he said, musingly, that my name seemed familiar to him, and after a little reflection, he added: “Yes, yes—now I have it. Itwas on the title-page ofA Londoner’s Walk to the Land’s End. How that book made me long for a trip to Cornwall! And you are the Londoner! Well, of course you shall see the warehouse.”
So I was introduced into the lift, and away we were hoisted up to the fifth or sixth story, when I was first led to the gazebo on the roof, that I might enjoy the prospect of the town and neighbourhood. What a prospect! a great mass of houses, and rounded heights beyond, dimly seen through a rolling canopy of smoke. The sky of London is brilliant in comparison. May it never be my doom to live in Bradford, or Leeds, or Sheffield, or Manchester!
We soon exchanged the dismal outlook for the topmost floor, where I saw heaps of ‘tabs,’ stacks of boards, boxes, and paper for packing. The tabs, which are the narrow strips that hang out from the ends of the pieces while on show, are kept for a time as references. The number and variety of the boards, on which the pieces are wound, are surprising: some are thick, to add bulk and weight to the piece of stuff in which it is to be enveloped; some thin, to save cost in transport; some broad, some narrow, so that every market may have its whims and wants gratified. The Germans who pay heavily for carriage, prefer thin boards: Brother Jonathan as well as John Bull, likes the sight of a good pennyworth, and gets a thick board. The preparation of these boards alone must be no insignificant branch of trade in Bradford; and remembering how many warehouses in other towns use up stacks of boards every month, we see a large consumption of Norway timber at once accounted for.
I saw the press cutting the slips of white paper in which the pieces are tied, and tickets and fancy bands and labels intended to tickle the eyes of customers, without end. A peculiar kind of embossed paper, somewhat resembling a rough towel, is provided to wrap up the American purchases; and Brother Jonathan requires that his pieces should be folded in a peculiar way, so that he may show the quality without loss of time when selling to his own impatient countrymen. Nimble machines measure the pieces at the rate of a thousand yards an hour, and others wind the lengths promptly on the boards; and, judging from appearances, clerks, salesmen, and porters work as if they too were actuated by the steam. And then, while descending from floor to floor, to see the prodigious piles of pieces on racks and shelves, or awaiting their turn in the hydraulic press which packs them solid as a bastion, was a wonder. There were moreen, bombazine, alpaca, camlet, orleans, berége, Australian cord, cable cord, and many kinds as new to me as they would have been to a fakir. One heavy black stuff was pointed out as manufactured purposely for the vestments of Romish priests. And running through each room I saw a small lift, in which account books, orders, patterns, and such like, are passed up and down, and now and then a signal to a clerk to be cautious of pushing sales. And, lastly, on the ground-floor I saw the handsome dining-room, wherein many a customer had enjoyed the hospitality of the firm, and drunk the generous sherry that inspired him to buy up to a thousand when he purposed only five hundred.
This brief sketch includes the two warehouses; one, however—the elegant one—confines itself to the home trade. I made due acknowledgments for the favour shown to me, and hastening to the railway-station, took the train for Mirfield. The line passes the great Lowmoor iron-works, where furnaces, little mountains of ore, coal, limestone, and iron, and cranes and trucks, and overwhelming smoke, and a general blackness, suggest ideas of Vulcan and his tremendous smithy. And besides there is a stir, and a going to and fro, that betoken urgent work; and you will believe a passenger’s remark, that “Lowmoor could of itself keep a railway going.” We pass Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike, places that have something sylvan in the sound of their names; but although the country if left to itself would be pretty enough, it is sadly disfigured by smoke and the remorseless inroads of trade. Yet who can travel here in the West Riding and not be struck by the busy traffic, the sight of chimneys, quarries, canals, and tramways, and trains heavy laden, coming and going continually! And connected with this traffic there is one particular especially worthy of imitation in other counties: it is, that nearly every train throughout the day has third-class carriages.
Mirfield is in the pleasant valley of the Calder. While waiting for a train to Batley, I walked along the bank of the stream thinking of Robin Hood, who lies buried at Kirklees, a few miles up the valley, where a treacherous hand let out his life:
“Lay me a green sod under my head,And another at my feet;And lay my bent bow by my side,Which was my music sweet;And make my grave of gravel and green,Which is most right and meet.“Let me have length and breadth enough,With a green sod under my head;That they may say when I am dead,Here lies bold Robin Hood.”
“Lay me a green sod under my head,And another at my feet;And lay my bent bow by my side,Which was my music sweet;And make my grave of gravel and green,Which is most right and meet.
“Let me have length and breadth enough,With a green sod under my head;That they may say when I am dead,Here lies bold Robin Hood.”
The object of my visit to Batley was to see the making of shoddy. To leave Yorkshire ignorant of one of our latest national institutions would be a reproach. We live in an age of shoddy, in more senses than one. You may begin with the hovel, and trace shoddy all through society, even up to the House of Peers. I had not long to wait: there was a bird’s-eye view of Dewsbury in passing, and a few minutes brought me to Batley, the head-quarters of shoddy. On alighting at the station, the sight of great pockets or bales piled up in stacks or laden on trucks, every bale brandedAnvers, and casks of oil fromSevila, gave me at once a proof that I had come to the right place; for here were rags shipped at Antwerp from all parts of northern Europe. Think of that. Hither were brought tatters from pediculous Poland, from the gipsies of Hungary, from the beggars and scarecrows of Germany, from the frowsy peasants of Muscovy; to say nothing of snips and shreds from monks’ gowns and lawyers’ robes, from postilions’ jackets and soldiers’ uniforms, from maidens’ bodices and noblemen’s cloaks. A vast medley, truly! and all to be manufactured into broadcloth in Yorkshire. No wonder that theUniversdeclares England is to perish by her commerce.
The walk to the town gives you such a view as can only be seen in a manufacturing district: hills, fields, meadows, and rough slopes, all bestrewn with cottages, factories, warehouses, sheds, clouded here and there by smoke; roads and paths wandering apparently anywhere; here and there a quarry, and piles of squared stone; heaps of refuse; wheat-fields among the houses; potato-plots in little levels, and everything giving you the impression of waiting to be finished. Add to all this, troops of men and women, boys and girls—the girls with a kerchief pinned over the head, the corner hanging behind—going home to dinner, and a mighty noise of clogs,and trucks laden with rags and barrels of oil, and you will have an idea of Batley, as I saw it on my arrival.
Having found the factory of which I was in search, I had to wait a few minutes for the appearance of the principal. A boy, who was amusing himself in the office, remarked, when he heard that I had never yet seen shoddy made: “Well, it’ll cap ye when ye get among the machinery; that’s all!” He himself had been capt once in his life: it was in the previous summer, when his uncle took him to Blackpool, and he first beheld the sea. “That capt me, that did,” he said, with the gravity of a philosopher.
Seeing that the principal hesitated, even after he had read my letter, I began to imagine that shoddy-making involved important secrets. “Come to see what you can pick up, eh?” he said. However, when he heard that I was in no way connected with manufactures, and had come, not as a spy, but simply out of honest curiosity, to see how old rags were ground into new cloth, he smiled, and led me forthwith into the devil’s den. There I saw a cylinder revolving with a velocity too rapid for the eye to follow, whizzing and roaring, as if in agony, and throwing off a cloud of light woolly fibres, that floated in the air, and a stream of flocks that fell in a heap at the end of the room. It took three minutes to stop the monster; and when the motion ceased, I saw the cylinder was full of blunt steel teeth, which, seizing whatever was presented to them in the shape of rags, tore it thoroughly to pieces; in fact, ground it up into flocks of short, frizzly-looking fibre, resembling negro-hair, yet soft and free from knots. The cylinder is fed by a travelling web, which brings a layer of rags continually up to the teeth. On this occasion, the quality of the grist, as one might call it, was respectable—nothing but fathoms of list which had never been defiled. So rapidly did the greedy devil devour it, that the two attendant imps were kept fully employed in feeding; and fast as the pack of rags diminished, the heap of flocks increased. And so, amid noise and dust, the work goes on day after day; and the man who superintends, aided by his two boys, earns four pounds a week, grinding the rags as they come, for thirty shillings a pack.
The flocks are carried away to the mixing-house. As we turned aside, the devil began to whirl once more; and before we had entered the other door, I heard the ferocious howl infull vigour. The road between the buildings was encumbered with oil-casks, pieces of cloth, lying in the dust, as if of no value, and packs of rags. “It will all come right by-and-by,” said the chief, as I pointed to the littery heaps; and, pausing by one of the packs which contained what he called ‘mungo,’ that is, shreds of such cloth as clergymen’s coats are made of, he made me aware that there is shoddy and shoddy. That which makes the longest fibre is, of course, the best; and some of the choice sorts are worked up into marketable cloth, without a fresh dyeing.
Great masses of the flocks, with passage-ways between, lay heaped on the stone floor of the mixing-house. Here, according to the quality required, the long fibre is mixed in certain proportions with the short; and to facilitate the subsequent operations, the several heaps are lightly sprinkled with oil. A dingy brown or black was the prevalent colour; but some of the heaps were gray, and would be converted into undyed cloth of the same colour. It seemed to me that the principal ingredient therein was old worsted stockings; and yet, before many days, those heaps would become gray cloth fit for the jackets and mantles of winsome maidens.
I asked my conductor if it were true, as I had heard, that shoddy-makers purchased the waste, begrimed cotton wads with which stokers and ‘engine-tenters’ wipe the machinery, or the dirty refuse of wool-sorters, or every kind of ragged rubbish. He did not think such things were done in Batley; for his part, he used none but best rags, and could keep two factories always going. He had heard of the man who spread greasy cotton-waste over his field, and who, when the land had absorbed all the grease, gathered up the cotton, and sold it to the shoddy-makers; but he doubted the truth of the story. True or not, it implies great toleration among a certain class of manufacturers. Rags, not good enough for shoddy, are used as manure for the hops in Kent; so we get shoddy in our beer as well as in our broadcloth.
In the next process, the flocks are intimately mixed by passing over and under a series of rollers, and come forth from the last looking something like wool. Then the wool, as we may now call it, goes to the ‘scribbling-machine,’ which, after torturing it among a dozen rollers of various dimensions, delivers it yard by yard in the form of a loose thick cable, with a run of the fibres in one direction. Thecarding-machine takes the cable lengths, subjects them to another course of torture, confirms the direction of the fibres, and reduces the cable into a chenille of about the thickness of a lady’s finger. This chenille is produced in lengths of about five feet, across the machine, parallel with the rollers, and is immediately transferred to the piecing-machine, by a highly ingenious process. Each length, as it is finished, drops into a long, narrow, tin tray; the tray moves forward; the next behind it receives a chenille; then the third; then the fourth; and so on, up to ten. By this time, they have advanced over a table on which lies what may be described as a wooden gridiron; there is a momentary pause, and then the ten trays, turning all at once upside down, drop the chenilles severally between the bars of the gridiron. At one side of the table is a row of large spindles, or rollers, on which the chenilles—cardings, is the factory word—are wound, and the dropping is so contrived that the ends of those which fall overlap the ends of the lengths on the spindles by about an inch. Now the gridiron begins to vibrate, and by its movement beats the ends together; joins each chenille, in fact, to the one before it; then the spindles whirl, and draw in the lengths, leaving only enough for the overlap; and no sooner is this accomplished than the ten trays drop another supply, which is treated in the same expeditious manner, until the spindles are filled. No time is lost, for the full ones are immediately replaced by empty ones.
Now comes the spinners’ turn. They take these full spindles, submit them to the action of their machinery by dozens at a time, and spin the large, loose chenilles into yarns of different degrees of strength and fineness, or, perhaps one should say, coarseness, ready for the weavers. And in this way those heaps of short, uncompliant negro-hair, in which you could hardly find a fibre three inches long, are transformed into long, continuous threads, able to bear the rapid jerks of the loom. I could not sufficiently admire its ingenuity. Who would have imagined that among the appliances of shoddy! Moreover, wages are good at Batley, and the spinners can earn from forty to forty-five shillings a week. The women who attend the looms earn nine or eighteen shillings a week, according as they weave one or two pieces.
Next comes the fulling process: the pieces are damped, and thumped for a whole day by a dozen ponderous mallets;then the raising of the pile on one or both sides of the cloth, either by rollers or by hand. In the latter case, two men stretch a piece as high as they can reach on a vertical frame, and scratch the surface downwards with small hand-cards, the teeth of which are fine steel wire. Genuine broadcloth can only be dressed by a teazel of Nature’s own growing; but shoddy, far less delicate, submits to the metal. So the men keep on, length after length, till the piece is finished. Then the dyers have their turn, and if you venture to walk through their sloppy, steamy department, you will see men stirring the pieces about in vats, and some pieces hanging to rollers which keep them for a while running through the liquor. From the dye-house the pieces are carried to the tenter-ground and stretched in one length on vertical posts; and after a sufficient course of sun and air, they undergo the finishing process—clipping the surface and hot-pressing.
From what I saw in the tenter-ground, I discovered that pilot cloth is shoddy; that glossy beavers and silky-looking mohairs are shoddy; that the Petershams so largely exported to the United States are shoddy; that the soft, delicate cloths in which ladies feel so comfortable, and look so graceful, are shoddy; that the ‘fabric’ of Talmas, Raglans, and paletots, and of other garments in which fine gentlemen go to the Derby, or to the Royal Academy Exhibition, or to the evening services in Westminster Abbey, are shoddy. And if Germany sends us abundance of rags, we send to Germany enormous quantities of shoddy in return. The best quality manufactured at Batley is worth ten shillings a yard; the commonest not more than one shilling.
Broadcloth at a shilling a yard almost staggers credibility. After that we may truly say that shoddy is a great leveller.
The workpeople are, with few exceptions, thrifty and persevering. Some of the spinners take advantage of their good wages to build cottages and become landlords. A walk through Batley shows you that thought has been taken for their spiritual and moral culture; and in fine weather they betake themselves for out-doors recreation to an ancient manor-house, which I was told is situate beyond the hill that rears its pleasant woods aloft in sight of the factories.
The folk of the surrounding districts are accustomed to make merry over the shoddy-makers, regarding them as Gibeonites, and many a story do they tell concerning theseclever conjurors, and their transformations of old clothes into new. Once, they say, a portly Quaker walked into Batley, just as the ‘mill-hands’ were going to dinner: he came from the west, and was clad in that excellent broadcloth which is the pride of Gloucestershire. “Hey!” cried the hands, as he passed among them—“hey! look at that now! There’s a bit of real cloth. Lookey, lookey! we never saw the like afore:” and they surrounded the worthy stranger, and kept him prisoner until they had all felt the texture of his coat, and expressed their admiration.
Again, while waiting at Mirfield, was I struck by the frequency of trains, and counted ten in an hour and a half. In 1856, a million and quarter tons of iron ore were dug in the Cleveland and Whitby districts; and the quantity of pig-iron made in Yorkshire was 275,600 tons, of which the West Riding produced 96,000. In the same year 8986 tons of lead, and 302 ounces of silver were made within the county; and Yorkshire furnished 9,000,000 towards the sixty millions tons and a half of coal dug in all the kingdom.
I journeyed on to Wakefield; and, as it proved, to a disappointment. I had hoped for a sight of Walton Hall, and of the well-known naturalist, who there fulfils the rites of hospitality with a generous hand. Through a friend of his, Mr. Waterton had assured me of a welcome; but on arriving at Wakefield, I heard that he had started the day before for the Continent. So, instead of a walk to the Hall, I resolved to go on to Sheffield, by the last train. This left me time for a ramble. I went down to the bridge, and revived my recollections of the little chapel which for four hundred years has shown its rich and beautiful front to all who there cross the Calder, and I rejoiced to see that it had been restored and was protected by a railing. It was built—some say renewed—by Edward the Fourth to the memory of those who fell in the battle of Wakefield—a battle fatal to the House of York—and fatal to the victors; for the cruelties there perpetrated by Black Clifford and other knights, were repaid with tenfold vengeance at Towton. The place where Richard, Duke of York, fell, may still be seen: and near it, a little more than a mile from the town, the eminence on which stood Sandal Castle, a fortress singularly picturesque, as shown in old engravings.
After a succession of stony towns and smoky towns, there was something cheerful in the distant view of Wakefield with its clean red brick. It has some handsome streets; and in the old thoroughfares you may see relics of the mediæval times in ancient timbered houses. Leland describes it as “a very quick market town, and meatly large, the whole profit of which standeth by coarse drapery.” You will soon learn by a walk through the streets that “very quick” still applies.
Signs of manufactures are repeated as Wakefield, with its green neighbourhood, is left behind, and at Barnsley the air is again darkened by smoke. We had to change trains here, and thought ourselves lucky in finding that the Sheffield train had for once condescended to lay aside its surly impatience, and await the arrival from Wakefield. As we pushed through the throng on the platform, I heard many a specimen of the vernacular peculiar to Bairnsla, as the natives call it. How shall one who has not spent years among them essay to reproduce the sounds? Fortunately there is aBairnsla Foaks’ Almanackin which the work is done ready to our hand; and here is a passage quoted fromTom Treddlehoyle’s Peep at T’ Manchister Exhebishan, giving us a notion of the sort of dialect talked by the Queen’s subjects in this part of Yorkshire.
Tom is looking about and “moralizin’,” when “a strange bussal cum on all ov a sudden daan below stairs, an foaks hurryin e wun dereckshan! ‘Wot’s ta do?’ thowt ah; an daan t’ steps ah clattard, runnin full bump agean t’ foaks a t’ bottom, an before thade time to grumal or get ther faces saard, ah axt, ‘Wot ther wor ta do?’—‘Lord John Russel’s cum in,’ sed thay. Hearin this, there diddant need anuther wurd, for after springin up on ta me teppytoes ta get t’ lattetude az ta whereabaats he wor, ah duckt me head underneath foaks’s airms, an away a slipt throo t’ craad az if ide been soapt all ovver, an gettin as near him az ah durst ta be manardly, ah axt a gentleman at hed a glass button stuck before his ee, in a whisperin soart of a tone, ‘Which wor Lord John Russel?’ an bein pointed aght ta ma, ah lookt an lookt agean, but cuddant believe at it wor him, he wor sich an a little bit ov an hofalas-lookin chap,—not much unlike a horse-jocky at wun’s seen at t’ Donkister races, an wot wor just getherin hiz crums up after a good sweatin daan for t’ Ledger,—an away ah went, az sharp az ah cud squeaze aght,thinkin to mesen, ‘Bless us, what an a ta-do there iz abaght nowt! a man’s but a man, an a lord’s na more!’ We that thowt, an hevin gottan nicely aght a t’ throng, we t’ loss a nobbat wun button, an a few stitches stretcht a bit e t’ coit-back, ah thowt hauf-an-haar’s quiat woddant be amiss.”
We went on a few miles to a little station called Wombwell, where we had again to change trains. But the train from Doncaster had not arrived; so while the passengers waited they dispersed themselves about the sides of the railway, finding seats on the banks or fences, and sat talking in groups, and wondering at the delay. The stars shone out, twinkling brightly, before the train came up, more than an hour beyond its time, and it was late when we reached Sheffield. I turned at a venture into the first decent-looking public-house inThe Wicker, and was rewarded by finding good entertainment and thorough cleanliness.
Clouds of Blacks—What Sheffield was and is—A detestable Town—Razors and knives—Perfect Work, Imperfect Workmen—Foul Talk—How Files are Made—Good Iron, Good Steel—Breaking-up and Melting—Making the Crucibles—Casting—Ingots—File Forgers—Machinery Baffled—Cutting the Teeth—Hardening—Cleaning and Testing—Elliott’s Statue—A Ramble to the Corn-law Rhymer’s Haunt—Rivelin—Bilberry-gatherers—Ribbledin—The Poet’s Words—A Desecration—To Manchester—A few Words on the Exhibition.
When I woke in the morning and saw what a stratum of ‘blacks’ had come in at the window during the night, I admired still more the persevering virtue which maintains cleanliness under such very adverse circumstances. We commonly think the London atmosphere bad; but it is purity compared with Sheffield. The town, too, is full of strange, uncouth noises, by night as well as by day, that send their echo far. I had been woke more than once by ponderous thumps and sounding shocks, which made me fancy the Cyclops themselves were taking a turn at the hammers. Sheffield raised a regiment to march against the Sepoys; why not raise a company to put down its own pestiferous blacks?
Who would think that here grew the many-leagued oak forests in which Gurth and Wamba roamed; that in a later day, when the Talbots were lords of the domain, there were trees in the park under which a hundred horses might find shelter? Here lived that famous Talbot, the terror of the French; here George, the fourth Earl, built a mansion in which Wolsey lodged while on his way to die at Leicester; here the Queen of Scots was kept for a season in durance; here, as appears by a Court Roll, dated 1590, the Right Honorable George Earl of Shrewsbury assented to the trade regulations of “the Fellowship and Company of Cutlers and Makers of Knives,” whose handicraft was even then an ancient one, for Chaucer mentions the “Shefeld thwitel.” Now, what with furnaces and forges, rolling mills, and the many contrivances used by the men of iron and steel, the landscape is spoiled of its loveliness, and Silence is driven to remoter haunts.
On the other hand, Sheffield is renowned for its knives and files all over the world. It boasts a People’s College and a Philosophical Society. With it are associated the names of Chantrey, Montgomery, and Ebenezer Elliott. When you see the place, you will not wonder that Elliott’s poetry is what it is; for how could a man be expected to write amiable things in such a detestable town?
Ever since my conversation with theMechaniker, while on the way to Prague, when he spoke so earnestly in praise of English files, my desire to see how files were made became impatiently strong. Sheffield is famous also for razors; so there was a sight of two interesting manufactures to be hoped for when I set out after breakfast to test my credentials. Fortune favoured me; and, in the works of Messrs. Rodgers, I saw the men take flat bars of steel and shape them by the aid of fire and hammer into razor-blades with remarkable expedition and accuracy. So expert have they become by long practice, that with the hammer only they form the blade and tang so nicely, as to leave but little for the grinders to waste. I saw also the forging of knife-blades, the making of the handles, the sawing of the buckhorn and ivory by circular saws, and the heap of ivory-dust which is sold to knowing cooks, and by them converted into gelatine. I saw how the knives are fitted together with temporary rivets to ensure perfect action and finish, before the final touches are given. And as we went from room to room, and I thought that each man had been working for years at the same thing, repeating the same movements over and over again, I could not help pitying them; for it seemed to me that they were a sacrifice to the high reputation of English cutlery. Something more than a People’s College and Mechanics’ Institute would be needed to counteract the deadening effect of unvarying mechanical occupation; and where there is no relish for out-door recreation in the woods and on the hills, hurtful excitements are the natural consequence.
I had often heard that Sheffield is the most foul-mouthed town in the kingdom, and my experience unfortunately addsconfirmation. While in the train coming from Barnsley, and in my walks about the town, I heard more filthy and obscene talk than could be heard in Wapping in a year. Not to trust to the impressions of the day, I inquired of a resident banker, and he testified that the foul talk that assailed his ears, was to him, a continual affliction.
On the wall of the grinding-shop a tablet, set up at the cost of the men, preserves the name of a grinder, who by excellence of workmanship and long and faithful service, achieved merit for himself and the trade. At their work the men sit astride on a low seat in rows of four, one behind the other, leaning over their stones and wheels. For razors, the grindstones are small, so as to produce the hollow surface which favours fineness of edge. From the first a vivid stream of sparks flies off; but the second is a leaden wheel; the third is leather touched with crocus, to give the polish to the steel; and after that comes the whet. To carry off the dust, each man has a fan-box in front of his wheel, through which all the noxious floating particles are drawn by the rapid current of air therein produced. To this fan the grinders of the present generation owe more years of health and life than fell to the lot of their fathers, who inhaled the dust, earned high wages, and died soon of disease of the lungs. I was surprised by the men’s dexterity; by a series of quick movements, they finished every part of the blade on the stone and wheels.
From the razors I went to the files, at Moss and Gamble’s manufactory, in another part of the town. There is scarcely a street from which you cannot see the hills crowned by wood which environ the town—that is, at intervals only, through the thinnest streams of smoke. The town itself is hilly, and the more you see of the neighbourhood, the more will you agree with those who say, “What a beautiful place Sheffield would be, if Sheffield were not there!”
My first impression of the file-works, combined stacks of Swedish iron in bars; ranges of steel bars of various shape, square, flat, three-cornered, round, and half-round; heaps of broken steel, the fresh edges glittering in the sun; heaps of broken crucibles, and the roar of furnaces, noise of bellows, hammer-strokes innumerable, and dust and smoke, and other things, that to a stranger had very much the appearance of rubbish and confusion.
However, there is no confusion; every man is diligent at his task; so if you please, reader, we will try and get a notion of the way in which those bars of Swedish iron are converted into excellent files. Swedish iron is chosen because it is the best; no iron hitherto discovered equals it for purity and strength, and of this the most esteemed is known as ‘Hoop L,’ from its brand being anLwithin a hoop. “If you want good steel to come out of the furnace,” say the knowing ones, “you must put good iron in;” and some of them hold that, “when the devil is put into the crucible, nothing but the devil will come out:” hence we may believe their moral code to be sufficient for its purpose. The bars, at a guess, are about eight feet long, three inches broad, and one inch thick. To begin the process, they are piled in a furnace between alternate layers of charcoal, the surfaces kept carefully from contact, and are there subjected to fire for eight or nine days. To enable the workmen to watch the process, small trial pieces are so placed that they can be drawn out for examination through a small hole in the front of the furnace. In large furnaces, twelve tons of iron are converted at once. The long-continued heat, which is kept below the melting-point, drives off the impurities; the bars, from contact with the charcoal, become carbonized and hardened; and when the fiery ordeal is over, they appear thickly bossed with bubbles or blisters, in which condition they are described as ‘blistered steel.’
Now come the operations which convert these blistered bars into the finished bars of steel above-mentioned, smooth and uniform of surface, and well-nigh hard as diamond. The blistered bars are taken from the furnace and broken up into small pieces; the fresh edges show innumerable crystals of different dimensions, according to the quality of the iron, and have much the appearance of frosted silver. The pieces are carefully assorted and weighed. The weighers judge of the quality at a glance, and mix the sorts in due proportion in the scales in readiness for the melters, who put each parcel into its proper crucible, and drop the crucibles through holes in a floor into a glowing furnace, where they are left for about half a day.
The making of the crucibles is a much more important part of the operation than would be imagined. They must be of uniform dimensions and quality, or the steel is deteriorated, and they fail in the fire. They are made on the premises, forevery melting requires new crucibles. In an underground chamber I saw men at work, treading a large flat heap of fire-clay into proper consistency, weighing it into lumps of a given weight; placing these lumps one after the other in a circular mould, and driving in upon them, with a ponderous mallet, a circular block of the same form and height as the mould, but smaller. As the block sinks under the heavy blows, the clay is forced against the sides of the mould; and when the block can descend no further, there appears all round it a dense ring of clay, and the mould is full. Now, with a dexterous turn, the block is drawn out; the crucible is separated from the mould, and shows itself as a smooth vase, nearly two feet in height. The mouth is carefully finished, and a lid of the same clay fitted, and the crucible is ready for its further treatment. When placed in the furnace, the lids are sealed on with soft clay. The man who treads the clay needs a good stock of patience, for lumps, however small, are fatal to the crucibles.
When the moment arrived, I was summoned to witness the casting. The men had tied round their shins pieces of old sacking, as protection from the heat; they opened the holes in the floor, knocked off the lid of the crucible, and two of them, each with tongs, lifted the crucible from the intensely heated furnace. How it quivered, and glowed, and threw off sparks, and diffused around a scorching temperature! It amazed me that the men could bear it. When two crucibles are lifted out, they are emptied at the same time into the mould; not hap-hazard, but with care that the streams shall unite, and not touch the sides of the mould as they fall. Neglect of this precaution injures the quality. Another precaution is to shut out cold draughts of air during the casting. To judge by the ear, you would fancy the men were pouring out gallons of cream.
The contents of two crucibles form an ingot, short, thick, and heavy. I saw a number of such ingots in the yard. The next process is to heat them, and to pass them while hot between the rollers which convert them into bars of any required form. I was content to forego a visit to the rolling-mill—somewhere in the suburbs—being already familiar with the operation of rolling iron.
We have now the steel in a form ready for the file-makers. Two forgers, one of whom wields a heavy two-handed hammer, cut the bars into lengths, and after a few minutes of fire and anvil, the future file is formed, one end at a time, from tang to point, and stamped. For the half-round files, a suitable depression is made at one side of the anvil. Then comes a softening process to prepare the files for the men who grind or file them to a true form, and for toothing. To cut the teeth, the man or boy lays the file on a proper bed, takes a short, hard chisel between the thumb and finger of his left hand, holds it leaning from him at the required angle, and strikes a blow with the hammer. The blow produces a nick with a slight ridge by its side; against this ridge the chisel is placed for the next stroke, and so on to the next, until, by multiplied blows, the file is fully toothed. The process takes long to describe, but is, in reality, expeditious, as testified by the rapid clatter. Some of the largest files require two men—one to hold the chisel, the other to strike. For the teeth of rasps, a pyramidal punch is used. The different kinds of files are described as roughs, bastard cut, second cut, smooth, and dead smooth; besides an extraordinary heavy sort, known as rubbers. According to the cut, so is the weight of the hammer employed. Many attempts have been made to cut files by machinery; but they have all failed. There is something in the varying touch of human fingers imparting a keenness to the bite of the file, which the machine with its precise movements cannot produce—even as thistle spines excel all metallic contrivances for the dressing of cloth. And very fortunate it is that machinery can’t do everything.
After the toothing, follows the hardening. The hardener lays a few files in a fire of cinders; blows the bellows till a cherry-red heat is produced; then he thrusts the file into a stratum of charcoal, and from that plunges it into a large bath of cold water, the cleaner and colder the better. The plunge is not made anyhow, but in a given direction, and with a varying movement from side to side, according to the shape of the file. The metal, as it enters the water, and for some seconds afterwards, frets and moans piteously; and I expected to see it fly to pieces with the sudden shock. But good steel is true; the man draws the file out, squints along its edge, and if he sees it too much warped, gives it a strain upon a fulcrum, sprinkling it at the same time with cold water. He then lays it aside, takes another from the fire, and treats it in a similar way.
The hardened files are next scrubbed with sand, are dried, the tangs are dipped into molten lead to deprive them of their brittleness; the files are rubbed over with oil, and scratched with a harder piece of metal to test their quality—that is, an attempt is made to scratch them. If the files be good, it ought to fail. They are then taken between the thumb and finger, and rung to test their soundness; and if no treacherous crack betray its presence, they are tied up in parcels for sale.
I shall not soon forget the obliging kindness with which explanations were given and all my questions answered by a member of the firm, who conducted me over the works. When we came to the end, and I had witnessed the care bestowed on the several operations, I no longer wondered that a BohemianMechanikerin the heart of the Continent, or artisans in any part of the world, should find reason to glory in English files. Some people are charitable enough to believe that English files are no unapt examples of English character.
Sheffield is somewhat proud of Chantrey and Montgomery, and honours Elliott by a statue, which, tall of stature and unfaithful in likeness, sits on a pedestal in front of the post-office. I thought that to ramble out to one of the Corn-Law Rhymer’s haunts would be an agreeable way of spending the afternoon and of viewing the scenery in the neighbourhood of the town. I paced up the long ascent of Broome Hill—a not unpleasing suburb—to the Glossop road, and when the town was fairly left behind, was well repaid by the sight of wooded hills and romantic valleys. Amidst scenery such as that you may wander on to Wentworth, to Wharncliff, the lair of the Dragon of Wantley, to Stanedge and Shirecliff, and all the sites of which Elliott has sung in pictured phrase or words of fire. We look into the valley of the Rivelin, one of the