make in falling. The hidden steam-engine turns the wheels of the shearing machine. The iron plate is held to it, the edge put into a groove, and off comes the strip, as quick as thought. It is, in fact, cut from end to end, and not struck off with one blow; but the process is too rapid for the eye to follow the machine making fifty revolutions in a minThus, these iron ribbons are rained down at the rate of nearly one, every second of time.

ute.

Now we have the strips. How many nails will each yield? The number that must be got is two hundred and forty small tacks, or, if of the six-inch size, one hundred and twenty; the other sizes ranging between. It would be impossible to get this number, if one edge of the strip was to yield all the heads, and the other edge all the points. There would be much fewer nails, and a great waste of iron. The strip must be turned for the cutting of each nail, that the slope made by cutting the narrow part of the last, may serve for the broad edge of the next. This incessant turning of the strip is the one thing which the workman has to do. His machine actually does all the rest, and without failure or pause. Before each machine stands a rest-a good deal like what soldiers used to carry in the days of matchlocks, to rest their pieces on. It is like a large twopronged fork set on end, prongs uppermost, and movable in its socket. Taking hold of his strip of cold iron with a pair of long pincers, very like tongs, the boy lodges it across this fork, and proceeds to feed the machine with the metal which it is rapidly to digest into nails. A most vigorous and certain process of digestion it is. There is a sharp steel tooth at what may be called the mouth of the machine, the ledge on which the strip is laid. The tooth doubles back, like the fang of a rattlesnake, and, in doing so, it allows a sharp blade to fall, and slice off a nail.

While the boy is turning the strip, the severed bit drops into a groove, where a pair of nippers seizes it by the point, and another advances from behind to strike and hold the shank. The point and shank being thus formed and held fast, a hammer comes on, driven from the right hand, to form the head. The severe blow which forms the head, releases the point and shank, and the finished nail slides down an inclined plain into a trough below. This process of forming the nail goes on in the dark-in a space below the cutting apparatus in the stomach to which the mouth has sent down the aliment. But never was such quick digestion known in any kind of stomach, for it is empty between the mouthfuls. While the boy is turning his strip, and the blade is cutting it, the nail is dismissed from the groove— finished, head and point; but only finished as to form. has still to be annealed; that is, to be roasted, baked, stoned,-call it what you will. The nails are shovelled into square iron pans, with a chemical mixture, and thoroughly baked. When they come out, they are shaken in a sieve with sawdust; when cool, they are weighed, and made up into parcels, or put into cases or sacks of " Dudley muslin ;" as the coarsest and strongest of packing-fabrics is ironically called.

It

The premises used for this manufacture need not be large. The machinery occupies a very small space. A small Pembroke table fills more width than a single machine; and the machines may be placed as near together as will merely leave room to pass. The steam-engine must be accommodated; and there must be an apartment or two for the repair or making of the machinery. The annealing, and cooling, and weighing, and packing can be done in a shed and yard. Adam Smith's young acquaintances would have wanted the whole site of Birmingham-for their

we saw.

forges, to make as many nails as go forth from the premises So compact is the space required, that one man attends to four machines. He is called a "minder." He engages a boy for each machine, and sees that it is properly fed. The "minder" is paid by the hundred-weight, for all sizes of nails, except tacks, which are paid by the thousand. It is calculated that one hundred-weight contains about fifty thousand weight of all sizes. If so, the quantity of nails formed in a year, in this one apartment, is no less than a thousand and forty millions! When we see the stroke given, which makes the head, we cannot but wonder where the nail will next be struck on the head-whether in some shed on the banks of the Danube, or in the cabin of some peasant on the bleak plains of Russia, or in some Indian Bungalow, or in a cattlefold on the grassy levels of Australia, or in some chalet on the Alps or on the brink of some mine high up in the Andes, or under the palm-roof of some missionary chapel in the South Sea islands. As the nails are snipped off and fashioned, much faster than the nimblest fingers can snip paper, it is wonderful to think how they will be spread over the globe, nowhere meeting, probably, with a single person who will think of where their heads were last struck: unless one of them should be floated, in some piece of wreck, to the feet of some Robinson Crusoe, who will start at this trace of a man's hand, and seem to hear once more the pant of the steam-engine and all the sounds of busy toil, and the voices of men, for which his ear and his heart are thirsting. What would he not give to be a "minder" where that nail was made ?—or the humblest helper on the premises, so that he might work among his fellow-men?

The "minder" has it in his power to enjoy all the best things of life, if he so pleases. He easily earns from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty pounds a

year. But unfortunately, he reckons his wages by the week. If clergymen and others who would be glad of his income― did so, they might make less of their small means than they do; the weekly surplus being a constant temptation to spend. And too truly, too sadly, it is so with the "minder," with an exception here and there. If he receives five pounds a week for months together, and pays away nearly, or quite half, to the four boys below him, keeping fifty shillings or more for a few days, he is sure to borrow money of his employer. After years of constant employment and good health, if he falls sick, he has not a shilling beforehand. This story has been told before—often before -and it must be told again now—and often again—till the workman learns to accept that welfare from himself which he is apt to expect from iaw or society, which can effectually help only those who help themselves.

In a neighbouring manufactory, which would seem to require the strength of hard-handed men, we find women employed in the proportion of ten to one; and of that one portion, many are boys. The manufacture is that of screws; steel, brass, copper, and a few of silver. From the smallest screws required for putting together the nicest philosophical instruments, to the heavy bolt-screws which sustain the wear and tear of mighty steam-engines, we find here specimens of all sorts and sizes. The forging must be done by men, of course and here we find the anvil, and the glowing furnace (fed by the steam-engine), and see the great square heads of bolt-screws beaten while at a white or red heat.

The coils of wire, of different thicknesses, of which the screws are made, come from the wire-drawers. They have been made by drawing the heated iron through holes in hardened steel plates. The smaller kinds of wire are drawn by a hard mechanical gripe, through smaller and smaller

holes, till they become of the thickness required. Then the wire is brought to the screw manufactory; and there we see it lying about in shining coils. One end of a coil is presented to a machine worked by boys or women; when we see the end seized, and drawn forward, and snipped off the proper length, the snip falling, hot, into a pan of sawdust below. Women are preferred to boys for this work. Their attention is more steady, and they are more careful of their own flesh and blood. Boys are apt to make mischief; and, if they look off their work, it is too likely that they may lose their finger-ends. It is in this department of the business that most of the accidents happen. It is more satisfactory to see the lads filing the circular saws used in making the machinery, or in other processes where they have not to deal with such inexorable powers as those which cut or stamp the metal.

The heads of the bits of steel are next stamped by machinery, and delivered over to women to have the heads polished. There is nice fingering required here; and, to do it, we see rows of women, who earn from five to twelve shillings per week, each attending a machine of her own. She presents the head of the screw to a vice, which seizes it and carries it to a flying wheel, which smooths and polishes it; and it comes out in an instant, brightened with that radiating polish which we observe in the head of a finished screw. All the while, a yellowish ugly liquid is dropping upon the metal, and upon the work-woman's fingers, from a can above. It is a mixture of soapsuds and oil, which dribbles from a spout, and keeps the metal from becoming too hot for the touch.

We have now the shank of the screw, and the neat polished head; but there is no slit in the head wherein to insert the screw-driver; and the shank is plain and blunt.