BY 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 TM.R.WHITWELU. 
 
 ABANDON 
 
 AUTHOR OF WE THREE 
 &-TRODDLES7 ETC. ETC
 
 JP- 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINQS.
 
 INDUSTRIAL 
 
 EXPLORINGS 
 
 IN AND AROUND LONDON. 
 
 BY 
 
 R ANDOM, 
 
 Author of" We Three and Treadles," "The Strange Adventure of Roger 
 Willcins," &c., &c. 
 
 WITH NEARLY ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 T. M. E. WHITWELL. 
 
 ILontion : 
 JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET.
 
 T 
 2(3 
 GSB2 
 
 AFTER GIVING 
 THE MATTER DUE 
 CONSIDERATION, AND RECOG- 
 NISING THE FACT THAT NONE 
 OTHER CAN SO ADEQUATELY ESTIMATE 
 AND APPRECIATE THE PAINS AND PENALTIES AS 
 WELL AS THE PLEASURES AND THE 
 PROFITS ATTENDING THESE EXPLORA- 
 TIONS, I HAVE CONCLUDED 
 TO DEDICATE THIS 
 BOOK TO MYSELF. 
 
 1C91183
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 IN days of yore two men rode into a certain 
 market-place from opposite directions, and it 
 chanced that they halted on either side of a 
 shield that was set up on high there, though 
 
 what earthly use it could serve in that position 
 I am at a loss to understand. 
 
 "Good morning," said the first traveller,
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 pleasantly. " Charming weather for this time 
 of the year." 
 
 " Lovely," rejoined the other. " I was just 
 admiring this quaint old silver shield. Can 
 you tell me what it signifies ? " 
 
 " Well, I should say it chiefly signifies that 
 you are an ass to take a bit of wrought iron 
 for sterling silver," retorted the other, 
 brusquely. I expect he was a humorist. 
 
 And then they proceeded to argue the matter 
 
 in the blunt, old-fashioned manner that inspired 
 respect, even if it did not always carry con- 
 viction.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the shield was of brass, 
 tarnished on one side and tinned on the other. 
 
 Now I also have set up a shield in the 
 market-place, and I want you all to ride out 
 in your thousands and buy it, and read, mark, 
 learn, and inwardly digest it, and make 
 presents of it to your friends, relatives, and 
 acquaintances, and tell everybody what a really 
 excellent shield it is. Only beware ! It is a 
 two-sided shield; and lest you should go astray 
 over it, I will tell you that it has the silver of 
 humour on the one side, and the iron of hard 
 fact on the other, and if you drill through you 
 may come upon some solid metal of good 
 sterling quality underneath. If you do, I hope 
 you will let me know. It will surprise me 
 rather; but the gratification I shall obtain 
 will more than compensate me for the shock. 
 
 E. ANDOM. 
 
 WOODFORD, 
 
 August, 1895.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prologue 
 
 xi 
 
 In Piano-Land 
 
 1 
 
 In Rope-Land 
 
 23 
 
 In Train-Land 
 
 .A ..;' 45 
 
 In Candle-Land 
 
 ; 63 
 
 In Gas-Land 
 
 89 
 
 In Paper-Land 
 
 Ill 
 
 In Soap-Land 
 
 134 
 
 In Pottery -Land 
 
 160 
 
 In Match-Land ... 
 
 ... ... 185 
 
 In Rubber-Land 
 
 211 
 
 In Wire-Land 
 
 236 
 
 In Sweet-Land 
 
 264
 
 PEOLOGUE. 
 
 THE travelling instinct has always been more or 
 less strong upon me, and at one time I used to 
 look forward to the day when I should spurn 
 
 the sand of Sahara's desert, which makes good, 
 soft spurning material I have been led to
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 understand, and tread mighty continents 
 and untoured lands. As a matter of fact, I 
 suppose, when the time came, I should do the 
 continental treading in a railway train, as 
 being less tiring and more practicable; but 
 that is the way I used to think about it 
 and dream about it. We never realise our 
 ideals on this earth. The nearest point I have 
 as yet reached to the Sahara is Jersey, and 
 anything between Edinburgh and the North 
 Pole is untraversed ground so far as I personally 
 am concerned. 
 
 But quite recently the compensating balance 
 of life, which maintains the world's equilibrium, 
 indicated a sphere wherein I might exercise my 
 bent, on a somewhat contracted scale, truly a 
 sort of parlour-billiards, so to speak but with 
 pleasure to myself and profit, I trust, in all 
 that humility which is so conspicuous a feature 
 in my character, to my readers. That same 
 compensating balance, by the way, is a wonder- 
 ful dispensation. Without it one half of the 
 inhabitants of the civilised earth would be 
 lunatics, made so by over-joy, and the other 
 half would be suicides driven thereto by grief, 
 vexation, and disappointment. With it in 
 active operation there are only isolated cases of 
 such melancholy terminations, which have been 
 overlooked and forgotten, perhaps, in the press
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 of business, for the compensating balance 
 has a very busy time of it indeed. But 
 ordinarily, when a man is getting too prosperous, 
 too wealthy, too great, and begins to show 
 signs of a swelled head, which is the first stage 
 to joy-lunacy, up goes the lever, bang goes a 
 bank or something, off goes his yellow jacket, 
 and there he is, sane and sensible, albeit a trifle 
 savage, once again. And so in the reverse 
 cases grief is turned to joy, and the suicide is 
 postponed. 
 
 But I started to tell you about my exploration 
 scheme, limited very limited indeed, I may 
 say, seeing that it was designed to be confined 
 within the twelve-mile radius. 
 
 It was in this way. I was reflecting I do a 
 lot of reflecting at odd times ; it prevents that 
 sense of idleness when you have nothing to do. 
 I don't mind being idle when I am simply 
 hemmed in with work ; in fact, I rather enjoy 
 it. But when I have nothing in hand, I hate 
 to remain a drone it is a peculiarity in my 
 composition and so I reflect. 
 
 "I cannot be a traveller," so ran my 
 reflections, "because I can't get away from 
 London. No one can expect to be a satisfactory 
 traveller, and go about the world and see things, 
 who has to put in an appearance in London not 
 less than three times a week. It hampers him,
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 so to speak, and prevents him from giving his 
 full attention to all the lovely and curious 
 things he has to look at and describe. 
 
 " But why go away ? " I went on reflecting. 
 " Where is the necessity? If you can't go to 
 
 Kamtschatka, go to Kentish Town and describe 
 that. Failing Bermuda, why not travel to 
 Battersea ? There are a lot of lovely and curious 
 things in Battersea ! And if the Solomon Islands 
 are ' off/ why not let Stratford be on ? There 
 are some interesting savages about Stratford
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 who could give points to any child of nature 
 roaming in insufficient clothing across the coral 
 strand of the Solomon Islands. Be a patriot ! 
 Cry up your own country ! Write about your 
 own people your own native productions ! It 
 is easier than going abroad to do somebody 
 else's, it is safer and more comfortable, and it 
 is cheap." I saw my opportunity nay, my 
 duty and,, as Lindley Murray would say, I 
 done it.
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 
 
 T is, generally speak- 
 ing, best to start 
 an enterprise with 
 something big. I 
 started with pianos, 
 and took an over- 
 coat, a pipe, a news- 
 paper, and a three- 
 penny ticket, and 
 sallied forth on my 
 travels. And, I 
 venture to think, never was expedition more 
 easily, expeditiously, and economically fitted 
 out and despatched. 
 
 I went to Piano-Land, and I went there 
 
 direct. If I had been Henry M. S y I 
 
 should have gone to a jam factory at Black- 
 heath and struck across country and discovered 
 Piano-Land for myself; but as the Midland 
 
 1
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS, 
 
 Eailway had already located the place, I re- 
 solved to leave them the kudos. Privately I don't 
 think it is very much to their credit, though, of 
 course, when they first found it it may have 
 been pretty and picturesque enough. I found 
 it depressing and more than a trifle dirty, and 
 worn down at the heel, so to speak. 
 
 It was dull and cold, and foggy, too, when I 
 left Kentish Town Station in search of Grafton 
 Road and promptly and immediately lost myself. 
 In answer to my pathetic inquiries several 
 kindly-disposed persons did stop and give me 
 minute and precise information whereby I 
 might travel to my destination ; but they im- 
 part topographical information in a style of 
 their own up Kentish Town way, and I hadn't 
 the key. Instead of telling you, for instance, 
 to take the first turning to the right, and the 
 fourth to the left, and then keep straight on, 
 they say : " Grafton Eoad ? Brinsmead's place ? 
 Why, that's where they makes pianos ! " 
 
 You murmur your interest in the information, 
 and signify that you have no vital objection 
 thereto provided the work is carried on on 
 sanitary principles. 
 
 "Want to go there?"
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 
 
 You casually observe that you would like to 
 stroll in that direction if it is quite convenient. 
 Can you be directed ? 
 
 ' s Yus ! Go straight along till you comes to 
 Jones's the butcher's, then turn round by a row 
 of red-bricked 'ouses, and you'll see the ' Cow 
 and Mustard Pot ' on the other side of the road, 
 and just past that there's a turning, and there 
 you are." 
 
 And you go on merrily, and find Jones's the 
 butcher's, and the " Cow and Mustard Pot," and 
 the red-bricked 'ouses, and fancy your travels 
 are nearly ended. Getting a trifle uncertain, 
 perhaps, you ask again. 
 
 " Graf ton Road, sir? There ain't no Graf ton 
 Eoad about here ! There's a Clifton Road." 
 
 My enterprise was saved from utter extinction 
 at the outset by a dirty little boy who was play- 
 ing with bis " sucker " a leather and rather a 
 messy plaything, which has a moral influence 
 on the young, I am told, besides illustrating 
 several well-known natural laws plainly for 
 their intelligent comprehension. 
 
 I asked him what percentage of the wealth of 
 the Indies would induce him to personally pilot 
 me to Graf ton Road. The boy was prompt at a
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 deal ; lie said lie thought " tuppence " would do 
 it, and I closed on the bargain, and told him to 
 lead on. 
 
 Ten minutes later, I stood before the imposing 
 
 blocks in which Messrs. Brinsmead and Sons 
 
 carrj on their manufacture. A gate within a 
 
 gate admitted me, and I was in Piano-land 
 
 and a very wonderful and interesting land I 
 
 found it. A land overflowing with glue and 
 
 timber and tinkling harmony, colonised by its 
 
 own people, shut in from the outside world 
 
 by a high wall, and jealously guarded by 
 
 massive gates, through which only the specially 
 
 privileged pass. I presented my credentials to 
 
 Mr. Thomas Brinsmead, who came out to me, 
 
 and he, courteously brief and pleasantly 
 
 business like, handed me over to the charge of 
 
 Mr. Hall, his foreman, under whose very able 
 
 guidance I made my journey. It is the fashion 
 
 to be personally conducted nowadays. Some 
 
 really great explorers adopt it, so I felt no 
 
 shame, albeit it was rather prosaic. 
 
 Mr. Hall would not make a bad journalist, 
 so quick is he to grasp the explorer's wishes. 
 
 " Don't let us be technical," I said. " Let 
 us walk round and spy out the land, so that I
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 
 
 may perchance write a big book on the subject ; 
 and if we meet any spades about anywhere let 
 us~ call them shovels just simply plain 
 
 PREPARING THE FRAMES. 
 
 shovels." And we were pleasantly chatty and 
 descriptive thereafter at least, Mr. Hall was. 
 I had my reputation as an explorer to maintain,
 
 6 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 and I dared not unbend too far and become 
 jocose, lest perad venture he discovered that 
 I was a humorist, and not a real, bond-fide 
 traveller at all. 
 
 There is only one feature that an outside 
 view of the Grafton works permits you to 
 retain, and that is the monumental piles of 
 timber that are reared up everywhere, even on 
 the roof-tops. Stacked with mathematical 
 precision, each plank kept apart from its neigh- 
 bour by short cross-ties, to allow the air to 
 circulate freely in between ; black with age 
 and weather and I should judge the weather 
 to be pretty thick occasionally around Kentish 
 Town these planks, gathered in from all parts 
 of the world, wait their turn to be converted 
 into "Uprights" and "Grands." A very 
 lengthy wait it is, too. Four years, on an 
 average, between the time of stacking and 
 actual use the last nine or twelve months 
 under cover, in a universal temperature of 
 eighty degrees winter and summer are allowed 
 to elapse to thoroughly and completely dry all 
 trace of moisture out of the wood. Moisture 
 causes trouble in pianos, and every care is taken 
 to exclude it. Therein the instrument differs
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 
 
 from some performers I have known, who 
 have displayed a remarkable aptitude for 
 moisture without thereby affecting their tone 
 or touch, and have not limited the quantity 
 either, though I have heard them grumble at 
 the quality. 
 
 Thoroughness is strikingly in evidence all 
 through the various departments, and presum- 
 ably Messrs. Brinsmead hold that it is better 
 to overdo a matter than to take chances. And 
 undoubtedly they are right. I have known men 
 who have gleefully speculated in instruments 
 made in the Faderland, and have come to wish 
 
 they hadn't. They have found but there, you 
 
 know the story, I daresay. Anyway, it is not 
 pleasant to have a thirty- guinea piece of pro- 
 perty that you designed for use as a piano 
 develop such a guileless, open-hearted, frank 
 disposition, that it feels impelled to open its 
 casing and display its interior economy to the 
 passers-by, just to show that there is no decep- 
 tion, and that it really does contain strings and 
 fittings. Nor does the ambitious variety alto- 
 gether please. I mean the sort that rebels at 
 the comparatively simple and unobtrusive role 
 of piano, and splinters itself up into wash-tubs
 
 8 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 and kitchen stools, with perhaps a little surplus 
 material left over for a window-sash and a 
 chicken-coop. 
 
 Here, perhaps, I ought to interject a word 
 or two of praise about Messrs. Brinsmead's 
 instruments; but I will not. They are of 
 world-wide fame and speak for themselves, if 
 you know how to play and can make them, and 
 they haven't any ideas above their station like 
 those I have alluded to. 
 
 From the wood-stacks which is the begin- 
 ning of all things, as far as pianos are 
 concerned I was conducted through a series 
 of rooms where the treatment of the iron 
 frames was in progress. Round about the 
 walls, and in odd corners, these frames, rough 
 and unfinished, as they had come from the 
 foundry, were piled, while the various opera- 
 tions which reduced them to a finished and 
 ornamental condition were in full swing. 
 Here might be seen a number of men rubbing 
 down, with infinite toil and patience, the rough 
 ironwork by a sort of te holy-stoning " process ; 
 while away off in a far corner a " hand " was 
 viewing, with a look of conscious pride, a 
 magnificent great plate destined for a " Grand,"
 
 IN PIANO-LA.ND. 
 
 that shone like burnished gold. I walked across 
 to it and inspected it closer. 
 
 " Enamelled and baked," Mr. Hall remarked, 
 
 DRILLING HOLES FOR PINS. 
 
 briefly. And I understood that I might safely 
 handle it without the colour coming off in the 
 process.
 
 10 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 In another building vertical drills were at 
 work on these same plates, boring out the holes 
 for the pins. The plates slid along under the 
 deft guidance of a mechanic rattle, whirr, 
 scrunch, and the hole was bitten out as clean 
 and easily as the cheese-taster's knife pierces a 
 new importation of Cheddar. 
 
 In a big room adjoining I came upon a real 
 land of marvels. There was a clatter and hum 
 of powerful machinery, a pleasant smell of 
 fresh wood and it is astonishing how fresh 
 and scented some of these woods do strike the 
 nostrils and sawdust lying about by the sack- 
 ful, and floating round in clouds. I could have 
 passed for a very respectable miller before I 
 had been in the room ten minutes that is, if 
 any one could conceive a sort of fancy-dress 
 miller with a tall hat and a note-book. 
 
 Talk about the little busy bee ! Any speci- 
 men hive would have gone out of business in 
 sheer envy and impotence could they have 
 peeped in and seen that scene. Sawing in 
 which operation, by the bye, both the fussy little 
 " circulars " and their bigger and, if possible, 
 more fussy prototypes, and the dignified and 
 somewhat sinister-looking "band" saws are
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 11 
 
 concerned planing, moulding, and shaping 
 were going on everywhere, and no pen can 
 adequately give one's impressions on seeing a 
 huge, roughened plank slid on to one of the 
 massive steel beds of the planing-machines, and 
 come through, smooth and glossy, and pared 
 down to a standard thickness. 
 
 The point that most struck me, after I had 
 travelled a little farther, was the slap-dash, 
 easy-going, almost contemptuous way in which 
 the various parts are turned out, in contrast 
 with the precision and nicety displayed when 
 it comes to fitting those parts together. To 
 make the sections of a piano is easy if you 
 know how ; I felt that I could do it myself if 
 I knew how; but I should despair of ever 
 bringing the parts together to a harmonious 
 literally speaking whole. The Chinese puzzle 
 is not a circumstance to it. 
 
 A very open sort of lift, which connects the 
 various floors, took us to the top of the building, 
 and the peaceful quiet, after the whirr and 
 rattle below, was striking. 
 
 On these upper floors, cases for " Grands," 
 sounding-boards, and backs, with their excep- 
 tional construction of " Wrest Plank," by which
 
 12 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 no two strings pull on the same grain of the 
 wood, are variously constructed, and important 
 and interesting operations they all are. 
 
 The sounding-board, for instance, is made 
 in sections, each section being matched to its 
 fellow, and the whole glued together diago- 
 nally. The nicety with which it has to be 
 proportioned in thickness, combined with the 
 care necessary in adjusting the (( bridge " over 
 which the strings pass, renders it perhaps the 
 most important of details that are all important. 
 
 Hard and beautifully white before they have 
 received the preserving coats of varnish, these 
 sounding-boards are marvels of constructive 
 skill and ingenuity. We were standing against 
 one that had just been fitted into a " Grand," 
 while the process of construction was being 
 explained to me, and Mr. Hall struck it the 
 board I mean, not the process with his hand. 
 It sounded as deep and resonant as a big drum. 
 I paid my tribute of admiration and walked 
 forward, for I was afraid my stock of admira- 
 tion tribute would give out under such frequent 
 calls and leave me stranded. Vainly! The 
 next call came a moment after, and a heavy 
 draft it was.
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 
 
 13 
 
 Glue, which is a prominent feature in these 
 works and a very harmless, inoffensive, and 
 
 THE BAND SAW. 
 
 unobjectionable feature it is, too ; quite con- 
 trary to any similar feature that I had hitherto
 
 14 INDUSTRIAL, EXPLORINGS. 
 
 encountered, and without that " smelly " pecu- 
 liarity so noticeable in glues plays a very 
 important part in fitting pianos together. And for 
 a successful gluing job there must be pressure 
 and warmth. The warmth here, as elsewhere, is 
 obtained from steam-heated cupboards. The 
 pressure is given by a simple but ingenious 
 method that quite took my fancy. 
 
 "Whatever are those things for ? " I queried. 
 
 My guide laughed. " I thought that would 
 interest you," he remarked. " It usually does. 
 They are ' go-bars.' " 
 
 I overlooked this lapse into technicality for 
 the sake of further information, and was re- 
 warded for my forbearance. 
 
 These " go-bars " are lance-wood staves such 
 as they used to fashion into bows for bold 
 Robin Hood and other irresponsible persons 
 who objected to taxes and convention. The 
 parts to be glued together are fitted in position, 
 and one end of the "go-bar" is placed upon 
 them, the other finding a rest against a false 
 roof a few feet above. A pressure amounting 
 to tons, resulting from the attempt of the staves 
 to straighten themselves again, can thus be 
 brought to bear on the glued surface.
 
 IN PlANO-LANDr 15 
 
 In making the cases for "Grands" an oper- 
 ation I before alluded to glue and pressure 
 play a considerable part. The cases, whether 
 of " concert " or " boudoir," are composed in 
 layers glued together, these having been pre- 
 viously steamed and bent round into shape 
 by huge clamps ; and as every one is familiar 
 with the completed article, a due pondering 
 over this fact, with a little mental exercise, 
 will enable its significance to be borne in 
 upon one. 
 
 Hard as iron and rigid as steel they come 
 out of the clamp-frame ready for the fitter's 
 deft handiwork, and by no cutting, piecing, or 
 contriving can a similar result be arrived at. 
 
 On every floor there are store-rooms contain- 
 ing the fittings that will be required, for a 
 piano is not made as one generally understands 
 the term. ; it is built up by many processes, and 
 in many departments. The parts, as I before 
 explained, are made wholesale, and are delivered 
 in sets to the " fitting " shops. 
 
 Tinkling sounds were by this time to be 
 heard from various quarters ; not unmusical 
 nor grating, as one might expect, but suggestive 
 of harps being touched by unskilled hands. It
 
 16 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 pleased me, for it seemed in keeping with the 
 place. Disjointed and jerky it perhaps was, 
 and lacking in the grace and finish of a 
 Beethoven sonata ; but it was a suggestion of 
 melody anyway. 
 
 Art and music run closely together, and they 
 did so then,, for with the ear-pleasing quality 
 come the gratification of the sight ; and a 
 Brinsmead piano can charm both senses. Panels 
 delicately inlaid I could have sworn that they 
 were hand-painted, and beautifully done at 
 that and veneers, polished and natural, con- 
 stituted the elements that gratified my artistic 
 sensibilities. 
 
 I was shown, somewhere or other about the 
 building, these veneers, all cut and pieced 
 together ready for use. 
 
 Sliced, from warty burrs on trees growing in 
 Persian forests, into thin strips that are as fine 
 and as pliable as paper, albeit they are tough 
 and workable, the patterns are matched with 
 admirable dexterity. The sheets are then 
 pasted together temporarily into panels. A 
 glue bath gives them the consistency and plia- 
 bility of a fine leather, and pressure suffices to 
 face a panel or a moulding so neatly and
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 
 
 17 
 
 FIXING THE "GO-BARS." 
 
 accurately in pattern and join that detection 
 is quite impossible. 
 
 " It is not cheapness ; it is necessity,"
 
 18 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 remarked Mr. Hall, as we viewed the process,, 
 and I, understanding him, forebore comment. 
 
 The method of veneering a moulding is par- 
 ticularly ingenious. A lengthy metal matrix 
 receives the moulding with the facing down- 
 wards, the inevitable pressure is applied, and 
 presto ! you are gazing at a length of beauti- 
 fully patterned walnut. 
 
 Somewhere up under the roof the frames are 
 strung, and they are tuned and tuned and 
 tuned, and still they go on tuning. They seem 
 to have a liking for the job up at Graf ton Road. 
 
 "Hello!" they say, "here's a piano. Let 
 us tune it." And they do so as long as the 
 instrument remains in sight. I believe the 
 carriers have to take extra hands with them 
 when they go to fetch a piano away, to head 
 off any over-zealous tuner, while the remainder 
 are getting it into the van. 
 
 You can't get away from notabilities. We 
 were walking past a beautiful specimen of a 
 concert-grand, that was lying on the stocks in 
 a very incomplete state. It was being built, I 
 was informed, to the order of Mr. George 
 Grossmith. Several fine old instruments, 
 though battered by storms and soaked by the-
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 19 
 
 salt waves, were pointed out to me, too, in 
 my peregrinations. They had travelled to all 
 parts of the world, and had come up there 
 
 for rest and refresh repairs, I mean, from 
 
 the saloons of the P. & O. Co.'s boats. They 
 looked as though they wanted it. 
 
 " That is a good bit of felt," Mr. Hall ob- 
 served, as we passed into a small off-room, 
 lined on one side with cupboards. He handed 
 me a solid-looking square of material white as 
 snow driven snow is the correct phrase, I 
 believe which might have been anything from 
 a patent dog-biscuit to a bath-mat. 
 
 I felt it and agreed with him. Felt plays 
 a considerable part in the interior economy 
 of pianos. It is used in protecting, and 
 " checking," and it covers the hammers, so 
 that when they strike the wires they may make 
 themselves but there, I will spare you such 
 an obvious piece of gratuitous flippancy. 
 
 The woodwork of the hammers is first cut 
 through, and then a length, containing I don't 
 know how many because I didn't ask, is 
 wrapped round with the felt casing, which is 
 glued on the inside. Now, if you look at one 
 of these hammers you will observe that it is
 
 20 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 thickest at the top and fines away as it gets 
 round towards the foot. This is done by hand, 
 wholesale, by a kind of sand-papering process, 
 which rubs away the superfluous material 
 to the required standard, and then each cover- 
 ing is clinched on to the wood with a metal 
 pin, the length is divided up into sections, 
 and the hammer is ready, or rather a whole 
 batch is ready, to be added to the general 
 store. 
 
 And so it came to pass that I found myself 
 on the ground-floor again, having travelled the 
 length and breadth and the height of the firm's 
 premises. I had passed by hundreds of pianos 
 in fact, I had come to look upon them as 
 commonplace sort of articles, rather in the 
 nature of litter and I had witnessed the 
 inmost details of their construction ; and they 
 are many and marvellous are these same 
 details, for there are more parts in your piano 
 supposing that you have a piano than you, 
 with all your philosophy, dreamt of, John or 
 Evelina, if it be a lady whom I address 
 unless you have an enlarged mind, and would 
 set the number at six thousand odd in the first 
 instance.
 
 IN PIANO-LAND. 21 
 
 It is impossible to do justice to all these 
 matters, and there are many points that I 
 have forgotten, or been compelled, reluctantly 
 enough, to forego. For instance, there is that 
 of pinning for the strings, the tap, tap, tap, of 
 ceaseless hammers driving in hundreds of steel 
 pegs to guide the strings, with noise enough to 
 wake all except the real, bond-fide defunct. 
 
 Then there are the operations of regulating 
 and adjusting the action, pedalling, and polish- 
 ing, to say nothing of the ingenious and 
 economical devices by which such satisfactory 
 results are obtained. One of these I must 
 mention, it is so instructive an instance of 
 economy of waste product. The exhaust steam 
 from the engines, which is ordinarily blown off 
 into the air to add to the miseries of countless 
 thousands, is here carried through a system of 
 pipes running on every floor, to boil the glue, 
 warm plates and materials, and to make itself 
 generally useful. 
 
 For what I have set down I will hold myself 
 responsible ; but that no aspiring amateur who 
 had designed to make himself a piano in his 
 spare time from my paper wood would be a 
 better material may deem himself defrauded,
 
 22 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 I will give a brief resume of the process which 
 I hope will meet the case. Here is the 
 recipe. First let the amateur get his material, 
 and cut it, and plane it, and make it look 
 pretty. Then he must make the back, and 
 the sounding-board, and the casing, and 
 stick them all together tenpenny nails will 
 answer and are cheapest ; but glue and screws 
 look better. After that put in the mechanism, 
 add whatsoever seems necessary, polish and 
 decorate, and present to the nearest deserving 
 institution for the deaf and blind. 
 
 After a brush down, which I sorely needed, 
 I parted from Mr. Hall, in a snug little office 
 just within the gates, with a due acknowledg- 
 ment of his kindness, that had rendered my 
 first exploration so easy, interesting, and plea- 
 sant; and quitting Piano-Land with a sigh 
 of regret, I made my way, un guided this time, 
 to the railway-station, and got home in time 
 for tea.
 
 IN ROPE-LAND, 
 
 THICK FOG, as dark as 
 Erebus and as pliant 
 as the tide of the silvery 
 Thames off Blackfriars, 
 wrapped the East-end 
 of London in a grimy 
 shroud when I stepped 
 out of the train at 
 Coborn Road in quest 
 of Rope-Land. 
 
 Fortunately, Rope-Land lay just behind the 
 station, and I was spared a repetition of topo- 
 graphical misadventures. This was fortunate 
 indeed, for they would have been multiplied 
 and intensified beyond my limits of endurance 
 under such conditions as then confronted me. 
 
 Every traveller out of Liverpool Street over 
 the Great Eastern system is acquainted with 
 the outward aspect of Rope-Land. He will 
 note the various buildings and sheds, the long
 
 24 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 " walk " which runs a singular contradiction 
 in terms parallel for nearly a mile with the 
 rails; the ingenious condensing arrangement 
 by which the water used for cooling the exhaust 
 steam is conveyed along the top of this same 
 building, and eventually, after playing in a 
 series of waterfalls over the roof, for the 
 purpose of lowering its temperature, finds its 
 way back to the boiler-house again, to be 
 reconverted into steam a device economical 
 and praiseworthy from everybody's point of 
 view, except, perhaps, the water company's. 
 He may even hear the rattle of machinery, and 
 the ponderous thump-thump of the engine 
 below vibrating through the station above. 
 
 A comparatively narrow frontage has this 
 Eope-Land of ours, for it runs to length rather 
 than breadth ; and a flat succession of windows, 
 a private door admitting to the offices, and the 
 inevitable big gates all bearing the legend, 
 
 J. T. DAVIS, 
 ROPE AND TWINE MAKER, 
 
 presented themselves, a bit at a time, owing to 
 the fog, as I made my way round through the
 
 IN EOPE-LAND. 
 
 25 
 
 yard to be received 
 by the gentleman 
 I, or rather the rail- 
 way company, had 
 kept him shamefully 
 waiting, by the bye 
 
 under whose guidance I made my tour of 
 inspection. 
 
 In olden days and T believe Mr. Davis
 
 26 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 himself was in business in that way at the 
 time, for Eope-Land is a land of slow growth 
 and long development a man stood at one end 
 of the yard and a boy at the other, and they 
 made a rope between them. " They don't do 
 that sort of thing now/' as the song says. 
 To-day it is a marvellously perfected work, 
 involving spacious premises, a big plant, and 
 costly machinery, so huge and powerful, yet 
 intricate withal, that I lost myself in delighted 
 astonishment at the outset, and remained lost 
 for the remainder of the afternoon. 
 
 First, I was taken into the engine-house, to 
 whet my curiosity perhaps ; anyway, it had 
 that effect. Imagine for yourself a huge 
 structure, gleaming as only skilful and con- 
 scientious engineers know how to make their 
 steel and brass work gleam, the high and low 
 pressure cylinders cased in dark, shining 
 mahogany, and the ponderous driving-wheel, 
 half underground, measuring sixteen feet in 
 diameter, and weighing seventeen tons, all so 
 beautifully balanced that, save for the thump, 
 thump, thump previously alluded to, it is 
 almost inaudible. Some little one-and-a-half 
 horse-power gas-engines I have been acquainted
 
 IN EOPE-LAND. 27 
 
 with could give it fits in the matter of noise. 
 And yet for all that it supplies the whole of 
 the motive-power in the works, although it is 
 pretty severely taxed in extra busy seasons to 
 " come up to time " with the credit that has 
 characterised its five years' service. Its pre- 
 decessor, looking a veritable pigmy, still finds 
 an honourable home behind it, and " earns its 
 oats " by operating the " rope-walk " machinery 
 when liolidays and other irritating interrup- 
 tions interfere with the more extended opera- 
 tions. Both these engines are supplied by 
 two boilers on the same extensive scale, which 
 have their home in a building on the other 
 side of a narrow pathway laid down with rails 
 for the convenient transportation of heavy 
 materials. 
 
 To return to the engine-house. The driving- 
 wheel is ribbed on its face, very much like a 
 piece of corrugated iron, and transmits its 
 power by a series of manilla ropes, made, of 
 course, on the premises. These, I gathered, 
 stand easily the strain that could not be put 
 upon ordinary belting, are very satisfactory, 
 and very economical by comparison. The same 
 system maintains throughout the works. Eopes
 
 28 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 and corrugated wheels take the power from 
 building to building, geared to suit the special 
 requirements, as shown in the illustration. 
 
 Electricity plays its small but very important 
 part in this house. In every building where 
 machinery is running an ordinary electric push 
 is fixed, the wires running into the engine- 
 house and connecting with a throttle device. 
 If an accident or some untoward event takes 
 place, no matter where, this button is pressed, 
 and presto ! no joke intended ! the arrange- 
 ment is set in action, and the huge monster 
 comes to rest. After I had seen some of the 
 machinery I began to appreciate this handy 
 little arrangement. 
 
 Away up on one side of the wall, another 
 contrivance of pipes and plates, and a pressure 
 gauge, attracts the attention. It is the business 
 end of an automatic fire-brigade, which is 
 calculated to make any ordinary human fire- 
 brigade feel sick of futile envy and chagrin. 
 Hemp, and manilla, and the other products 
 being dealt with are dangerous commodities 
 where fire is concerned, and to discount these 
 risks as far as possible, automatic sprinklers 
 are fixed everywhere, so that in times of need
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 
 
 29 
 
 every square inch of space receive its due 
 allowance of water. These sprinklers are 
 
 THE CRUSHER. 
 
 sealed with a soft metal, which fuses at a 
 certain temperature, the air which has been
 
 30 INDUSTRIAL, EXPLORINGS. 
 
 pumped through the system to hold back the 
 water finds a speedy exit, and is followed up 
 as speedily by a deluging stream, and the fire, 
 concluding that it has mistaken the day or the 
 address, apologises and goes out. 
 
 Noting these facts, I left the engine-house 
 and made my way over the rails and through 
 the fog, past tons of raw material in the shape 
 of manilla, jute, hemp, and fibre, which is 
 landed at Coborn Koad in canvas and iron- 
 bound bales, just as it comes home from 
 Manilla, New Zealand, and the Indian ports 
 mostly Bombay and Calcutta. 
 
 They are curious- looking substances various 
 in themselves, and varying still more in quali- 
 ties : some as white and soft as cotton and 
 hair, others rough, coarse, and tough, and 
 seemingly impracticable. 
 
 My guide and an old Scotch engineer be- 
 tween them contrived to make me under- 
 stand the process by which this unpromising- 
 looking, shock-headed tangle of material 
 became anything, from coloured twine to a 
 ship's cable, and I will endeavour to trans- 
 mit as much of it as I can remember, and 
 make myself clear about, without the aid of
 
 IN EOPE-LAND. 
 
 81 
 
 A "CARD," OR SHREDDING MACHINE. 
 
 the paraphernalia they had to illustrate their 
 meaning. 
 
 The very first step in the operation brought
 
 32 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 me to a long horizontal contrivance that looked 
 capable of giving points to any torture-chamber 
 fitting or accessory ever devised ; in fact, Rope- 
 Land contains as many wickedly fiendish- 
 looking machines as it has ever been my lot 
 to witness. This particular one was a sort of 
 mangle arrangement, having a number of 
 curved and ribbed rollers, as much like the 
 travelling knives of a grass cutter as anything 
 except that they are big and solid and blunt. 
 There is a double row of these, and they 
 revolve within each other in reverse directions, 
 so that when the hemp or jute, or any material 
 hard and knotted enough to require it, is sent 
 travelling down that terrible mangle, it is so 
 pressed and crushed that it comes out at the 
 other end in a softened and workable condition. 
 During its passage an overhead contrivance 
 damps it with a mixture of water and oil. 
 This is only a preliminary discipline, however. 
 Bound about the floor-space in two of the 
 buildings several huge structures, resembling 
 threshing machines somewhat, are grouped. 
 These are technically known as cards, and 
 their interior economy is a sight to see. A 
 huge roller in the centre, with several smaller
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 
 
 33 
 
 A TWISTING MACHINE. 
 
 editions of itself round about it, revolving in 
 reverse directions, and all bristling with short 
 steel points as close as they can be studded in,
 
 34 INDUSTRIAL EXI'LORIKGS. 
 
 is what a removal of the casing showed me. 
 Ordinarily, they are kept religiously boxed up, 
 for once caught by those vicious-looking teeth 
 and nothing can save the substance or material 
 from being drawn in and shredded into the 
 finest fragments. That is its mission, and like 
 every well-regulated, right-minded piece of 
 mechanism, it is content to perform that 
 mission blindly. Whatever is given it, it 
 doubtless argues, is given it for shredding 
 purposes, and if they choose to throw a 
 machinist in occasionally well, it is tough 
 work, but duty is duty ! So the powers that 
 have control accept its blind, unreasoning 
 service and fence it in carefully, so that it may 
 not have its feelings harrowed by uncongenial 
 occupation. 
 
 Into this huge box of gleaming teeth, which 
 are set diagonally on their respective barrels, 
 the crushed and prepared material is fed, and 
 the gentle combing process that it then experi- 
 ences can be easily imagined. Each roller is 
 geared to make so many revolutions a minute, 
 and the slowest set accomplish something like 
 two hundred and fifty. 
 
 A curious result after the nature of fireworks
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 35 
 
 is obtained, I was told, when a bit of grit or 
 wire or such-like foreign substance accidentally 
 finds its way in with the jute or hemp ; but it 
 is an expensive and risky experiment, and one 
 not to be undertaken for the mere gratification 
 of an exploring scribe, and so I had to rest 
 content with an outline description. 
 
 Some of the finishing cards are marvellous 
 examples of engineering constructive skill and 
 ingenuity. In following the rope-making pro- 
 cess I came upon one, a handsome piece of 
 machinery with complicated masses of gleaming 
 steel and polished woodwork. It had the 
 teething arrangement set in a revolving shutter 
 like a small edition of an ordinary shop blind ; 
 and by automatic adjustment the crushed and 
 shredded fibres passed through it for the last 
 time in a long flattened stream of accurate 
 and even thickness. This is termed " sliver," 
 and it is coiled down into long metal cylinders 
 known as " sliver-cans." 
 
 By this time the material has been cleaned 
 and prepared. Some of it is still hard and 
 fibrous, and will remain so, as may be ascer- 
 tained by examining the ordinary three-yards- 
 a-penny clothes-line. In comparison with its
 
 36 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 crude state, however, it is soft, and other 
 varieties which go to the making of better- 
 class articles are as soft as wool, some of it 
 being of a beautiful, creamy nature, impossible 
 to identify with the bales of raw material I 
 had passed out in the yard. 
 
 The " sliver," still bearing but slight resem- 
 blance to rope or cord, is taken away in the 
 cans to the twisting machines, and from there 
 it is reeled off in one long thread on to bobbins. 
 I am afraid I am not equal to describing with 
 any clearness these twisting machines, and yet 
 to see them in action they seem, with all their 
 complications, simplicity itself. 
 
 " Ho, there ! Mr. Artist a twisting machine, 
 if you please." 
 
 And now we have the groundwork, so to 
 speak, of our rope, cord, or twine. In every 
 case the process is the same from this time 
 forth. It merely means more twisting and 
 more strands strand within strand in two or 
 three ply, or more, and rope within rope until 
 the required size is obtained. 
 
 The process is wonderfully expeditious and 
 neat. The "sliver" makes its way to the 
 various completing machines in the cans, and
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 
 
 BALLING UP TWINE. 
 
 the inevitable bobbins, which, are everywhere, 
 carry the threads from process to process. 
 Three of them, to give an instance, will feed
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 their contents into a twisting-machine at one 
 end, and one will take up the manufactured 
 product at the other, to be joined later, in all 
 probability, by two more, and spun through a 
 machine on to another bobbin. 
 
 The rattle and roar of these machines is 
 something indescribable, and my artistic friend 
 is not sufficiently advanced in his profession, 
 either, to convey an adequate impression of it, 
 though he might contrive to catch the murky 
 effect of the dust that tries the eyes and lungs 
 of the unseasoned. It looked dangerous, too, 
 in amongst those closely-grouped masses of 
 revolving machinery ; but here, as everywhere, 
 due precaution is taken for the safety of the 
 employes. Every machine is fitted with a lever 
 with two generally, one on each side and 
 although the engine is never stopped, except in 
 grave emergencies, until the mill closes down 
 for the night, a pull or a blow shifts the belt 
 on to a fly-wheel, which travels loosely on the 
 shaft, and brings the machine to a standstill. 
 
 Out into the yard again, and not sorry to be 
 there, fog notwithstanding, after the rattle and 
 clash within those hives of industry, and I 
 found myself looking wonderingly into a long
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 39 
 
 trough of boiling tar. It was, I discovered, a 
 tar bath, through which the strands of cordage 
 are passed before being twisted up, when 
 their outdoor uses and the action of sea-water 
 to which they are to be exposed render its 
 preservating qualities a desideratum. The 
 fishing-fleets are supplied with a large quantity 
 of this tarred rope for trawling, i.e., towing 
 their nets, and a thousand and one other pur- 
 poses, and this unprepossessing-looking bath, 
 small though it is, was in pretty constant 
 demand. I should be afraid to state how many 
 miles of rope pass through it in the course 
 of a twelvemonth, and I had asked so many 
 questions already that I had not the impudence 
 to go in for statistical inquiries of that sort. 
 
 The vegetable product known as Archangel 
 tar not the ordinary black article most of us 
 are familiar with that comes from coal is 
 used, and is kept fluid by an arrangement of 
 steam-pipes running round the sides. The 
 yarns are uncoiled from an immense drum and 
 are immersed in the hot tar. An ingenious 
 arrangement meets them at the foot and 
 squeezes them more or less dry, according to 
 the requirements of the finished product.
 
 40 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 The " walk," which runs the whole length of 
 one side of the yard, is laid down with rails, 
 with heavy rope cables down the centre of 
 each. It is gas-lit, and the effect of the 
 whirling machines travelling up and down 
 through the fog like uncouth spiders, spinning 
 out rope as they travelled, was weird. It takes 
 two of these machines to manage a rope one 
 stationary and the other travelling. They are 
 something like an ordinary gun-carriage in 
 appearance I am showing myself singularly 
 apt at comparisons and at the outset they 
 stand together. The twisting arrangement on 
 each revolves in a reverse direction, and the 
 supplies are received from a stationary rack set 
 just behind, to which the bobbins, each carry- 
 ing one strand, are taken from the mills where 
 we have seen them being prepared. 
 
 According to the size and nature of the rope 
 to be made, so many of the strands are led away 
 through the stationary machine, and hooked 
 on to the traveller, which is then started off. 
 Away it goes down the walk, twisting up as it 
 travels, and leaving a gradually lengthening 
 rope of complete make and finish in its trail. 
 
 Now, supposing something big and preten-
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 
 
 41 
 
 tious is required a cable, we will say ! Then, 
 as in the case of making the strands, the pro- 
 
 PLAITING THE KUBBEE CORE. 
 
 cess is repeated, only, in the place of strands 
 or threads, ropes of quite respectable size and
 
 42 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 strength are attached to the machines and 
 twisted up in the self-same way. 
 
 At the bottom of the yard,, a number of 
 hand-machines are still at work, for old 
 customs die hard, and prejudice, where cus- 
 tomers whose fathers had their ropes twisted 
 up by hand are concerned, has to be respected. 
 
 Machine or hand, anything of the shape and 
 nature of rope can here be supplied in any 
 length and of any thickness, from a gigantic 
 cable to packing cord and shop twine. 
 
 In the twine building, the same processes are 
 in operation, saving and excepting the polish- 
 ing and balling. Most of you must have 
 observed the smooth, sleek, shining appearance 
 of a piece of twine, and this is obtained by 
 running the threads through a bath of size. 
 This is a messy, though not a badly-smelling 
 process. It is then led over and round an 
 immense tin cylinder, which is heated to a 
 regulated temperature by steam, and is finally 
 submitted to' a brushing on cocoanut fibre mat- 
 ting, which puts it in suitable trim for the balling 
 machines upstairs. These machines are also 
 ingenious in their way. They are tended by 
 girls, whose duty it is to operate a lever which
 
 IN ROPE-LAND. 43 
 
 enables the twine to be coiled up evenly and 
 neatly. Others, again, are engaged in finish- 
 ing off, weighing and measuring. 
 
 " Balling machine, please, Mr. Artist." 
 Handy fellows, these artists save a lot of 
 trouble ! 
 
 The three or four loops round the centre and 
 the fastening off still has to be done by hand, 
 the mechanical appliance stopping at the actual 
 coiling-up process. 
 
 A further branch has been fairly recently 
 added to Rope-Land, although, strictly speak- 
 ing, it has no concern with rope. This is the 
 manufacture of steam-packing for cylinders. 
 
 It is a wonderfully pretty sight, albeit messy 
 to the last degree, and smelly, too, with French 
 chalk and boiling tallow, with the gleaming 
 white threads running down from bobbins 
 arranged vertically above the machine, which 
 plaits it around the india-rubber core that is 
 shown in the illustration running down over 
 the guiding pulley -wheels. 
 
 " Service, please, my artistic friend ! " 
 
 The india-rubber core is first prepared, and 
 cut square and shapely by a band-knife, an 
 endless band of thin steel which runs over a
 
 44 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 couple of pulley -wheels, one above and the 
 other below. 
 
 I left this department with real regret, for to 
 me, at least, these machines have an over- 
 powering attraction, and if it were not for my 
 energetic nature, and certain other claims on 
 my time and attention, I could stand watching 
 their ceaseless activity for days together, with, 
 of course, a break now and again for rest and 
 refreshment. However, I did tear myself away, 
 and, after running over for one last view of 
 that great giant, still thump, thumping away 
 in the engine-house, as though time were 
 naught, and the pigmy and sordid little con- 
 siderations of everyday life were of no interest 
 or moment not worth three drops of the oil 
 that a fussy little pump is continually pouring 
 over its bearings, I thanked my guide, and 
 went home to tea, lost in amazement even 
 as my train subsequently got lost in the fog 
 and astonished admiration of the many 
 marvels I had seen, heard, and gathered in 
 Hope-Land.
 
 IN TEAM-LAND. 
 
 KAM-LAND is sit- 
 uated cheerfully 
 situated, I may say, 
 seeing that it lies 
 between a cemetery 
 and a workhouse 
 in a quiet and some- 
 what mean thorough- 
 fare, within easy walk- 
 ing distance of Leyton 
 Station on the G.E.K. 
 
 A more painstaking and conscientious explorer 
 than myself would, perhaps, hare started at 
 the other end of this thoroughfare. Walking 
 along in dreamy reflection and mud the first 
 is natural to an explorer on duty, and the last 
 is natural to the Leytonstone Eoad he would 
 have observed a junction in the tram-rails that 
 he could have followed down, had he been so 
 minded, from Aldgate. A branch line here
 
 46 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 takes a sharp curve down a narrow turning, 
 and is lost in a labyrinth of houses. This 
 would doubtless interest the explorer and 
 engage his attention. He would hitch his 
 trousers still higher out of the mud, grasp 
 his umbrella tighter, and would plunge in after 
 that mysterious rail. 
 
 If he were gifted with a big imagination 
 and he wouldn't be much of a success as an 
 explorer if he were not he would, on coming 
 to the Union before mentioned, assume that 
 the line had been laid down for the convenience 
 and comfort of aged and infirm paupers, so 
 that they might be " delivered free at the 
 door," like our groceries and railway parcels. 
 It is miserable to have to walk to a workhouse, 
 especially in inclement weather, and this 
 instance of kindly forethought on the part of 
 the Guardians would probably strike him as re- 
 markableit would me ! and cause him to 
 further investigate. He would then discover 
 that there is no tramroad to the workhouse, 
 and that the East-end paupers, as elsewhere, 
 are constrained to cabs or pedestrianism. 
 
 The rail still runs on past that home of 
 wretchedness and woe, and, slowly and sorrow-
 
 IN TRAM-LAND. 47 
 
 fully may be, the explorer resumes his travels. 
 Still further along the road the lines take 
 another detour, and are lost behind a pair of 
 huge wooden gates, which bear the inscription, 
 " North Metropolitan Tramways Co." 
 
 I knew all these things, and was spared as 
 much mental exercise as an uninitiated explorer 
 might have experienced, although previous ac- 
 quaintance with the neighbourhood did not 
 spare me from the mud, which was everywhere, 
 nor any bit to eat, as the Ancient Mariner 
 would doubtless have expressed it. I walked 
 in from the other end, and was in Tram-Land 
 within ten minutes of leaving the station. 
 
 Tram-Land is spread over four acres of land, 
 and is composed for the most part of a series 
 of long, lofty, well -lighted buildings, all 
 looking marvellously clean and tidy, except 
 the smith's shop, which is not of aggressively 
 immaculate spotlessness. 
 
 Many of these buildings are used as store- 
 rooms, some are fitted with bins and cupboards, 
 where paints, bolts, screws, and all other fittings 
 required for the making and working of trams 
 are stocked. Others are for the storing of 
 harness, of which one room alone held some-
 
 48 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 thing like 3,000 worth, and for the fancy 
 woods, such as the prettily- grained bird's-eye 
 maple, for interior decoration. 
 
 Mr. Norris, the company's foreman, who 
 seemed to be pretty continuously engaged by 
 the oversight of such an extensive charge, 
 kindly spared time to take me round, and 
 point out to my inquiring eyes the manifold 
 marvels and mysteries of the land I was 
 exploring. 
 
 He was deep in an electric-lighting scheme 
 when I found him, it being his intention, I 
 understood, to wire the whole works. A 
 number of the shops are already fitted, and are 
 supplied by a small dynamo, which finds a 
 home in the spacious engine-house. 
 
 We went into that building first. What 
 struck me most omitting the spring-door, 
 which came back on me before I had properly 
 got inside, and fetched me a slight refresher 
 over the knuckles was the superior, con- 
 scientious attention to business details that 
 these engines evince. There are two of them 
 on opposite sides of the room, though only one 
 was running, and despite the fact that Mr. 
 Norris unlocked the door when we entered and
 
 IN TRAM-LAND. 
 
 49 
 
 A CORNER OF THE ENGINE-ROOM. 
 
 locked it after him on leaving, and the total 
 absence, as far as I could discover, of anything
 
 50 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 in the shape of an engineer, it went on steadily, 
 quietly, and unobtrusively supplying the motive- 
 power to the whole of the machines in the 
 works. 
 
 The timber for the heavy work is stacked 
 under cover in a long shed, where it is kept for 
 four years, so that it may be thoroughly 
 seasoned. The English and American varieties 
 of oak and ash are mainly in request, and huge 
 lengths, separated by cross-ties, are laid plank 
 for plank in the form of the tree they were cut 
 from, and cover many feet of what the auc- 
 tioneer would describe as " eligible building 
 land." 
 
 From this stock the timber is taken in proper 
 rotation to the mills to be variously cut up and 
 fashioned into something for horses to spend 
 their superfluous energy over. 
 
 My guide told me how tram-cars are con- 
 structed, and illustrated the process to the best 
 of his ability ; but owing to the method of 
 dealing with the orders, my view of the opera- 
 tion was confined to observing the finishing 
 touches being put upon a series of fourteen 
 heavy timber platforms, which go to form the 
 flooring of fourteen respective cars.
 
 IN TRAM-LAND. 51 
 
 build them in sets of fourteen in these works, 
 and start them and finish them off together, 
 so that, no matter when the spectator visits 
 the works, he will only be able to see one 
 particular stage of the operations going for- 
 ward, although he can see it fourteen times 
 over if he likes to walk the whole length of 
 the building. 
 
 One car a week all the year round is the 
 average turn-out, I was informed ; and, sure 
 enough, later on, when I came to the finishing- 
 shop, there was the last batch of cars, standing 
 end to end, like a saloon train built on the 
 American system. 
 
 I visited the saw-mills first, and saw the huge 
 planks being cut up and shaped by machinery 
 similar in nature to that which I described 011 
 my first exploration. Businesslike-looking cir- 
 cular and band saws were biting through what- 
 soever came before them in the way of business, 
 in a bustling, impartial way that inspired respect 
 and caution. "My business is wood," they 
 might seem to observe ; " but if you like to 
 make it fingers I daresay I can accommodate 
 you." 
 
 One noisy, clattering, and frisky little com-
 
 52 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 bination of iron and steel very much engaged 
 my attention. It was a morticing machine, and 
 stamped a straight-edged tool up and down on 
 the material placed under it, biting out the 
 wood squarely and evenly as it travelled. I saw, 
 too, several fussy little rabbiting-machines at 
 work, artistically carving out the ledges for the 
 insertion of the windows in the side panellings. 
 They are simple and rather insignificant- 
 looking tools when they are at rest, standing 
 up vertically in the centre of their steel bed- 
 plates ; but when they " get a gait on them," 
 as the Americans would say, of something like 
 2,500 revolutions a minute, and begin to show 
 you what they can do, you are fascinated, and 
 could stand watching them all day ; if they do 
 not affect you like that there is something 
 lacking in your constitution, and these papers of 
 mine will have, I am afraid, no interest for you. 
 From the sawing, rabbiting, planing, and 
 morticing machines, the various parts, fashioned 
 and finished, find their way that is a figure of 
 speech, for of course they are carried in direct 
 to the building I before mentioned, where 
 the tram is built up from a platform such as 
 the one I saw being constructed. It is a simple
 
 IN TEAM-LAND. 
 
 IN THE SAW-MILL. 
 
 process though a mechanically perfect one, and 
 I much regretted that I was not able to follow 
 it out personally in detail.
 
 54 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Strength is, of course, a prime necessity, and 
 none of the parts are allowed to pass with any- 
 thing in the shape of a flaw in them. Bib for 
 rib, cross-ties, panels, and the window-frames, 
 which are made in the one piece to run the 
 whole length of the car, the parts are brought 
 in and adjusted until the body is completed in 
 the rough. 
 
 In the meantime the wheels, " draw-bars," 
 and other metal parts and fittings have been 
 preparing, and in order to see the operations 
 we have to make a tour through the engineers' 
 shops and the smithy. 
 
 Good, solid, substantial sort of machines we 
 find here, with no finnicky arrangements about 
 them such as the wood-workers exhibit. They 
 are built for plain, hard usage, though they 
 handle the tough material they are employed 
 upon as skilfully and adroitly as their proto- 
 types do in the other departments. 
 
 Watch this big fellow at work planing down 
 a bar of iron to a required measurement ! To 
 and fro, without cessation, goes the blade in 
 calm, leisurely sweeps, that betoken neither 
 haste nor impatience, but a placid, business- 
 like devotion to the work in hand. In fact, if
 
 IN TRAM-LAND. 55 
 
 any of these heavier machines have a vice at 
 all I should say it is that of bumptiousness it 
 is too serious for conceit. Conceit argues a 
 certain amount of levity, and is apparent along 
 with a soupqon of vanity in the more giddy and 
 unstable wood-workers. But you don't find 
 anything of the sort in the engineers' shop. 
 They there take life and its monotonous duties 
 very seriously indeed. The planing machine, 
 in particular, I should say, has been the victim 
 of some misplaced attachment early in its 
 youth, and has gradually acquired a morbid 
 pessimism that leaves it nothing to hope for 
 from the future save iron. When under the 
 influence of an unusually generous supply of 
 oil, it becomes mellow and forbears to groan at 
 its labour ; ordinarily it sighs and creaks dis- 
 mally, as though it would say : " Ah ! woe is 
 me, but that's a tough 'un." One of these 
 days it will drift into a state of melancholia, 
 unless it turns to Socialism. And yet, if it 
 were not for the crushing effects of a disap- 
 pointment in its early youth, I fancy it would 
 have been rather cheerful than otherwise not 
 exactly a humourist, but given to irony of a 
 ponderous and rather a biting nature.
 
 56 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 ' ' Ah ! " it would then banteringly observe to 
 the engineer, on having a six-inch block of 
 metal placed under it, " why these delicacies? 
 Why not bring me something stout and solid 
 something I should have to tussle with ? Bring 
 me the heart of a man who promotes building- 
 society fizzles, the conscience of a money- 
 lender, the brain of a magistrate off the pro- 
 vincial bench, the cheek of a journalist, or the 
 delicacy of a Star reviewer, and take this trifle 
 away against the time when I am feeling 
 languid and need a rest." 
 
 It is a pity that it is such a heavy-minded 
 machine, for it would have many an oppor- 
 tunity of throwing off a brilliant jeu d'esprit 
 along with the metal shavings in the dim re- 
 ligious light of the corner wherein it stands. 
 
 The wheels and bigger fittings are received 
 at the works in castings, and are turned up, 
 and bored out, and made pretty and useful by 
 one or another of the massive machines that 
 stand around me. Other parts such as the 
 axles and " draw bars " are forged out of the 
 rough bars in the smithy and brought in here 
 to be finished off afterwards. 
 
 In the dim gloaming of the December after-
 
 IN TEAM-LAND. 
 
 57 
 
 IN THE CAK-BUILDING ROOM. 
 
 noon that I visited Tram-Land, the smith's shop 
 presented a very weird appearance with the
 
 58 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 forge fires dotted about it, and gleaming bars 
 of metal throwing off a brilliant rain of red fire 
 under the vigorous poundings of a couple of 
 steam-hammers . 
 
 It is astonishing how soft and pliant the 
 heated metal seems to become under those 
 hammers. It is crushed out, and rounded and 
 flattened up again, bent this way and that, 
 patted here and patted there, and lastly is laid 
 between a mould that opens in the centre to 
 receive it, and fairly squeezed into the desired 
 shape just as simply and unconcernedly as the 
 butterman manufactures his pretty pats of 
 "best Dorset." 
 
 The forges here are all driven by steam fans, 
 and the roar of the fires, the clanging of heavy 
 hammers, and the rattle of machinery, along 
 with the steady pound-pounding of the big 
 steam-hammers, leave an impression that must 
 be imagined, for I cannot describe it. 
 
 Both shops exhibit a number of ingenious 
 labour-saving devices, including one for shrink- 
 ing the tires on wooden wheels. Wheel and 
 tire together, shrunken and expanded respec- 
 tively to their greatest extent, are run on to a 
 flat platform, a catch is released, and the whole
 
 IN TEAM-LAND. 59 
 
 affair sinks into a huge basin filled with water. 
 Another contrivance worthy of note is that for 
 cutting up cold metal. A pair of powerful 
 shears set at an angle close on the material 
 which is placed between them slowly and with 
 sinister intent, as though they were rather 
 gloating over the job, and with a groan and a 
 wrench bite their way through. A two-inch bar 
 of tough iron was chewed up for my especial 
 delectation, and I marvelled thereat, and put 
 my hands in my pockets. Amputation is such a 
 simple and suggestive operation when near these 
 machines, and I had further use for my fingers. 
 Turning away from these mechanical attrac- 
 tions, we entered the harness-making shops, 
 where traces, collars, and other horse irnpedi- 
 mentia were being variously constructed. Most 
 of the work here is still done by hand, for 
 though machinery is provided, nothing stands 
 the hard strain like the good, old-fashioned 
 wax-end stitching. One very ingenious con- 
 trivance was shown me for sewing up sacks, 
 binding the two edges of the coarse material 
 together with a stout, tarred cord, and making 
 quite an artistic job of these future repositories 
 of oats and grain.
 
 60 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 From this building we came out upon the- 
 last batch of completed trams being painted 
 and finished off ready for the road. Steam- 
 driven mills grind and mix up the paint and 
 turn it out by the gallon, so that there is- 
 nothing left to do but to put it on. It is an 
 amiable and engaging composition is paint, I 
 was told, and it always leaves a good impres- 
 sion behind ; but I didn't go and stand up 
 against it to see. 
 
 Somewhere about here I came across a 
 further instance of the kindly consideration 
 of the general manager, Mr. E. L. Adamson, 
 for the comfort and convenience of the employes- 
 in the shape of a well lighted and arranged 
 mess-room, in which the men have their meals 
 cooked and served. 
 
 In addition to making trams for their own 
 line, I learnt that the company had numerous 
 outside contracts from all parts of the world,, 
 and in consequence there is no slack time in 
 Tram-Land. If there is any cessation in actual 
 construction there are always a number of car* 
 needing repairs, alteration, or decoration, to 
 say nothing of the trifling matter of a few 
 hundred 'buses and waggons and minor rolling-
 
 IN TRAM-LAND. 
 
 61 
 
 stock which the company has to maintain, and 
 consequently to build. 
 
 I had a few minutes' chat with Mr. Norris 
 
 IOUNTING CABS ON WHEELS. 
 
 in his spacious office anent Tram-Land and 
 trams generally, as I prepared to leave. 
 
 In speaking of the future of the tramway 
 companies, I suggested that the County Council
 
 62 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 might possibly elect to adopt a policy of amal- 
 gamation. 
 
 Mr. Norris looked oddly at me. " Ah, I 
 see ! " I observed. " It would be the sort of 
 amalgamation that takes place when the cat is 
 left alone with the canary ; perhaps not quite 
 satisfactory for the canary. Well, 1 won't 
 detain you if you have nothing more to show 
 me." 
 
 " I think not," he replied. 
 
 And so I left him, and took the rail again, 
 and: was shortly after come unto Battersea, 
 when - but that is another story.
 
 CANDLE-LAND. 
 
 ATUEE was in a 
 facetious mood the 
 day I went to 
 Candle-Land. 
 
 "Here's a lark!" 
 she said to herself, 
 with a chuckle. 
 " Andom's going 
 out exploring a- 
 
 gain. I'll turn on a little weather for him " 
 and she did. 
 
 First it rained a bit, just to get me 
 interested ; then it fogged, then hailed, then 
 thundered, while the lightning struck the 
 church steeples, and the bitter north-east wind 
 roused itself from its lair in the north-east 
 regions, and swept with a dreary howl across 
 vast continents and icy plains, spreading deso- 
 lation in its path. Half-way down the Victoria
 
 64 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Embankment it met me and stopped for a little 
 friendly conversation. I was busy picking my 
 hat out of a mud-heap at the time, and 
 couldn't attend to it then, so it went on to 
 Battersea and waited for me there. 
 
 I went down by a slower route, via the L.C. 
 and Dover Railway. Being charitably inclined, 
 I thought I would give that line a turn. It 
 looked as though it wanted a little patronage. 
 The porters seemed surprised to see me. They 
 were grateful, too, in their sturdy, independent 
 fashion. 
 
 "Here's a chap wanting to go Battersea 
 way," they seemed to observe. " Got anything 
 going there ? " 
 
 After a little consultation, they decided that 
 they had, and they found me a passenger-truck 
 and put me in it with a flattering display of 
 incivility, and left me to my fate. 
 
 When I got to Battersea and found that I 
 was still a mile and a half from my destination, 
 I took myself severely to task for my unseason- 
 able generosity. Fourpence is a good, large 
 sum to spend on a deserving object all at once ; 
 but it doesn't go far in dirt and incivility when 
 you have such a large field to cover, and the
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 65 
 
 fractional benefit I had conferred was at the 
 expense of my comfort and well-being. 
 
 However, I found the north-east wind and u 
 mud-heap waiting- for me outside the station r 
 and I and the former walked over to Candle- 
 Land together. Arrived there, I parted with 
 my companion for the time being, and went 
 inside to explore its many marvels and 
 mysteries. 
 
 The recollection of my visit to Price's Patent 
 Candle Company's works, to be hereinafter 
 known and designated as " Candle-Land," will 
 always be a pleasant one, both on account of 
 the extent of the firm's operations and the 
 interest I had in them, and by reason of the 
 courtesy and kindly consideration that was 
 accorded me. Vanity is the besetting sin of 
 mankind, and even an exploring scribe doesn't 
 mind being mistaken for a gentleman now and 
 again, and treated as such. It gives him a 
 fictitious belief in himself that is soothing and 
 vastly pleasant, all the musty old rubbish that 
 can be advanced to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 Mr. McArthur was deputed to take charge 
 of me and direct my explorations, and together 
 
 5
 
 6 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 we strolled out of the offices, across an open 
 yard littered with hundreds of casks and 
 barrels; and the wind kept us company the 
 while. 
 
 "Now," said my guide, pleasantly, "what 
 shall I show you ? " 
 
 " Everything," I replied, promptly. 
 
 He laughed, and led the way across a light 
 ironwork bridge connecting the works that are 
 spread out on either side of a creek, con- 
 veniently running up from the river a few 
 hundred yards below. Up this creek the 
 company's own lighters and barges bring 
 annually thousands of tons of raw material, 
 and bear away the finished product in 
 quantities correspondingly large. 
 
 Candle-Land displays in its outward aspect 
 a bewildering succession of buildings which are 
 for the most part of one-story construction, 
 long and lofty, with arched roofs of galvanised 
 iron, through which skylights admit a work- 
 able sufficiency of the light that cheers and does 
 not inebriate. Topographical and statistical 
 information is hardly called for ; neither do I 
 feel altogether impelled to dilate on the many 
 patents and processes by which Price's candles
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 67 
 
 have been contrived, constructed, and improved. 
 All these matters are important, and compel 
 admiration ; but they hardly come within the 
 range of my pen, and in the interests of more 
 weighty subjects I must pass them by. 
 
 Candles have their beginning in a barrel of 
 fat. My explorations came perilously near to 
 resembling candles in this respect, by the way, 
 owing to my own clumsiness and the slippery 
 flooring. I managed to save myself at .the 
 edge of a simmering tank of the material, 
 however, and 110 damage was done ; but I did 
 not altogether contemplate becoming a " dip," 
 and I was extra careful thereafter. 
 
 Technical gentlemen like my guide call it 
 "paraffin scale," "palm oil," and sundry other 
 high-class, important-sounding names ; but I 
 called it "fat," though, as a matter of fact, 
 the opening of a barrel of paraffin scale revealed 
 to me a yellowish dry and powdery substance 
 which is extracted mainly from American 
 petroleum. 
 
 The heads of the barrels containing this 
 material are knocked away and the contents 
 are shot into immense underground tanks 
 capable of holding six tons, where they are
 
 68 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 reduced to a liquid state by steam-heated 
 pipes. 
 
 One has to imagine a great deal when 
 viewing these operations, because, unfor- 
 tunately, they are carried on in regions not 
 readily accessible, and I did not conceive that 
 duty imperatively called upon me to go a- swim- 
 ming in order to give a graphic description of 
 the huge tank of simmering "scale " lying below 
 me. Even if I had, I fancy duty would have 
 had to call pretty loudly to make me hear. 
 
 When melted, the paraffin is pumped up 
 into a series of overhead tanks, and by this 
 time having deposited oddments in the shape 
 of any foreign substances that it may have accu- 
 mulated, it flows through pipes into a number of 
 shallow metal trays, stacked up in an adjoin- 
 ing chamber on a series of horizontal platerack 
 affairs. Pipes traverse this room in all 
 directions, and the workmen fill the trays by 
 means of a flexible attachment with a broad 
 flattened nozzle in very much the same 
 manner that the peaceful suburbanite waters 
 his geraniums and other children of nature out 
 in his own back garden. 
 
 In these trays the paraffin crystallises into-
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 
 
 69 
 
 MIXING THE MATERIAL. 
 
 portable slabs, which are then conveyed to 
 heated closets and subjected to a baking in a
 
 70 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 carefully-regulated temperature. Under this 
 gentle moral suasion the oil and softer material 
 flows away. The " base," so to speak, is once 
 more rendered liquid,, and stirred up in a huge 
 metal cylinder termed an " agitator," along 
 with a supply of animal charcoal. As the 
 result of this treatment a beautifully clear, 
 hard, and white substance is obtained, out of 
 which the ordinary candle of commerce could 
 be but is not manufactured. 
 
 To make a really good and satisfactory 
 candle another material is required later I 
 will tell you why and this requirement neces- 
 sitates in its turn various complex and delicate 
 operations before the workable commodity can 
 be got at. " Stearin " is its name, and either 
 palm-oil or tallow may stand to it in the rela- 
 tion of parent. In plain English, these fats 
 are compound substances which yield on de- 
 composition fatty acids and glycerine or "sweet 
 waters " a beautifully-phrased description 
 which honesty compels me to state belongs of 
 right to Mr. McArthur. 
 
 To obtain this desirable end the fat is mixed 
 in true and just proportions with water and 
 lime, and is heated for five hours in a large
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 71 
 
 copper boiler termed an " autoclave," under a 
 steam pressure of 120 Ibs. to the square inch. 
 This has the effect of decomposing it some- 
 thing much less elaborate would serve me if I 
 were yearning to be decomposed : but these 
 whims have to be respected and a mixture of 
 fatty acids and lime-soap results, while the 
 glycerine remains in the water, to be after- 
 wards recovered and purified. At least Mr. 
 McArthur assured me it does, and he ought to- 
 know. After the lime has been extracted from 
 the resulting product, a treatment with strong 
 sulphuric acid at a high temperature, and a 
 washing further purifies it. By this time it is 
 black in colour, and not at all tempting in ap- 
 pearance. But they know how to manage 
 these matters in Candle-Land, which is for- 
 tunate for the public at large. I am sure I 
 shouldn't have the vaguest idea how to proceed. 
 I should get frightened at what I had already 
 done, in fact, and sneak out of the back door 
 before I could be arrested, and go and join 
 bogus company directors in the land of liberty 
 beyond the seas. Not so these people ! 
 
 " It is a bit dirty," they remark contempla- 
 tively, and they turn it into another huge
 
 72 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING. 
 
 copper contrivance, where it is distilled by 
 super-heated steam, and finally condense it in 
 a series of vertical pipes, which look vastly 
 imposing and important as the illustration 
 shows. 
 
 Even then the treatment is not complete 
 until the fatty acids, crystallised once again 
 into slabs, have been put into canvas bags and 
 placed in powerful hydraulic rams, where they 
 are subjected to hot and cold pressure for the 
 removal of the oleic acid. I don't know pre- 
 cisely what oleic acid is; but it is a liquid body, 
 and I presume they don't want its services 
 there, or they wouldn't be at such pains to get 
 rid of it. And thus the stearin, hard, white 
 and opaque, is obtained for the candle-maker. 
 
 There are many features that I have passed 
 by from sheer inability to grasp them in a 
 presentable form, and there are others that con- 
 siderations of space prevent me from dilating 
 upon. Wandering through the rooms in which 
 the various processes are being carried out, 
 huge vats and tanks of melted material strike 
 the eye, even as smaller quantities splash over 
 and stick to the clothing. One does not need 
 to put on his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit to
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 
 
 CONDENSING. 
 
 .go exploring in Candle-Land. Storage and 
 melting tanks are everywhere, though I never 
 imagined, as I walked over the iron flooring
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 and casually noted several smallish holes at 
 regular intervals between sets of rails running 
 the length of one building we came to, that I 
 was standing over quite a respectable-sized 
 swimming-bath, full of palm-oil. Barrels of 
 palm-oil are rolled over these lines, the bung- 
 holes are made to correspond with the opening 
 in the floor, a steam-pipe is introduced, and 
 the contents flow down to add their mites to- 
 the store of crude candle - making material 
 below. 
 
 Now, to make a good and satisfactory candle 
 
 a candle that shall be a joy and a blessing 
 unto man, and shall not cause the average 
 householder to lapse into profanity and tears 
 
 paraffin alone does not suffice. As a contor- 
 tionist, it would merit applause ; but for a 
 candle, it lacks uprightness and stability, not- 
 withstanding that its morals may be, and 
 probably are, unimpeachable. Stearin and 
 paraffin, mixed in different proportions accord- 
 ing to the quality of the candle desired,. 
 obviate this difficulty, and a considerable 
 quantity of candles are made of stearin alone, 
 which must be a humiliating reflection for its 
 companion, if it is at all of a sensitive nature*
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 75 
 
 In case I did not mention it, and supposing- 
 that you are yearning to know, the liquid 
 paraffin, after all the processes of melting and 
 cleaning it has undergone, is pumped away 
 through filters into huge iron tanks, from 
 which it is dipped out into smaller wooden vats 
 mounted on wheels, and run through to the 
 various departments by horse-power. 
 
 In a spacious building containing many 
 more wooden vats of gigantic structure, the 
 paraffin and stearin are practically introduced 
 to each other, and so thoroughly do they 
 assimilate that it is difficult to discover which 
 is which. "Which was which, I couldn't 
 make out, despite my best endeavour," as the 
 song runs ; so I merely noted that each vat is 
 hypothecated to one especial kind of candle, 
 and turned aside to follow the actual and more 
 interesting process of candle-making. All this 
 time I had been occupied with the pre- 
 liminary operations of mixing and preparing 
 the material. 
 
 " Dips " still survive, and in a comparatively 
 small room I found the process in active 
 operation. As the name implies, " dip " 
 candles are built up by a succession of immer-
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 sions in tanks of melted material. The wicks 
 are first of all wound upon light iron frames, 
 each holding sufficient for 100 or 120 candles 
 vide Mr. John Calderwood's excellently clear 
 little manual on the process of candle manu- 
 facture. My friend Whitwell 's artistic efforts 
 here will doubtless assist to make the operation 
 clear to you. They dip, and dip, and dip, and 
 still they go on dipping, until the pendent 
 candles counterbalance the weights contained 
 in the tray just under the pulley- wheels, when 
 they cry the operatives cry, not the weights 
 "Hold, enough! " because they the candles 
 do hold enough. 
 
 It may occur to the untrained mind that this 
 process must be very slow. In fact, I myself 
 couldn't see why each successive dip into the 
 material didn't melt off the previous coat, and 
 so on until after a year of hard labour the 
 workman found himself gazing ruefully at a 
 string of wicks and wondering how they came 
 there. Mr. McArthur explained to me that 
 the temperature of the material was too low 
 for this to happen, and the explanation satisfied 
 as well as pleased me by its very simplicity. 
 
 In the candle-moulding room, the scene is
 
 IN CAXDLE-LAND. 
 
 77 
 
 much, more varied and striking-, and I know no 
 other example which so strikingly contrasts the 
 " old style with the new." Here they turn out 
 
 THE HYDRAULIC PRE3 
 
 candles by the thousands by a brief preparation 
 aud the lifting of a lever. The illustration will 
 give you an idea of the nature of a moulding 
 machine. The wicks are contained on bobbins
 
 78 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 placed under the machine, each separate wick 
 running up through a small iron cylinder, 
 which is moulded on the top in the familiar 
 candle-top shape. A crank actuates this system 
 of rods, and by the upward pressure pushes the 
 candles out of the mould into a pair of adjust- 
 able clamps, in which they are removed bodily 
 from the machine. In making a "fill," a 
 current of steam is first turned on to heat the 
 moulds to the necessary temperature, and then, 
 from a number of vats stationed round the 
 walls, the operatives obtain their supply of 
 material, dipping it out in cans something after 
 the nature of zinc hot-water cans used for 
 domestic purposes. With these they proceed 
 to fill the mould, the material flowing along, 
 and settling down until it overflows into the 
 grooved basin running along the top. The 
 steam is shut off, and another tap admits a 
 current of cold water, which circulates about 
 the mould until the candles are cold. The last 
 completed batch of candles" is still standing in 
 the clamp-frames above the machine, and is 
 left there until this stage of the proceedings, 
 when a sharp knife severs the wicks between 
 the two sets, the original batch is emptied out
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 79 
 
 011 to a receiving table, the clamps are restored 
 to their place, and, after removing the overflow 
 of material with a putty-knife sort of con- 
 trivance, the workman turns the crank, and a 
 further contribution of 100 candles emerges 
 into the air. They in their turn remain in the 
 clamps above the machine, partly to solidify, 
 and partly to hold the wick in its place while 
 the mould is again charged, and so the process 
 goes on adinfinitum. The "self-fitting " candle, 
 a speciality of the firm, and the invention, I 
 believe, of their Mr. George Spicer, differs 
 slightly in moulding from the preceding opera- 
 tion. The fluted conical butt is obtained by 
 dropping a number of small, removable moulds 
 into enlarged spaces at the top of the candle- 
 moulds made to receive them. The material is 
 then poured in and " fixed " and turned up as 
 in the previous process, the candles carrying 
 the moulds up with them as they emerge. A 
 slight tap 011 the end serves to release these, 
 when they are transferred with wonderful 
 rapidity to a number of pegs ranged on a board 
 just over the machine, ready for the next 
 filling. 
 
 Leaving the moulding-room, filled with au
 
 80 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 overwhelming sense of the supremacy of man 
 and his marvellous handiwork, I tripped over 
 an empty packing-case and limped into a 
 building in the near vicinity, where tapers and 
 night-lights were being variously constructed. 
 Night-lights are an important feature in the 
 industries of Candle-Land, and many hundreds 
 of thousands of boxes are turned out annually. 
 They are either moulded and turned up much 
 in the same way that candles are manuf actured^ 
 or they are filled by hand into little cardboard 
 cases which are previously wicked not wicked 
 in the sinful sense and prepared. 
 
 The energy and despatch of the hand- 
 labourers in these works is something to- 
 marvel at. Take the operation of filling the 
 night-light cases, for instance. The cases are 
 set out on a table in consecutive rows, and to 
 them will come a young fellow bearing a small 
 can-of creamy preparation. Then by a series 
 of jerks the contents of that can are emptied 
 into the cases, and never a drop finds its way 
 over the sides or on to the table, which is 
 marvellous. I could cover the table and fill my 
 boots, and squander it down my wardrobe easily 
 enough ; but I would not engage to get it into
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 
 
 81 
 
 DIP MAKING. 
 
 the cases. I know this because in a moment 
 of temporary aberration I once tried to fill a 
 
 6
 
 82 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 paraffin lamp, and but that, as Mr. Kipling 
 would observe, is another story. 
 
 The moulded night-lights, unlike candles, 
 are made without wicks a spike taking its 
 place in the mould, and leaving a hole for the 
 insertion of the wicks in a subsequent opera- 
 tion. Handwork of marvellous agility is again 
 encountered in viewing the process by which 
 the wicks, previously attached to the little tin- 
 star at the bottom, are thrust through the 
 opening left for the purpose, before the night- 
 light goes on to join its companions in the 
 boxing and packing rooms. 
 
 Eight at the back of the night-light-filling 
 building stand a pair of huge drums, which coil 
 up thousands of yards of taper. This is a 
 wonderfully self-contained process. The cotton 
 strands are placed in skeins on one side of the 
 building, and the drum revolving on the other 
 draws it through and through a wax -bath and 
 presents it at the other end ready to be cut into 
 lengths and bundled up for the market at home 
 and abroad. 
 
 A peculiarity of Candle-Land worth noting 
 is its independence in the matter of outside 
 trade assistance. It has its own saw-mills ; it
 
 . IN CANDLE-LAND. 85 
 
 makes its own machines ; its boxes are machine- 
 manufactured by the thousand on the premises ; 
 it does its own printing, and scores of other 
 minor operations that one would not expect 
 to find associated with the manufacture of 
 candles. 
 
 On coming away from the box-making depart- 
 ment, I turned into a building at the instigation 
 of my guide, and was greeted as the door opened 
 by an indescribable clatter and clash. It was 
 here, I found, that the wick is prepared in a 
 number of plaiting machines that present a 
 very pretty sight to gaze upon, though one 
 doesn't feel encouraged to attempt a conversa- 
 tion in their immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 " That is a pretty movement," I yelled to my 
 guide, indicating a vertical machine whose 
 delicate, complex arrangement aroused my 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " Yes, all cotton," Mr. McArthur howled 
 back. 
 
 I tried again. 
 
 " It seems almost alive," I screamed. 
 
 " About a quarter past, I think," he yelled 
 in reply, pulling out his watch and showing it 
 to me. It was a quarter past five, had I been
 
 84 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 wanting to know ; but I concluded to accept 
 the information, and postpone comment until 
 we got outside again. 
 
 They do say that old stagers, men who have 
 grown up in these mills, beguile the tedium of 
 their labours by telling each other fairy stories, 
 and by reading Ruskin and other improving 
 masters aloud to each other. 
 
 Strange, passing strange ! but it just shows 
 you how familiarity set impossibilities at 
 defiance. 
 
 More mechanical marvels were brought to 
 me, speaking figuratively, when we got outside 
 and were placed in front of me, and I wagged 
 my umbrella and ejaculated in exceeding 
 delight and astonishment. And then I came 
 to the last scene of all, the inland and export 
 packing and dispatching buildings. The pack- 
 ing-rooms display further remarkable evidence 
 of the dexterity and precision in hand-work 
 that can be acquired. The candles are made 
 up in one-pound paper packets for export, and 
 in three and six pound packets for home use. 
 The packers, from long use, will grasp a 
 handful of candles from a box by their side, 
 will reject three or four, or perhaps only one
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 
 
 CANDLE MOULDING. 
 
 from that handful, and in " one, two," a six- 
 pound package is being sealed with wax by a
 
 86 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 boy at the further end of the counter. It is 
 bj the sense of touch only that they can 
 possibly know that those packages are correct 
 in weight and contain the regulated number of 
 candles. A.n ordinarily expert packer can 
 make up something like 3,000 packets in a 
 day's labour, and he does it, too. 
 
 In affixing the company's labels to the 
 wrappers, which is done by quite young boys, 
 the same smartness is observable. The process 
 seems to involve a deal of wriggling. I 
 thought they had all got St. Vitus's dance ; 
 but it seems that it is a customary habit for 
 them to put themselves into violent motion, pro- 
 bably in order to obtain sufficient momentum 
 to overcome the resistance of 5,000 wrappers 
 per diem, which is the average reckoning of an 
 expert. 
 
 In the packing department also, the candles 
 for export are packed in small wooden cases 
 which are addressed by a very rapid stencilling 
 process, and eventually, I believe, find their 
 way back to the wharf where they originally 
 arrived in a very elementary condition, to, 
 perhaps, the very barge that brought them up, 
 and so, as Pepys would have said, abroad.
 
 IN CANDLE-LAND. 
 
 87 
 
 Candles, and perhaps night-lights, which are 
 in a sense miniature candles, are, appropriately, 
 the product of Candle-Land ; but just by way 
 of relaxation and amusement the company turn 
 out a few hundred tons of soap now and again 
 
 FILLING NIGHT LIGHTS. 
 
 to keep their hand in. As I had formulated a 
 plan to explore an independent Soap-Land at 
 some future date, I did not deem it considerate 
 to trespass wantonly on my guide's time and 
 attention. Another industry that, carried to 
 a successful issue, has given the firm an im-
 
 88 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 portant standing on its account alone, is the- 
 manufacture of glycerine, which I casually 
 referred to in its elementary stages, in descrijj- 
 ing the extraction of stearin. 
 
 And so, pleased and impressed by what I had 
 seen, I recrossed the creek, and turning up my 
 collar, and casing my hands in my pockets 
 against the friendly, though chilly, overtures 
 of the north-east wind, which had borne us- 
 company wherever it could get at us, and had 
 evidently sworn never to forsake me, I thanked 
 my guide for so handsomely allowing me to- 
 victimise him, and quitting Candle-Land by 
 the back door, made a bee-line for the railway 
 station, and was shortly afterwards come unto 
 the suburbs, where . But my candle has- 
 been burning long enough, and so, in mere}" 
 to my readers, and more particularly to myself,. 
 I will snuff it.
 
 IN 
 GAS-LAND. 
 
 INDING my candle 
 so unceremoniously 
 snuffed, I immedi- 
 ately set about dis- 
 covering another 
 illuminant, and I 
 found one at the 
 West Ham Gas 
 Works, which are Stratford way. 
 
 At the end of a quiet little street turning out 
 of the main road, just past Stratford Market 
 Station on the Great Eastern line, I discovered 
 it, and it struck me as being uncompromisingly 
 ugly. Nothing here for the painter to linger 
 over, I reflected, neither would a poet be likely 
 to go into rhapsodies over the scene. However, 
 I was not searching for the picturesque. 
 Rather did I hanker after the practical, so I
 
 90 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 made my way round to the secretary's office, 
 mid found Mr. Snelgrove waiting for me in a 
 Toom rather more imposing than snug, though 
 for all its size it struck pleasantly warm after 
 the biting wind outside. 
 
 While chatting pleasantly over industries 
 generally, and the gas industry in particular, 
 Mr. Wright, the assistant-engineer, came in, 
 and I was introduced to my guide through this 
 particular land. 
 
 So far I have had the advantage of the 
 common or garden explorer in being able to 
 obtain a separate and qualified guide to every 
 land I have passed through, which shows the 
 advantage of doing your exploring at home. 
 Had I gone abroad, I expect one greasy native 
 would have had to serve my purpose for the whole 
 series. Out in the open again, and we walked 
 straight through Gas-Land to hunt up the 
 initial stage in the process of changing coal at 
 about sevenpence per hundredweight into gas 
 at three shillings per foot. I used to make gas 
 when I was a youngster, and I daresay many 
 of you have done so too. It is a delectable and 
 messy operation, and dear on that account to 
 the heart of the average schoolboy. I did it
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 91 
 
 with a churchwarden pipe, a few ounces of 
 coal-dust, and a lump of clay, when the girl 
 had gone out and left the kitchen range un- 
 protected. The illuminant was not blinding in 
 its intensity ; but the satisfaction that that 
 stewing clay and coal-dust gave me was beyond 
 expression. They have improved on my old 
 method in Gas-Land I observed. 
 
 I commenced my observations at the top 
 of a perilous-looking light ironwork ladder 
 some thirty feet above the level of the ground. 
 Mr. Wright scaled it with ease and the agility 
 born of use and long practice. I lacking the 
 ease, and being somewhat hampered by a 
 heavy ulster, an umbrella, a notebook, and one 
 lead pencil, arrived many minutes later, some- 
 what shaky, and out of breath. 
 
 This ladder, I may mention, is situated at 
 the end of one of the " retort "-houses, and 
 the temperature of a " retort "-house in the 
 depth of winter would be favourable for foster- 
 ing tropical plants, I should judge. When I 
 stepped off the ladder on to a staging outside 
 that runs round the building I found it fresh, 
 to say the least of it, though the view was 
 worth the climb and the cold.
 
 92 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Far below ran the canal, just then frozen and 
 snowed over into a treacherous semblance of a 
 solid supporting body, up which barges bring 
 the coal supplies in forty- ton loads. Gas-Land 
 lay stretched out around me, with tall chimneys,, 
 low, squatty buildings, and huge gasometers 
 dotted about at irregular intervals. 
 
 Eails lead away from this staging to the 
 various retort-houses, and the coal, landed by 
 steam-cranes, is conveyed in metal cars and 
 distributed about the works by quite a miniature 
 railway service. It finds the ground-level by 
 a series of shoots, which deposit it within 
 convenient reach of the retorts. 
 
 I turned into the building again, and gazed 
 down on the busy scene below me. It was an 
 impressive and a striking sight. 
 
 A long and comparatively narrow passage 
 leads from the open doorway at one end to the 
 ladder above which I was standing at the other^ 
 between the coal supplies that are being con- 
 tinually replenished from above by the shoots, 
 and the " retorts " surmounted by the compli- 
 cated system of pipes. In reality the " retorts " 
 divide one huge building into two, being built 
 down the middle and so arranged that they may
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 
 
 93 
 
 IN A RETORT HOUSE.
 
 94 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 be charged at both ends. They are set side by 
 side, as the illustration shows, and are kept 
 at a red-heat by immense coke furnaces, 
 underneath. 
 
 I was asked if I would like to see into one of 
 these furnaces, and I rather thought I should, 
 until I casually discovered that the heat is liable 
 to scorch the toes off one's shoes, to say nothing 
 of doing superfluous and vexing damage to 
 one's wardrobe accessories. I said, then, that 
 it would be a pity to put the men to such need- 
 less trouble, and sternly negatived the protesta- 
 tions that ensued. 
 
 I learnt, however, that these furnaces never 
 go out. Day and night, from Monday morning 
 to Saturday night, the " retorts " are charged.,, 
 and the process of making gas goes forward. 
 On Sunday they cease and rest, but the furnace 
 underneath burns on just the same. 
 
 A " retort " is simply a long, bricked 
 chamber capable of carbonising five or six 
 hundredweight of coal at one filling. The only 
 opening from it, with the exception of the curved,, 
 oval doors through which it is charged, is 
 the one leading to the pipe shown running up 
 just above the mouth.
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 95 
 
 I wondered vaguely, as I leant over that rail 
 and watched the men at work below me, why 
 it was called a "retort." Later, the answer 
 came to me, and I discovered that it was so 
 quick at repartee that no other name could be 
 given it. 
 
 " There's coal for you," the men observe, as- 
 they ram three or four hundredweight into its-' 
 capacious interior. 
 
 " And there's gas for you," it retorts, with a 
 snap and a burst of flame, .as the men hastily 
 retire out of its reach. Then one will run 
 forward and slam the door to and screw it up y 
 and you can hear it chuckling away to itself 
 inside there out of the cold long after the joke- 
 has died from the remembrance of the busy 
 throng, who have heard it so often that it has 
 probably become irritating and stale. 
 
 These " retorts " are charged by means of 
 iron scoops fourteen feet in length, something 
 like a Canadian canoe in appearance, supposing 
 the ends to be cut off square and a T handle 
 fitted at the top. The bowl measures ten feet, 
 and has a carrying capacity of one hundred- 
 weight, Mr. Wright informed me, though I 
 should never have thought it possible. Three-
 
 96 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 times this scoop is filled and emptied into the 
 retort, one man being stationed at the handle, 
 and two others supporting the body bj means 
 of a curved iron arrangement termed a " bridle." 
 This has a handle on each side ; the bottom of 
 the scoop fits into the bend, and so the load is 
 borne into the "retort," and run home, the 
 men at the bridle hastily retiring to avoid the 
 rush of flame that takes place as the scoop is 
 turned over and withdrawn upside down by the 
 man at the handle. The work is done with 
 marvellous energy and quickness, because delay 
 here means loss of gas, and when the last fill 
 is made the contents are pushed back from the 
 entrance, the door is rammed to and fastened, 
 and the " charge " is left baking for six hours. 
 
 Each retort carbonises about one ton of coals 
 per diem ; there are about sixty-four ' e retorts " 
 in one building, set in two rows side by side 
 and back to back. Gas-Land contains five or 
 six similar buildings, and with 365 days in a 
 year and coals at, say, twelve shillings per ton, 
 it occurred to me that I shouldn't like to foot 
 the coal bill. The same idea will probably 
 occur to you. 
 
 At the end of the six hours, the doors are
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 
 
 97 
 
 opened and the residue is seen running back in 
 -a long red line that is too trying to the eye to 
 gaze in upon. 
 
 It is better not to be too eager to get a near 
 sight at this stage of the operations. The 
 
 CHARGING A RETORT. 
 
 -" retorts " have a spiteful habit of blowing out 
 a huge sheet of flame and gas and dense sul- 
 phurous smoke when the doors are first opened, 
 and if you are not expecting it the surprise is 
 .apt toj^e unpleasant and painful. The coke is 
 
 7
 
 98 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 then drawn out, by means of long iron rakes,, 
 into metal barrows, where it is cooled down by 
 the application of cold water, and wheeled out 
 to an immense heap, around which a whole 
 regiment of grandmothers could be instructed 
 in the art of mastication, publicly, instead of 
 getting surreptitious and imperfect lessons in 
 their coal-cellars at home. 
 
 I used often to be advised to teach my grand- 
 mother to eat coke, in my younger days, and, 
 assuming that it is a knowledge all respect- 
 able and conscientious grandmothers ought to 
 possess, it struck me that this would have been 
 an excellent opportunity to give the lesson* 
 There was such a sufficiency of material,, 
 that the company could easily have afforded 
 the amount an innocent old lady of limited 
 appetite would have consumed in " swatting " 
 up the subject. 
 
 Now, we have seen the coal go into the 
 " retorts," and we have seen the coke leave 
 them at least, I have, and you are seeing the 
 process through me hardly so clear and im- 
 pressive, I'll admit; but lucid and very im- 
 proving. 
 
 In the process it has parted with several
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 99 
 
 properties, notably gas, tar, and ammoniacal 
 water. All these things are comprised in the 
 thick, yellow, smoky gas that rises up from 
 the " retorts " through the series of huge iron 
 pipes that tower in front of them. Arrived 
 at the top, it turns over into an immense iron 
 pipe termed the " hydraulic main," through 
 which it is drawn by a set of powerful steam 
 pumps or exhausters that are working in 
 another part of the grounds. In turning, it 
 deposits a certain proportion of tar which is 
 drained away into tanks, preparatory to being 
 emptied into an immense well, handily con- 
 trived out of the basin of an old and long-since 
 discarded gasometer. 
 
 Even after it has rid itself of a few super- 
 fluous gallons of tar, the gas is hardly in a 
 condition to be supplied to long-suffering 
 householders, and the outside authorities would 
 probably have something to say on the subject, 
 even supposing the householder didn't kick 
 an unlikely contingency. So the crude gas is 
 drawn away by the engines through the con- 
 densers, a series of upright iron pipes, which 
 reduce the temperature considerably, and pre- 
 pare it for the " scrubbers " and " purifiers."
 
 100 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING. 
 
 The ordinary gas of commerce cannot be 
 Been. It may be smelt, and a lighted match 
 in the hand of a double-distilled idiot will 
 discover its presence and make its whereabouts 
 known to the whole neighbourhood. But up 
 to the time of reaching the ' ( scrubbers " it 
 can be seen by even a near-sighted person. I 
 cannot say that I myself did actually see it ; 
 but Mr. Wright assured me that such was the 
 case, and I always take these facts from my 
 guides, occasionally passing them off as my 
 own. 
 
 Forced by the powerful pumps, the gas then 
 goes on a circumlocutory tour, in the course of 
 which it enters a " washer " a huge horizontal 
 contrivance half filled with water, in which 
 revolve a number of wheels containing bundles 
 of wood somewhat similar to the familiar half- 
 penny bundles of commerce that are sold by 
 oilmen. The wheels carry these wood bundles 
 alternately through the gas and through the 
 water, and as ammonia has the property of 
 sticking like glue to a wet surface the result 
 is obvious. 
 
 "So sorry," it observes hastily to the gas 
 when it sees the wet bundle coming round in
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 
 
 101 
 
 THE PUMPS. 
 
 its direction, " but here's a friend of mine, and 
 I must go. Remember me kindly to all at
 
 102 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORTNGS. 
 
 home. Ta-ta ! I'll probably see you at the 
 club to-night." 
 
 But it doesn't. The water in the tank below 
 has too powerful an attraction for it ; and once 
 in, it stays, while the bundle, having disposed 
 of that little lot, goes out to look for more 
 giddy little ammoniacal stragglers. It suggests 
 a conscientious policeman on duty supposing 
 there were such a thing only that it is too 
 intelligent, and it will not lie still, while the 
 average policeman lies anyhow with a magnifi- 
 cent impartiality. 
 
 It takes ten gallons of water to wash the gas 
 product of a ton of coal, to say nothing of the 
 scrubbing process that it has to undergo in 
 what are appropriately termed the " scrubbers." 
 These " scrubbers " consist of two immense iron 
 towers, which stand forty feet high and are 
 filled with layers of coke arranged in tiers two 
 and a half feet thick. At the top, ammoniacal 
 liquor is poured down, and by the time the gas 
 has forced its way through this tortuous length 
 of coke and water it has left behind, in the 
 form of ammoniacal liquid, all the ammonia it 
 contained. After that it would seem super- 
 fluous to talk about purifying it. But they do
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 103 
 
 purify it! These industrial people are so 
 thorough and so wonderfully painstaking ! 
 
 If it were left to the gas, I have no doubt 
 that it would elect to go straight off and help 
 twist round the wheels of some inoffensive 
 citizen's domestic meter perhaps mine. It is 
 a light-hearted, frolicsome sort of substance 
 is gas, and it delights in a joke of that 
 sort, even though it cannot stay to witness the 
 denouement. 
 
 "He, he ! " it chuckles, in a silly, irritating 
 sort of way. " Won't he just say things when 
 the bill comes in ! " And it gives the meter an 
 extra shove and goes rejoicing on its way to 
 its one especial tap just under the baby's food- 
 warmer. 
 
 I am glad they purify it, because, from what 
 I know of gas, I am very sure it has a con- 
 scientious objection to the process. 
 
 This is done in a series of squatty, dome- 
 roofed iron tanks, containing layers of lime 
 six inches deep, which are termed with sweet 
 simplicity and directness " purifiers." These 
 number ten, and the gas takes them in regular 
 rotation, entering at number one and leaving 
 again at number ten, and then, for the first
 
 104 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 time, it is gas pure, simple, unadulterated and 
 unalloyed. 
 
 The ammoniacal waters used at one time to- 
 be a waste and an obnoxious product, for a 
 certain proportion of the ammonia being blown 
 off into the air, got the neighbourhood of Gas- 
 Land a bad name. Being of a sensitive nature,, 
 this grieved the officials, and they took and 
 collected it the ammonia, I mean, not the- 
 bad name and sat down before it and 
 pondered deeply and darkly. 
 
 The outcome of their ponderings resulted in 
 a comparatively new building, where the 
 ammoniacal water is distilled and treated with 
 lime and sulphuric acid, and finally deposited 
 in the form of a crystallised salt known as- 
 sulphate of ammonia. This sells for an en- 
 couraging sum for use as manure on tea and 
 coffee plantations, and the officials have reason 
 to pride themselves en the results of their 
 stupendous mental effort. 
 
 Freed from the retarding influence of all 
 impurities, back the gas rushes to the meter- 
 house, anxious to get the remaining formalities, 
 over, in order that it may let its light shine 
 before all men and increase the quarterly bill
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 
 
 105 
 
 k'ASHERS AND SCRUBBERS. 
 
 of one man in particular. Sometimes it 
 happens that it may be disappointed at the last 
 gasp, for it has many roads to traverse, and
 
 106 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 should it mistake the turning it might possibly 
 find itself up a lamp-post, when the local 
 authorities would have to foot the bill, and a 
 pound or two more or less doesn't matter 
 when the rates are eight shillings in the pound 
 and the parish is " improving." 
 
 I followed it into the meter-house, which is 
 a handsome, lofty building, gleaming with 
 polished metal-work and filled with mysterious 
 appliances, wheels, and fittings. 
 
 " By the way," I remarked to Mr. Wright, 
 as we entered, " what do you make here ? " 
 
 " Why, gas," he replied. 
 
 " Oh, that accounts for it then," I rejoined, 
 " I thought I could smell it." 
 
 Up to then I had neither seen nor smelt the 
 product of so much pains and labour, and I 
 had had to take my guide's statements on trust. 
 This I was very ready to do, of course ; but 
 here was tangible proof, and it interested me 
 accordingly. 
 
 The meters, of which there are three, are the 
 main feature in this building, and hold an 
 important, not to say obtrusive, position in the 
 centre of the room. There is not much to be 
 seen in them, however, big and imposing as
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 107 
 
 they are. A circular glass window on the face 
 of each shows inside a number of dials similar 
 to, though much larger than, the ordinary gas- 
 meter for house use. A clock wags a sedate 
 brass pendulum in the centre, and every hour 
 a record is taken of the quantity of gas 
 manufactured. 
 
 I got the horrors looking in and watching 
 the tens - of - thousands hand covering the 
 ground. I tried to figure out a quarter's bill at 
 the ordinary rates, based on a calculation 
 from five minutes' observation. This depressed 
 me and gave me a headache, so I quitted 
 meters and mental arithmetic and went over 
 and watched the test flame burning steadily 
 away up in one corner of the room in a polished 
 little case with a glass door to it. 
 
 Mr. Wright did make me understand the 
 working of this contrivance ; but headache left 
 me hazy on the subject when I tried to remem- 
 ber it. It is a Governmental regulation, any- 
 way, that a sixteen candle-power flame shall 
 be seven inches in height, and in this arrange- 
 ment the test can be applied and the quality of 
 the gas determined. 
 
 Thus tested and measured, the gas once
 
 108 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 more travels down the yard to one of the 
 numerous " holders," as they are termed the 
 familiar great iron tanks supported in a circle 
 of massive columns, up and down which guide- 
 wheels travel and stay the " holder " from 
 getting jammed, or rocked by the wind- 
 pressure that in a decent breeze on such a vast 
 surface must be enormous. 
 
 They have quite recently set up a veritable 
 giant even amongst those giants in Gas-Land,, 
 and I may as well describe that one, for they are 
 much of a muchness in constructive arrange- 
 ment are these " holders," and differ only in 
 size and storage capacity. 
 
 The great fellow I was inspecting is made in 
 three sections, which fit telescopically one 
 within another. A third of the height, there- 
 fore, represents the depth of the tank-well in 
 the ground into which they subside. 
 
 This is an ordinary well, brick-lined, and its- 
 chief importance consists in the fact that it costs 
 somethinglike 10,000 to dig and construct. The 
 " holder " itself runs the company into another 
 trifle of 15,000 or so. Considered as a monu- 
 ment, it would doubtless be imposing and im- 
 pressive, but something quieter and less costly
 
 IN GAS-LAND. 109 
 
 would satisfy me if I had that sum lying about 
 and getting in my way and irritating me so 
 that I had to put it out to service. 
 
 Water is an absolute seal for gas, and is 
 used to prevent the escape between the loosely- 
 iitting sections and from between the " holder " 
 and the tank. In the centre of the "holder, 5 * 
 rising up from the ground to a few feet above 
 the water-level, are set two capacious pipes, 
 one for filling and one for drawing-off. The 
 gas is pumped in, and the pressure causes the 
 inside receiver to creep slowly upwards, the 
 guide-wheels holding it in place and allowing 
 it to travel freely. When it has fully expanded, 
 an outward-curved rim catches under a similar 
 rim curved inwards on the second tank, and 
 that is slowly dragged upwards, until the third 
 section is reached and hoisted in its turn. 
 
 The "holders" are constructed of riveted 
 iron plates, of half, quarter, and eighth-inch 
 metal, with a domed roof. 
 
 A fussy little steam-boiler was at work at 
 the time blowing steam into the water con- 
 tained in the basin. I gathered from Mr. 
 Wright that the frost would be apt to com- 
 plicate matters, and this operation has to be
 
 110 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING. 
 
 kept up all through, the severe weather to pre- 
 vent the water freezing. 
 
 The gas is compelled to travel back once 
 more to the meter-house before they have quite 
 done with it, where it passes through one of a 
 series of big iron governors, of which there are 
 five one for each district that by rising and 
 falling over the outlet-pipe serve to regulate 
 the pressure, in much the same manner that the 
 governor of a steam-engine equalises its speed. 
 And so it travels out of Gas-Land into the 
 street, and I, having seen all there was to be 
 seen, and having missed hearing nothing for 
 the want of asking, wrapped my coat-collar up 
 round my ears and travelled out with it.
 
 IN PAPEK-LAND. 
 
 LEASE, I've 
 come." 
 
 It was rather 
 an idiotic sort of 
 way of introduc- 
 ing myself ; but 
 then, I had ob- 
 tained a kindly 
 and prompt in- 
 vitation from 
 Mr. James McMurray, the managing director, 
 and having previous acquaintance with Mr. Boyd, 
 the manager of Paper-Land, I had even gone so 
 far as to call upon him to take notice that on 
 such-and-such a day, weather and tide notwith- 
 standing, I should present myself at the 
 McMurray Paper Mills, Wandsworth, at the 
 hour of three in the afternoon, and that he was 
 there and then to hold himself in readiness to 
 give me service. I wanted to be "personally
 
 112 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 conducted," I told him, and he was to be the 
 honoured victim. He stood the shock stoically, 
 and eren smiled and seemed pleased to see me 
 when, at the appointed hour, I stuck my head 
 in the doorway of his snug little sanctum just 
 within the gates of Paper-Land, and said : 
 
 11 Please, I've come." 
 
 We told each other how cold it was then, 
 and how cold it was the night before, and how 
 cold it would be the next day, while Mr. Boyd 
 collected his Arctic outfit together and prepared " 
 to brave the inclemency of the weather outside. 
 
 First we took a walk into the country, and it 
 was very charming country, too, for all that it 
 wore such a wintry aspect. A broad, open, 
 snow-covered stretch of land lay in front of us, 
 with clumps of trees and bushes in the far 
 distance ; in the near foreground large filter- 
 beds frozen over and suggesting a fine oppor- 
 tunity for a gay throng of skaters to disport 
 themselves merrily could they get at it but 
 they can't ; while right at our feet the silvery 
 Wandle ran its course with a pleasant ripple 
 and splash as we paced the broad staging that 
 embanks it. 
 
 That walk was chilly, but bracing and vastly
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 
 
 pleasant. My industrial touring had, hitherto, 
 led me into lands not picturesque, certainly, 
 
 and possessed of nothing in the way of scenery 
 capable of appealing to the artistic sense that 
 
 8
 
 114 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 I keep concealed somewhere or other about me 
 for state occasions. But Paper-Land certainly 
 is prettily placed, and struck me as being a 
 cleanly and pleasing locality altogether. 
 
 The object of my walk, I discovered, was this. 
 They use a vast quantity of water in Paper- 
 Land, and Mr. Boyd, with kindly forethought, 
 had figured out that this fact might come upon 
 me in some unguarded moment later on in my 
 touring, and knowing from painful experience 
 the likelihood of getting frozen out, I might 
 conjure up visions of the awf al results if such 
 a calamity overtook Paper-Land, and go and 
 faint in a tub of pulp and spoil the men's work. 
 Having seen the water supply for myself, I 
 should not be likely to entertain any fears of 
 that sort, it was reasoned, and rightly. 
 
 The water is pumped from the river into the 
 filter-beds in the same manner that our drink- 
 ing supply is treated, and is drawn off from 
 these for use in the mills. 
 
 We turned back and entered the engine- 
 house, where I watched, with a species of 
 fascination, a marvellous great monster exerting 
 its eight hundred horse-power capacity for the 
 utility and well-being of Paper-Land. Big and
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 115 
 
 capable as it is, however, it has not the mono- 
 poly of the motive-power, which may save it 
 from any latent tendency to uppishness. 
 
 These mechanical monsters are wonderfully 
 deceptive. So silently and easily and unosten- 
 tatiously do they do their business that they 
 inspire the contempt of ignorance. You feel 
 as though, if it were not for dirtying your 
 hands, you could take hold of the crank your- 
 self and spin the huge wheel round, and the 
 engineers wouldn't know anything about it 
 until they came running in to see what was the 
 matter with the engine, that it travelled so 
 much faster and better than usual. 
 
 The boilers, which number eleven, of late 
 design, and fitted with mechanical stokers and 
 every other device that will save labour and 
 ensure good working, are bestowed in two 
 buildings, and in visiting them I discovered to 
 my satisfaction that I was making my last 
 expedition out of doors. 
 
 Both buildings presented a remarkably clean 
 and orderly appearance, and were so snug and 
 warm that I felt, as I walked round and asked 
 stupid questions indiscriminately of anyone 
 .near enough and good-natured enough to
 
 116 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 answer me, that I should rather like to be a 
 stoker myself while that weather lasted, with 
 the mercury endeavouring to shrink through 
 the bottom of the thermometer. 
 
 Some of these boilers create steam of a 
 superior standing, so to speak. For instance,, 
 it does not have to shove a wheel round, the 
 common lot of steam created by boilers, which 
 must be very monotonous and unsatisfactory 
 work, but is blown direct into the mills to cook 
 grass and heat cylinders, in a manner that I 
 will presently describe. 
 
 And so I came out of the boiler-houses and 
 went straightway into the covered realm of 
 Paper-Land. 
 
 Now, before I begin here, I must state, how- 
 ever much it may pain you to hear it, that 
 paper is paper, whether it be paper to wrap up 
 parcels ; paper for irresponsible persons like 
 myself to scribble upon and beautify for ever 
 and ever the compositor is laughing, I can 
 feel him doing it. He is a mundane creature, 
 and he cannot rise to the perception that a 
 beautiful thought expressed with a J nib and 
 glutinous ink is not the less beautiful that the 
 page containing it contains also five blots and
 
 PAPER-LAND. 
 
 117 
 
 THE BOILERS. 
 
 a smear made with a coat-sleeve roughly drawn 
 across wet ink, the impression of hot tobacco 
 ashes, and letters so curiously impartial that
 
 118 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 they are ready to become whatsoever the reader 
 wishes or whether it be the broad printed 
 sheet of The Family Circle that carries the same 
 thought out into the world to beautify the 
 homes of thousands of men, tens of thousands 
 of ladies, a-wearied with the domestic afflic- 
 tions of the day, and millions of innocent little 
 children, laying up on the sofa, now that the 
 day is over, recuperating after the fight with 
 Billy Stiggins, or resting from the fatigue of 
 snowballing crotchety, red-headed Sam Jones, 
 the village snob. 
 
 After this long digression, I will repeat : 
 paper is paper. The process is the same, 
 broadly speaking ; only the materials and the 
 ultimate purpose differ. Paper-Land is chiefly 
 concerned with the product for newspaper work, 
 and incidentally I discovered vats full of The 
 Christian World, The Illustrated London News, 
 The Times, and sundry other weeklies and 
 dailies. They were all in a very elementary 
 condition, I must say. In fact, I didn't recog- 
 nise them at all, and when Mr. Boyd pointed out 
 a tub of Christian World to me I was almost 
 overcome, it struck me as so pathetic. 
 
 "Why," I sobbed, endeavouring to extricate
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 119 
 
 my handkerchief from my pocket a difficult 
 task when you are wearing padded gloves and 
 dropping my note-book into a tub of Literary 
 World standing just behind me, in the attempt, 
 ' ' 1 1 took it for a tap tapioca pudding." 
 
 This occurred during my peregrinations ; but 
 I have mentioned it at this stage a propos. It 
 was the only pathetic incident that occurred to- 
 mar the interest and enjoyment of that memor- 
 able tour. 
 
 Up, up, up we went, and finally I stood in 
 an immense store-room where the raw material 
 is stacked up ready for immediate use. Piled 
 up in corners and round about the walls in iron 
 and rope-bound bales it stood grass. Not the 
 sweet, soft, short, green grass of English 
 meadow-lands, but a long, spiky, tough mate- 
 rial that hails from Africa's coral strand and 
 the sunny land of Spain. "Tripoli" and 
 " Esparto " are the technical designations ; but 
 I detest technicalities and ignored the infor- 
 mation. 
 
 It is a tough, tangled, and altogether unpro- 
 mising-looking material, but with care and 
 kindness they manage to reduce it to perfect 
 submission and bend it to their will.
 
 120 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Like unruly children, the softening process 
 is best commenced by a thorough beating, to 
 knock the nonsense and the dust out of it, and 
 everything is done for the best in Paper- Land. 
 To this end it is wheeled into a large room, in 
 which the ears are bewildered by an awful 
 clash and clatter, and the eyes are smartened 
 in one sense by the sight of a number of huge 
 horizontal drums, from which endless bands of 
 broad, stout canvas continually bear away the 
 dusted material into an adjoining room, and in 
 another by the clouds of dust that rise continu- 
 ally into the air. An operative will step up to 
 the bale and sever the bands with a business- 
 like looking pair of shears, and the grass is 
 then fed into the " dusters " by women who 
 pitchfork it about in the old familiar hay- 
 making fashion. 
 
 A toothed drum, revolving rapidly in the 
 dusting machines, tears the grass apart and 
 liberates the dust and debris, which is sucked 
 down and away by powerful fans operating 
 below. 
 
 It is assisted from the " dusters " by a large 
 wooden comb affair that drags it forward and 
 pushes it on to the canvas platform that, con-
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 
 
 121 
 
 PULP-MAKING MACHINE. 
 
 tinually travelling, leads it up and away 
 through, an opening in the wall and precipitates 
 it into the boiling-house.
 
 122 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING. 
 
 I got into the boiling-house in a more prosaic 
 and commonplace way through the door 
 and beheld well, not much. The place wa& 
 full of steam that smelt of stewed vegetable 
 matter and showed nothing through it, and 
 the general suggestion was that of a washing- 
 day on a large scale. 
 
 I have a suspicion that these machines are 
 not at all discriminating in their action, and I 
 didn't exactly yearn to become paper. Such a 
 fate would be doubly hard, for as " cream- 
 laid " I had an idea that I should prove a 
 failure, while for all practical and useful pur- 
 poses as a scribe I should be spoilt by the 
 process ; so therefore I kept closely in the rear, 
 and allowed my guide the risky honour of 
 precedence. He took it without flinching, and 
 led me by vast domes of iron fitted with a 
 bewildering display of pipes and taps and tubes. 
 
 Emerging on the other side, I discovered that 
 we were standing on a floor built almost level 
 with the tops of immense vertical boilers, the 
 great domes of which were showing at intervals 
 through the flooring. The manhole of one was 
 open, and I leant over and peeped in. Far 
 below me a man was emptying the cooked
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 123 
 
 material out with a pitchfork, and as I watched 
 him, Mr. Boyd explained the process to me. 
 These huge boilers, each holding three tons of 
 material, are filled with grass from above and 
 a supply of water, along with a proportion of 
 caustic soda. The manhole is then shut and 
 screwed down, and a valve operated from above 
 admits a current of steam, and the grass is left 
 to boil. 
 
 When they think it is about done, they turn 
 off the steam and cool down the boiler with a 
 current of cold water, and empty the contents 
 from below into tubs that run about on wheels 
 that is, when they are pushed they run 
 about ; otherwise they stand still on wheels. 
 The boiling process has the effect of destroying 
 the silica and softening the material, which by 
 this time has acquired a brown, flabby, and 
 somewhat dejected appearance. It is used to 
 a warm climate, but it has begun to conjecture 
 that the temperature of Wandsworth is too 
 enervating, and yearns once again for the 
 tropical chilliness of African tennis-lawns. 
 
 Not much time is allowed for vain yearnings, 
 however, and even before they are formulated 
 the grass is on its way into another building,
 
 124 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 where it is washed and broken up ground up 
 beaten up which you choose. 
 
 Beaten, boiled, washed, and broken up ! 
 Truly, the discipline is Spartan in its severity. 
 
 Huge round tubs, into which taps are pour- 
 ing a continuous supply of water, are ranged 
 in long rows up and down this room. These 
 contain sets of powerful knives, which work 
 after the nature of a grass-cutter, and machin- 
 ery which keeps the contents continually 
 revolving. "Washers and breakers" they 
 term them. After passing through a ' ' breaker " 
 the grass is grass no longer it is pulp, a 
 brownish, soft, slippery substance that is rather 
 suggestive of a bran -mash. 
 
 Valves let the pulp down into a similar 
 arrangement, set at a lower level, in which it 
 is submitted to a similar treatment, with the 
 addition of a mixture of chlorine in the water 
 to remove the colour. After this bleaching 
 process the pulp is of a beautifully white 
 appearance, and is suggestive of some special 
 dessert dish rather than grass. They go on 
 washing and churning it a bit after this, and 
 then by the opening of a valve it is allowed to 
 flow down into immense lead-lined vats, where
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 
 
 125 
 
 THE PULP FLOWING ON TO MAKING MACHINE.
 
 126 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 it is thoroughly mixed with water by mechan- 
 ical agitation. From this vat it is pumped up 
 to what is termed the " presse pate/' where it 
 is met by a stream of water which carries it 
 along in the form of very much diluted milk 
 over a shallow, ribbed trough, that retains the 
 heavier particles, such as scale or heavy grit, 
 through strainers, which free it from oddments 
 in the shape of roots, until the stream, freed 
 from all impurities, finally passes through an 
 immense pipe on to an endless band woven of 
 a particularly fine wire, that carries it along, 
 extracting the moisture as it travels in the 
 manner that I shall presently detail, and coils 
 it over and deposits it on to a table in a form 
 suggestive of wet blotting-paper. This is a 
 duplicate process to the actual making, and I 
 thought at first that I was witnessing the 
 operation, until I saw the operatives roughly 
 folding the sheets up in irregular batches 
 and depositing them in metal trucks by their 
 Bide. 
 
 In these trucks it is wheeled down a long 
 passage to the " beaters," where it is subjected 
 to another washing and pounding in order to 
 remove the chlorine that would, were it per-
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 127 
 
 mitted to remain, prove detrimental to the 
 appearance of the finished product. A certain 
 amount of colouring matter is then added, and 
 it is permitted to flow into the storage chest 
 an immense lead-lined vat, similar to the one 
 previously mentioned which it reaches in the 
 form of soapy or milky water. 
 
 Along devious and strange turnings, and 
 through unexpected and out-of-the-way doors, 
 I reached the same goal, and beheld a wonder- 
 ful spectacle a tub of Christian World, in 
 which any one not too fastidious might easily 
 go a-uwimming. From the storage chest the 
 milky or soapy fluid is pumped into a duplicate 
 in miniature just within the adjoining room, 
 set at a height above the paper-making machine. 
 And such a machine ! Extending the whole 
 length of an extremely lengthy building, it is 
 bewildering in its multiplicity of mechanical 
 marvels. Immense square bands of red rubber 
 gauge the width of the sheet of paper that is 
 being made, and keep the pulp within bounds. 
 A very fine brass network platform, on to which 
 the pulp flows, moves continuously forward 
 through a roller that imprints the water-mark, 
 rollers that give it a squeeze here and a squeeze
 
 128 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 there, and rollers that coil it upwards when it 
 has become a self-supporting sheet of paper, 
 dry it and mangle it, and wind it up for later 
 treatment. 
 
 Vacuum boxes underneath the bed of this 
 machine the largest and most marvellous I 
 have ever had the good fortune to view 
 operated upon by powerful pumps adjoining, 
 suck away the moisture from the stream of 
 pulp as it travels up, and leaves the soft and . 
 solid substance behind in a thin, even sheet 
 that is amenable to pressing and process. 
 
 It struck me very much in the nature of a 
 miracle, and the simple word " astounded " 
 about expresses my feelings while I stood and 
 watched that machine at work. Think of it 
 for yourselves ! At one end you see gallons 
 and gallons of a soapy-looking fluid being 
 poured on to the brass net, that bears it ever 
 onward and still comes up, like Oliver, crying 
 for more. As you walk down with it you notice 
 that it is not looking quite so sloppy, and by- 
 and-by it occurs to you that it has taken on 
 the appearance of a rice-pudding somewhat 
 badly constructed, and so you come to a pair of 
 rollers, huge brass concerns faced with felt.
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 
 
 129 
 
 \ 
 
 REELING THE FINISHED PAPER. 
 
 Presto ! the pudding has become paper to all 
 appearances, though it is not yet quite suitable 
 
 9
 
 130 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 for practical purposes. And so it travels om 
 until it is firm enough to leave the bed, and to- 
 commence a devious journey through a series 
 of eighteen metal cylinders of gradually in- 
 creasing temperature, while the steam rises in- 
 a cloud above them from the drying sheet, and 
 a little automatic measuring instrument ticks 
 off the mileage of paper they make it by the 
 mile, four or five being the usual length and 
 knives on each side shear the rough edges andi 
 reduce the sheet to the required width. 
 
 It takes a special engine to operate the- 
 making machine, and the clash and rattle pre- 
 vented me from going into details that I should 
 have liked to dwell upon ; but I gathered that 
 the paper is sized somewhere in the course of 
 its journey, and what is termed " surface " is 
 imparted to it by a set of chilled iron rollers in 
 its passage from table to reel. The width 
 made, I must state, is in most instances just 
 twice that of the required dimensions, and as it 
 emerges from the rollers a knife divides it 
 down the centre and allows it to be wound up 
 on to two reels that are fitted into a frame at 
 the end of the machine. The paper is carried 
 overhead to these reels, and you pass under
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 131 
 
 arches of it as you leave the room on the way 
 into the hot presses. 
 
 The process it has undergone is sufficient for 
 some purposes, but where a high " finish " is 
 desired, the reels of paper are brought into an 
 adjoining room and put through another series 
 of steam-heated cylinders and cotton rollers, 
 from which it is reeled off on to spools or cut 
 into sheets, and is ready to pass out of Paper- 
 Land, to testify to the merits and swell the 
 profits of its birthplace. 
 
 At the extreme end of the finishing-room 
 which, by the way, is on the ground floor, I, 
 to my surprise, having travelled downward 
 through the whole length and breadth of 
 Paper-Land stands a marvellously perfected 
 piece of mechanism that unwinds reels and 
 reels of paper, and cuts them into sheets of 
 regulated size. It is not every journal that 
 can aspire, like The Christian World, to the 
 dignity of printing its edition from four-mile 
 reels that betokens a good standing, large cir- 
 culation, convenient size, elaborate machinery, 
 and a host of other signs of a sound and 
 flourishing condition. Smaller fry find it 
 more practicable to print off the sheet, and
 
 132 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 this ingenious contrivance was meeting their 
 requirements with an adjustment and action 
 so perfect and so true, that only two ' ' hands " 
 representing four arms, be it remembered 
 are required, and they simply square up the 
 sheets as they are sent down along an endless 
 revolving band of broad felt. 
 
 The daylight was fading rapidly, and the 
 electric light, which is fitted throughout Paper- 
 Land in office and in mill, was enlivening the 
 scene as I made my way past and round reels of 
 paper waiting to be forwarded to their destina- 
 tion up in London printing offices. 
 
 And so I gathered up my umbrella and, 
 removing the debris and dust that I had 
 acquired up in the " dusting " room from my 
 wardrobe, I thanked Mr. Boyd for his courteous 
 and kindly efforts on my behalf, and wended 
 my way down to the station. 
 
 I had a curious dream that night. I dreamt 
 that I was hungry. I went into Gatti's in 
 the Strand to get something to eat, and they 
 brought me, of all things in the world, a 
 sago-pudding. It wasn't an inviting-looking 
 pudding ; it seemed badly constructed to my 
 mind. But they assured me that it had been
 
 IN PAPER-LAND. 133 
 
 thoroughly dusted and that they had extracted 
 nearly all the chlorine from, it, so I sat down 
 to eat. Before I could touch it, however, it 
 was whisked under the table and came curling 
 up the other side in a broad sheet of paper 
 on which was scrawled in " spooky " hand- 
 writing : " Haven't you nearly done ? " And 
 I answered and said : " I have ! " And I have.
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 UST past Bow Bridge, 
 on the left-hand side 
 coming from the 
 station, the observ- 
 ant traveller will 
 notice the narrow 
 and somewhat in- 
 significant turning 
 down which I 
 wended my way in 
 quest of Soap-Land. 
 Cook's Road it is 
 
 termed, and it has its termination in a pair of 
 huge gates that shut out the public at large, and 
 give admittance to the colony, covering fifteen 
 acres of ground, and containing over three 
 hundred inhabitants during working hours, 
 that I had come to explore. 
 
 I was " on business," and no difficulty was 
 therefore experienced over entering a land that
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 135 
 
 is jealously guarded by day and by night, and 
 my credentials carried me through to the 
 general offices, where I waited the advent of 
 my guide that was to be. 
 
 This gentleman presently put in an appear- 
 ance, and, introducing himself as Mr. Alec 
 Cook, apologised pleasantly for his business-like 
 " get-up." He was wearing the white smock 
 affair that the inhabitants of these lands adopt 
 to protect their clothing from tallow splashes 
 and grease marks generally, and he explained 
 to me that he was practically superintending 
 the finishing of a "copper" of soap, such 
 being the universal custom in the firm of 
 Messrs. Edward Cook and Co., the owners of 
 Soap-Land. 
 
 Through the offices we walked together right 
 into the factory, where my guide left me for a 
 moment while he went back to give some 
 directions concerning the work he had aban- 
 doned on my account, and I gazed out on the 
 Eiver Lea that, running below, serves Soap- 
 Land nobly in the matter of bringing to and 
 bearing from easily and expeditiously the raw 
 materials and finished product. The Great 
 Eastern Kail way trains are thundering past on
 
 136 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 the right-hand side, and I realise something of 
 the advantages that have induced Messrs. Cook 
 and Co. to cover the greater part of fifteen 
 acres of land in a densely-populated and unat- 
 tractive suburb with plant and property for the 
 manufacture of washing material. 
 
 I gazed out on the frozen river and bethought 
 me of the poet's lines, " I saw three maids 
 come skipping o'er the lea," as I watched three 
 bargees reach themselves over the side of their 
 unwieldy craft and lounge heavily shore wards. 
 I should have gone on conjuring up poetic 
 fragments, only just then Mr. Cook returned 
 and announced his readiness to attend to me. 
 
 " That is our highway," he remarked, follow- 
 ing my gaze " that and the railway that runs 
 into our own siding, though we find sufficient 
 road-work to justify us in keeping fifty horses 
 and vans in constant use." Steam cranes hoist 
 the material on to the wharf, and a system of 
 rails serves to bear it to any part of the works. 
 The tallow and fats used in soap-making, how- 
 ever, find their way by a steam lift to the top 
 of the main factory, where they are started on 
 their evolutionary journey. 
 
 Another building across the way supplies a
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 137 
 
 A COPPER IN SOAP-BOILING ROOM.
 
 138 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 great quantity of material direct, the fat being 
 boiled down there by steam, and blown through 
 ;a service of huge pipes into the making depart- 
 ment. I discovered that process for myself 
 later on, and contrary to expectation, it pre- 
 sented no particularly objectionable features. 
 
 Soap-Land is a land of complicated marvels, 
 and never have I beheld such a bewildering 
 -entanglement of pipes and valves and tubs and 
 vats as I ventured myself amongst for the next 
 two hours. Huge metal tanks for storing fats 
 greeted my eye on the upward journey. During 
 the winter the softer fats can be handled in 
 barrels safely enough, I gathered; but in the 
 warmer weather they are better confined in 
 these drums, where they don't get so much 
 chance to ooze through and mess up the floor. 
 On this floor the barrels of tallow are adjusted 
 over a copper pipe projecting into the room, 
 and a current of steam is blown into them. 
 " Phew ! " remarks the tallow, " this is getting 
 warm. I'm going to run ! " And it does, 
 through openings prepared for it down and 
 across to the soap-house on the floor below. 
 
 Immediately under this part of the reception- 
 room, as I may call it, are the alkali pans. My
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 139 
 
 guide called them "pans," though such a 
 .simple and unsuggestive term hardly does 
 justice, to my way of thinking, to the immense 
 tanks in which the soda is dissolved. 
 
 Fat by itself is not a possible washing 
 material, whatever may be stated to the 
 -contrary; and to make soap alkali of some 
 sort must be incorporated. Carbonate of soda 
 causticised by lime is the most general alkali 
 used in Soap-Land, and the care and proportion 
 used in mixing constitute the difference between 
 a good soap and a bad one. 
 
 Leaving the giant pans of soda, in case the 
 men might want them, I turned away through 
 a door on the right and entered the soap-house, 
 a tremendous building with an open space 
 above running right up to the skylights. 
 Hanged along the wall, all down one side of 
 the room, are the soap-coppers, of which there 
 are twelve, and they were a revelation even to 
 me who seem to have been spending my 
 declining years in inspecting huge storage 
 contrivances. 
 
 They are all immense, but the smallest, 
 which only holds about ten tons of soap, could 
 be hidden away in the really large fellows, and
 
 140 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 the men would spend hours looking for it and 
 never dream of its presence so near their feet 
 and yet so far. When I instance the fact that 
 one hundred tons represents their capacity, you 
 will be able to figure out for yourselves some 
 idea as to the size of these monsters. Of 
 course, you do not realise this fully even from- 
 an actual inspection, unless, like myself, you 
 are fortunate enough to catch one empty. 
 
 They are built down through the floor, and 
 you are only able to see the three or four feet 
 projecting into the soap-house, over which the 
 workmen are easily able to manipulate the 
 contents ; and filled with soap, of course there 
 is nothing to give you a sense of the real depth 
 of the bubbling, yellowish, creamy substance. 
 Clarence was drowned in a butt of wine, and it 
 seemed to me that it would be just as easy for 
 a man duke or commoner to get drowned in 
 a " copper " of soap, only I was satisfied to 
 leave the record that that unfortunate noble- 
 man was at such pains to establish unbroken, 
 and refrained from making the test. 
 
 The third or fourth copper, I forget which, 
 along the line was empty, and peering down 
 into its depths, it struck me more in the nature
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 141 
 
 of the hold of a ship than a mere soap-con- 
 structing tank. 
 
 THE ALKALI PANS. 
 
 In the making of soap the fats and tallows 
 are run down into these coppers in the manner
 
 142 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 I have before explained, a due proportion of 
 resin is emptied in with it according to the 
 nature of the soap being made, and the whole 
 is boiled up for several days by a current of 
 steam blown through it. This process, by the 
 bye, is termed wet-steaming, in contrast with 
 the more familiar method of dry- steaming, 
 where the steam circulates through a system 
 of pipes without finding its way into the material 
 it is melting. 
 
 When they judge the fat to be of the right 
 consistency, a valve governing one of the pipes,, 
 leading from the alkali tanks above, is opened, 
 and the stream of soda solution immediately com- 
 mences its work of transforming the melted fat 
 into soap by a sort of magical process. The 
 surface is first converted, and then the lower 
 strata take their turn in due rotation. 
 
 Salt liberates the soap that, probably not 
 being so sturdily independent, is still held in 
 solution after the spontaneous separation has 
 taken place, and the partially spent " lye," as 
 the soda solution is termed, is used again and 
 again for cheaper varieties of soap until it is 
 fully "spent." 
 
 And so the soap is made by a process as.
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 143 
 
 simple as it is marvellous, although, of course,, 
 consideration has to be given to the preliminary 
 operations that require a vast amount of 
 knowledge, skill, and forethought to bring 
 about anything like a satisfactory result. 
 
 " I suppose," I remarked, tentatively, to Mr. 
 Cook, "that it would be easy to spoil a ' copper r 
 of soap ? " 
 
 " Remarkably easy," he replied, drily. After 
 that I didn't like to ask him to let me make a 
 bar, even of some common kind, all by myself, 
 to take home with me as a proof of my clever- 
 ness and skill, around which, as the years 
 rolled by, I could pile up history and romance 
 according to the believing capacity of my 
 audience. 
 
 I did not see the actual soap-making process ; 
 but I could follow it clearly enough, thanks to 
 my guide's lucid and business-like explanations, 
 and as I came away from those coppers full of 
 tons of " primrose," and " yellow," and (( curd," 
 it occurred to me that when literature has 
 become a lost art, and my pen is idle for the 
 want of something to do, I could put it aside 
 in favour of a white blouse and ladle, and go- 
 and be a jolly soap-maker.
 
 144 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 Before leaving the soap-house, I must dwell 
 once again on the wonderful system by which 
 the coppers and pans are connected together. 
 Complicated as it necessarily is, it is so complete 
 that the melted material can be transferred to 
 any tub or vat in any required part of the 
 building by simply turning a tap, or by putting 
 a pump to work. Pipes are everywhere, under 
 foot and overhead, and it struck me that, by a 
 little judicious monkeying, a simple sort of 
 individual like myself not necessarily wicked, 
 mind you, only curious could do more damage 
 in ten minutes than could be righted in a week. 
 As soon as the soap is formed, it is sent travel- 
 ling along troughs into the frame room by the 
 powerful action of a large double - cylinder 
 pump. 
 
 The idea of pumping soap about struck me 
 as funny, and I laughed my hat off, and went 
 down into the frame room after it with more 
 celerity than I had intended. 
 
 A frame is simply a huge iron mould capable 
 of holding twelve hundredweight. The four 
 sides fit together like a toy money-box, only, 
 of course, there is no lid, and are fastened in 
 their place by iron bolts. When ready for
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 145 
 
 IN THE FRAME BOOM. 
 
 filling it presents the appearance of a deep, 
 oblong tank of roomy dimensions ; and I had 
 
 10
 
 146 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 no idea at first that it was constructed in 
 sections, although precisely how, having got 
 the soap in, they were to otherwise get it out 
 again didn't strike me. The frames are set in 
 regular rows up and down the room there 
 must have been hundreds of them and 
 running just overhead the troughs that I 
 have alluded to were suspended. A hole in 
 the bottom of these troughs over each, which 
 can be plugged when necessary, gives the right 
 of way into the frames, so that when the pump 
 is set going the stream of soap runs the length 
 and breadth of the room, and the frame filling 
 goes merrily on a simple yet ingenious ar- 
 rangement that saves untold labour and time. 
 
 The soap is left in the frames to set and 
 harden, when the men come round and remove 
 the casing, and expose a hard, solid, twelve 
 hundredweight block all ready to be cut up 
 into slabs. This cutting is done by a strong 
 man and a thin steel wire, and they do it re- 
 markably well between them. Hard work it 
 showed itself to be, too, and when my guide 
 invited me to test the resisting capacity of one 
 solid-looking slab, I declined promptly. I have 
 cut up cheese by the same simple means ; but
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 147 
 
 cheese isn't soap, and the work looked too 
 solid for a mere after-dinner diversion. Now, 
 according to the nature of the soap being 
 dealt with, the subsequent treatment varies ; 
 but the beginning is in those slabs that the 
 man and the steel wire between them are per- 
 petually preparing. Through a devious path- 
 way, strewn with pipes and littered with pumps 
 and tanks and machinery, I found my way or 
 rather Mr. Cook found it for me, for I would 
 engage to get promptly and hopelessly lost 
 inside of two minutes if left to myself to the 
 stamping-room, where the tablets and cakes 
 are prepared, after being cut into bars from 
 the slabs down below. 
 
 Both hand and machine moulds are at work 
 stamping and pressing the tablets into shape ; 
 but the hand-machines are much preferred, I 
 gathered. A metal " die " gives the impression 
 in very much the same manner that the coins 
 are made at the Mint, the soap being pre- 
 viously oiled to prevent it sticking. 
 
 After that I should be afraid to attempt to 
 tell in detail what I did see. I saw so much 
 that my brain got confused. The contrivance 
 that attends to my thinking department grew
 
 148 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 maudlin, and left me an easy victim to the 
 mesmerising influence of tablets of " Kiviera," 
 "Savon de Luxe," and bars of "Lightning 
 Cleanser," and other domestic and useful 
 varieties. 
 
 As I turned away from that busy scene of 
 stamping, wrapping, and packing, I bethought 
 me of "ye legende of Bowe in ye east," a 
 pretty story, and I shall just have time to tell 
 it you while the lift is bearing me down to- 
 other strange and unfamiliar scenes. Only, 
 mind, I don't vouch for it. 
 
 Years and years ago a colony of bees- 
 swarmed across the marshes and settled down 
 near Soap-Land. They were steady, sober, 
 hard-working bees, and their honey was the 
 best that could be obtained, so that people 
 nocked from the uttermost parts of the suburbs 
 to get it, and the bees put another halfpenny a 
 pound on to the price, and prospered exceed- 
 ingly. They began to grow conceited over 
 their industry, and at last got so uppish that 
 they came to look down on the bees of other 
 hives. They were thick-headed sort of bees, 
 and they plodded away at their toil, and never 
 supposed that any of their tribe before or since
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 149 
 
 had or could become such champion honey 
 factories as themselves. 
 
 One bright summer's morning, however, one 
 
 CUTTING UP THE SOAP. 
 
 of their number flew by chance into Soap-Land, 
 and came unto the stamping and packing room. 
 It felt sick and dizzy as it watched the scene.
 
 150 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Verily, what were their puny little efforts com- 
 pared with these ? It crawled feebly down- 
 stairs, and beheld oceans and rivers of what? 
 It was yellow soap ; but the bee was a thick- 
 headed little creature, and knew it for honey- 
 It didn't do any more work that day, and when 
 it reached the hive late that night it had a 
 headache. The next day it took a friend over 
 to see its discovery, and the news then very 
 quickly spread all over the town, and the bees 
 from other hives came over and flew about in 
 groups, and said nasty, spiteful, and irritating 
 things. An investigating committee from the 
 hive went over to Soap-Land to see for them- 
 selves whether they were being " had," and 
 when they saw how really insignificant they 
 were they lynched the discoverer on the spot,, 
 and then went back and closed down their 
 works and became dissipated and abandoned. 
 Like Othello, they deemed their occupation 
 gone or superfluous, for it didn't seem worth 
 while to be making honey by the half-ounce 
 with industry and moral integrity when it was. 
 being made across the way with machinery by 
 the ton. The moral seems to be, " Never 
 introduce your donah to a pal."
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 151 
 
 I got to the moral and the ground floor at 
 about the same time, and found myself in a 
 veritable room of soap. 
 
 There were bricks and mortar and wood- 
 work of course ; but stored up in immense bins 
 around the walls were tons and tons of soap. 
 It was stacked away in bars, and the cutting of 
 these bars from the slabs I had seen turned out 
 in the frame-room was as simple as it was in- 
 genious. It was done in a wooden frame affair 
 that lifted the slab and forced it against a row 
 of steel wires set at regular intervals along the 
 back. 
 
 Bin after bin of soap was opened for my in- 
 spection, and I walked round and tried to form 
 an estimate, so that I might give you all some 
 idea of the quantity by a comparison that 
 would do justice to the subject without 
 straining your faith in my veracity. 
 
 Simple statements are safest, I reflected, so 
 I will confine myself to informing you that one 
 of these bins will stock fifteen tons of soap, 
 and the bins are numbered by the dozen. 
 
 Up to the first floor again by means of the 
 lift, and we emerged on to a light but substan- 
 tial ironwork bridge that led into another
 
 152 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 soap-house, where special soaps of various 
 kinds, including mottled and soft, are prepared 
 by processes not greatly differing from those I 
 had witnessed in the other building. 
 
 Recrossing the bridge, we sought the ground- 
 floor again and came out into the open, where 
 I had an opportunity of inspecting the main- 
 springs of the place, so to speak. The boiler- 
 house was very much as other boiler-houses, 
 containing the six immense Lancashire boilers 
 "that supply steam for the melting tanks and 
 coppers, as well as for the engines, of which 
 there are many. A small percentage of it is 
 used to work the lifts, the business end of 
 which I passed on my way over to the stables. 
 There was nothing much to see; but the 
 method of working is ingenious. An immense 
 iron cylinder, weighted with seventeen tons of 
 metal, and bearing on a piston-rod, is upheld 
 by the pressure of water forced under it by a 
 steam-pump. When the lift is wanted on the 
 upper floors, the men open a valve which admits 
 the compressed water, and allows the cylinder 
 to descend, and, as that falls, so the lift rises 
 until it reaches the limits of its possibilities, 
 when the pump sets to work again to reinstate
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 158 
 
 STAMPING OUT TABLETS. 
 
 the cylinder in its original position ready for 
 future action. When the men want to descend,
 
 154 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 they merely let the water out of the pipes, and 
 the lift falls by its own weight, and slowly and 
 orderly is the fall thereof. 
 
 The stables present several novel features,. 
 and are pleasing examples of the care that a 
 big firm not only does not disdain but con- 
 siders necessary to bestow on its dumb employes. 
 Space is economised by building in two stories, 
 and the dwellers on the upper floor walk up an 
 inclined path to their beds with all the alacrity 
 of a good Christian who has done his duty 
 through the day, and feels that rest and repose 
 have been fairly and equitably earned. Fitters* 
 shops, where all the repairs to tools and acces- 
 sories, boilers, coppers, and pipes are attended 
 to, saw-mills and box-making departments, and 
 a farrier's shop were all passed and inspected 
 by me on my way round to the most interesting 
 department of all the perfumed soap room. 
 
 A twenty-pound note doesn't go very far in- 
 some of the scents used in these soaps. In 
 fact, a four-ounce bottle would provide ample 
 accommodation, which seems extravagant to a 
 man with a bias in favour of obtaining quantity 
 for his money. You will readily understand,, 
 therefore, that it would hardly do to subject
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 155 
 
 such costly liquor to the evaporating and 
 wasteful effects of heat. The cold process 
 termed "milling" is therefore adopted, and 
 for its operation a special plant is required, 
 and, of course, only the high-class toilet and 
 antiseptic soaps are so treated. 
 
 Into the " milling-room " in which I was 
 then standing, the soap is conveyed from the 
 main factory in firm, white, and dense bars. 
 The first thing to be done is to shred it in a 
 machine that cuts it up by a coarse suet- 
 chopping process. These shreds are dried and 
 are then transferred to the " milling " machine 
 along with the perfume that it is desired to 
 add. Immense rollers grind the mass thoroughly 
 up together, and let it out underneath in the 
 form of long, thin, perfumed shavings. Anti- 
 septic ingredients are incorporated in the same 
 way. In order to get these shavings to bind 
 together in one solid bar again great pressure 
 is required, and this is applied by means of an 
 Archimedian screw working in a sausage- 
 machine sort of arrangement. The shavings 
 'are fed into its capacious interior, and are 
 forced downwards to a narrow outlet. At first 
 a round mouthpiece is used, and the soap issues.
 
 156 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 in a long, thin tube, which is broken off and 
 thrown back into the machine until it is judged 
 that the proper firmness and density has been 
 reached. Then the mouthpiece is removed, 
 and the soap issues in one continuous oblong 
 bar, which is cut up at regular intervals by the 
 operative in charge, and taken away to be 
 "tabletted " and stamped. 
 
 An ingenious and a pretty process has been 
 recently adopted in Soap-Land for indelibly 
 lettering these tablets, and the idea has "caught 
 on " extensively. Hotels were well in evidence 
 among the specimen tablets I saw. I expect 
 they find it a preservative as well as an adver- 
 tisement, for it looks bad to be found using a 
 -cake of soap marked " Tirnson's Hotel, 5 ' when 
 Timson's Hotel is many miles away, and the 
 user does not answer to the name of Timson. 
 
 The lettering is done by means of needles 
 set in a stamp. It is a messy operation, but 
 very fascinating to watch, and is chiefly in the 
 hands of young girls. A supply of some harm- 
 less crimson or blue colouring matter is auto- 
 matically emptied from a trough over the 
 tablet, and runs into the holes made by the 
 needles. The superfluous colouring is then
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 
 
 157 
 
 MILLING MACHINE. 
 
 washed off by hand, and as long as the tablet 
 lasts the lettering can be read.
 
 158 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 In this room I was shown trays and boxes 
 of the different soaps made in Soap-Land. 
 There are something like one hundred and fifty 
 varieties. Some of the tablets were real works 
 of art, and it seemed almost a sin to use them 
 for common washing purposes. I have one 
 rose-coloured oval specimen by me now, with 
 singing-birds and rosebuds and other children 
 of nature stamped in relief on its surface, and 
 I cannot quite decide whether to put it on a 
 plate in the window and raise the artistic tone 
 of the neighbourhood, which is somewhat flat, 
 perhaps because it is beyond the ken of the 
 County Council, or to hang it in my study as 
 evidence of aesthetic culture. 
 
 "That is germ soap," Mr. Cook remarked, 
 noticing that my attention was centred upon a 
 box of pretty little square tablets. 
 
 " I didn't know germs used soap," I replied, 
 with a look of innocent wonder. 
 
 It was a slip on my part. I am, as a rule, 
 very careful about giving myself away. People 
 generally mistake me for Irving, except the 
 younger and more sentimental, who incline to 
 the belief that I have either got the earache or 
 am about to be married.
 
 IN SOAP-LAND. 159 
 
 My guide only laughed, but I could see by 
 his manner then that he had fathomed my 
 secret and knew me for a humorist, a heartless 
 creature who could even laugh at germs. 
 
 I gathered from his explanation that they 
 the operatives, not the germs put bin-iodide 
 in these tablets of antiseptic soap, and that the 
 germs don't like it. They die when they see it 
 coming and turn to butterflies, and fly away 
 and live happy ever after. 
 
 It was getting dusk as I left the perfumed 
 soap room, and, unwilling to trespass wantonly 
 and unreasonably on my guide's time and 
 attention, I took a passing glance at the 
 laboratory, stocked with delicate and mysterious 
 appliances for the testing of raw material and 
 finished product, and at a smaller chamber 
 adjoining, where hundreds of pounds are stored 
 up in tanks and bottles in the shape of per- 
 fumes, and came away from Soap-Land with an 
 increased respect for those whose duty and 
 pleasure it is to help to maintain the world's 
 inhabitants in the state that is next to 
 godliness.
 
 IN POTTEKY-LAND. 
 
 HEN I set out to 
 explore Pottery- 
 Land I wondered 
 whether I should 
 have any difficulty 
 in locating it. 
 Lambeth is a 
 quarter that I 
 am not exactly 
 familiar with, and 
 
 I was afraid at first that I might over- 
 look it, not knowing it, and, after wan- 
 dering round and round all day like a 
 superannuated babe in the wood, be dis- 
 covered late at night, wrapped in despair and an 
 overcoat, on one of the seats on the Albert 
 Embankment. My fears were groundless, how- 
 ever ; and, later, when I had whiled away half - 
 an-hour or so in making myself familiar with
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 161 
 
 the neighbourhood, I came to recognise that 
 the real difficulty is in missing it. 
 
 Of course, the good folks in Lambeth don't 
 know it as "Pottery-Land." They call it 
 * s Doulton's place," and the big gates and the 
 palatial buildings that enclose and comprise it 
 are variously inscribed " DOULTON AND Co., 
 LAMBETH." 
 
 Mr. Bix, the art director, had kindly under- 
 taken to guide me, and to him, at the appointed 
 hour, I made my way, and, in passing by 
 spacious offices and busy workrooms, I came to 
 form some little idea of the magnitude of the 
 task I had undertaken. 
 
 What I didn't realise in this respect Mr. 
 Rix quickly made me sensible of. From him 
 I gathered that Messrs. Doulton and Co. 
 possess about half-a-dozen "Pottery-Lands" 
 scattered about in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, 
 and Lancashire, one at Paisley, and one in 
 Paris, in addition to the one that I was about 
 to explore; and that everything that can be 
 manufactured out of clay, from a tea-cup to a 
 two-thousand-guinea art vase, including bricks, 
 blacking-bottles, and drain-pipes, is manufac- 
 tured. 
 
 11
 
 162 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 I reflected then, that if I set out to do this- 
 thing thoroughly, I should be discovered years 
 and years hence by a search party, sent out 
 from London to find me, a decrepid old wreck 
 compounded of clay and weariness, taking 
 down notes in the pantile department. 
 
 Something more rapid was what I really 
 wanted, so Mr. Six kindly consented to omit 
 all duplication of processes, and on that under- 
 standing we left his office and went out into 
 the street. Turning oif to the right on reach- 
 ing the Embankment I first discovered how 
 Pottery-Land received its supplies. Dug from 
 the pits in far-off Dorsetshire and Devonshire,, 
 the clay is brought up the river and trans- 
 shipped into barges in roughly - squared 
 portable blocks, which do not call for any 
 delicate and careful handling that would,, 
 perhaps, be difficult for the average barge- 
 man to readily acquire. 
 
 Pottery-Land possesses its own docks, and 
 the entrance thereto runs through tunnels 
 leading from the river under the Embankment. 
 
 Elderly maiden ladies have been known to 
 express astonishment and some alarm at seeing 
 a heavily-laden barge run into the massive
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 
 
 stonework and disappear from sight. They 
 have even conjured up awful visions of barge- 
 wreck, and have gone and disturbed some 
 passively - ruminating policeman with wild 
 requests for lifeboats and rocket apparatus. 
 
 Unloaded from the barges, the clay is stacked 
 up against the time when its services will be 
 needed. It is stacked up against a wall, too, 
 for additional support. It seemed to me that 
 this delay must have a deteriorating effect on 
 the material, but my guide assured me that 
 this was of no consequence, because they pre- 
 ferred to add whatever moisture was required 
 themselves, which relieved me immensely. I 
 take a great interest in these processes, and 
 when I think I have discovered an oversight 
 anywhere I usually point it out. The informa- 
 tion, I reflect, may be of extreme service ; but 
 as a rule it isn't. 
 
 The clay blocks are first of all ground into 
 powder, along with a proportion of old broken 
 stoneware, in a capacious iron tray in which 
 two heavy wheels are revolving. A fine dust 
 results from this crushing process, and this is 
 drawn into another machine, where it is mixed 
 with water fed into it with care and judgment
 
 164 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 and a tap, by an operative whose discretion 
 can be relied upon to compromise somewhere 
 between a badly-digested mess and a mud- 
 puddle. When it is judged to be of the right 
 consistency it is scooped up by a number of 
 buckets, fastened to an endless band and acting 
 on the ordinary dredge principle, and thrown 
 into a gigantic sausage-machine sort of arrange- 
 ment, where it is cut into pieces by revolving 
 knives. Issuing again in solid bars, it is 
 packed on to trolleys and run up to the floors 
 above by lifts, and stored in bins and cupboards 
 until required for use. 
 
 Coming away from the mixing and preparing 
 mill, my guide pointed out to me quite an 
 insignificant -looking corner where Pottery- 
 Land had its origin, starting modestly with a 
 couple of kilns and a dozen " hands." Over 
 two thousand (( hands " are employed there at 
 the present day, and as many again in the 
 dependencies, so to call them, which goes to 
 prove that ill-weeds have not the monopoly of 
 growing apace. 
 
 Having seen the clay prepared and brought 
 to a portable, plastic, and workable condition, 
 I mounted to the floors above by leisurely
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 165 
 
 PREPARING THE CLAY.
 
 166 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 stages. An Alpine enthusiast could here get 
 some good and congenial exercise ; but the 
 mere seeker after truth and trade mysteries 
 only longs for a balloon, or a stock that lie 
 doesn't happen to be holding, or anything else 
 that has a tendency to go up without the 
 exercise of leg-power. Once, a long while ago, 
 I used to have something unusual in the way 
 of soaring ambitions, but it never got what I call 
 a fair opportunity to soar ; the opposition was 
 too marked, and it wilted and pined away from 
 vexation and disappointment. On the fifteenth 
 floor I counted fifteen, but I may have been 
 misled; these places are very confusing I 
 suddenly bethought me of it, and wished that 
 I had brought the poor thing with me and 
 given it the chance of one really good flutter. 
 I would have waited for it down below in the 
 basement. 
 
 Of the extensive variety of articles made 
 from clay in the section of Pottery-Land that 
 I found myself in, some are moulded and some 
 are "thrown." If, for instance, they are 
 making a kitchen sink they mould it. If it 
 is a teacup they are wanting to make they 
 " throw " it. It is a singular thing, but
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 167 
 
 :servant-girls unmake crockery by precisely the 
 same means. They generally use the scullery 
 floor, and rush in with the pieces and say, 
 " Please, mum, the handle's come off." It is 
 always the handles that come off. If jugs and 
 teacups could only be made without handles 
 people would get so sick and tired of seeing 
 the same old bits of china about them year after 
 year that they would take to smashing them 
 with the kitchen poker in sheer desperation. 
 The potter uses a wheel I expect because he 
 hasn't been educated up to appreciate the 
 beauties of destruction, and can only grasp the 
 minor interest of the mere constructive process. 
 
 On my way up I passed a room where the 
 moulds were being made in plaster-of -Paris, 
 and a little higher still I had an opportunity of 
 witnessing an article it was a kitchen sink 
 being moulded. 
 
 It is a simple process, and hardly needs 
 detailing. The mould is made in sections, of 
 an obverse pattern to the sink, of course, and 
 is fastened together and kept in position by 
 wooden wedges forced between the bands of 
 thin iron encircling it. The clay, having been 
 forced into circumstances that compel it to
 
 168 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 take the shape and semblance of a kitchen 
 sink, is left in the mould to harden untilfit can 
 be safely handled. It is then removed, and 
 after being dipped in a bath of white glaze 
 that looks not unlike pipe-clay, and is in reality 
 a glassy material that, fusing with the heat 
 it is to be subjected to, coats the article with a 
 hard, smooth, shiny, and impermeable surface 
 it is ready for the kilns ; only, as I am not 
 yet, it must remain in that stage to wait my 
 pleasure. 
 
 It is a bewildering place is Pottery-Land ! 
 Trolleys bearing loads of clay are rushing along 
 metal lines which seemingly lead everywhere 
 about the building. Through the centre of 
 several of the floors immense circular brick 
 constructions, set about and bound with heavy 
 iron bands and huge chains, rise upwards. 
 You notice, if you are of an observant nature, 
 that the floors terminate within a few inches of 
 these constructions, and you peep through and 
 see the ground-floor a dizzy depth below you. 
 A considerable warmth, too, radiates from the 
 massive walls, and this prepares you for the- 
 announcement that they are the actual kilns in> 
 which the pottery is "fired."
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 
 
 THE POTTEK S WHEEL
 
 170 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Pottery-Land is practically fire-proof, and 
 is specially constructed with concrete and iron- 
 doors in case the twenty-one inches of brick- 
 work in the kilns should prove insufficient to 
 confine the devouring element within reason- 
 able bounds. Nothing is attached to the kilns 
 for another reason. The intense heat has an 
 expansive effect on them, and they rise and 
 fall with the regularity of a thermometer. The 
 movement is infinitesimal in each section of 
 the kiln, but many littles make a lot, and on 
 the upper floors the displacement amounts to 
 an inch or more. To hitch a floor on to that 
 would be akin to the folly of building a 
 dwelling on sandy foundations, which even 
 Mr. Jerry, a celebrated and extensive builder 
 in my neighbourhood, would not be guilty of. 
 As a seesaw the construction would answer 
 capitally ; but for habitable purposes there 
 would be drawbacks. 
 
 Stowed away in one corner, as though they 
 were rather ashamed of it, I came upon a very 
 interesting process by which drain-pipes are 
 made by machinery. They use clay as well, 
 of course, and a man or two just to keep things 
 going like ; but a sort of steam-hammer
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 171 
 
 arrangement really does all the actual work, 
 and, if I may say so without seeming patronis- 
 ing, does it remarkably well. Into the top of 
 the machine men are continually at work 
 shovelling clay. This is forced down by a 
 ram through an orifice in the shape of a ring. 
 A long steel bar rising through the floor is 
 fashioned in the pattern of an ordinary drain- 
 pipe socket, and after receiving this impression 
 it drops again, and the pipe is pushed out of 
 the mould with a curious sucking noise, and 
 carried away to be finished off. They make 
 something like fifteen miles of piping a week, 
 bent and straight, and of all diameters. The 
 finishing off is done by hand, the drain-pipes 
 being placed on wooden frames that gauge the 
 length, and the superfluous clay simply and 
 deftly cut off with a thin copper wire. 
 
 And then I came to one of the oldest and 
 the most fascinating of contrivances, the 
 potter's wheel. All circular articles, from a 
 ginger- beer bottle to a costly vase, are made 
 on these wheels, and the process is termed 
 " throwing," as I have before mentioned. It 
 looked so delightfully easy and simple, and yet 
 it is so confoundedly hard and tricky that, I
 
 172 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 gathered from my guide, a month's hard labour 
 at it would advance the novice sufficiently to- 
 construct something that his fond relatives,. 
 with every wish to encourage him and do him 
 justice, would recognise for a penny ink bottle- 
 if he told them that it was to hold ink. 
 
 The " wheel " is simply a metal disc which 
 is operated by a belting from the shaft running 
 down the length of the room. The ancient 
 Egyptians lacked this convenience, I believe r 
 and had to do their own propelling on the 
 scissor-grinding principle, which couldn't have 
 been so comfortable. The potters in Pottery- 
 Land only use their feet to control the wheel 
 by means of a foot-brake. After I had seen 
 them working, I came to the conclusion that 
 even with the advantages civilisation has 
 given them there is plenty to tax all their skill 
 and dexterity. 
 
 By the side of each wheel boys are busily 
 engaged in kneading the clay with their hands 
 to render it thoroughly plastic and free from 
 air-bubbles, and as the potters are also needing 
 the clay, they need to be pretty continuously 
 engaged to keep the supply a little in advance 
 of the demand.
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 
 
 173 
 
 ON THE LATHE. 
 
 The potter sits on his bench a little above 
 his wheel, and taking a lump of clay he
 
 174 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 throws it down hence the term " throwing 5> 
 on to the rapidly revolving disc. It is 
 fascinating and funny to watch its subsequent 
 evolution. Sticking a moistened finger into 
 the centre, the clay begins to coil up round 
 it, and spread itself out, and rear itself up 
 again and " do tricks/' all in obedience to the 
 hand that is directing its movements. A couple- 
 of little forks terminating in pieces of whale- 
 bone stand out and give the only aid in the 
 shape of a gauge that I could discover, and 
 from these the potter knows when to commence 
 bending over to form the neck. (They were 
 making bottles when I witnessed the opera- 
 tion.) A flat piece of metal cut to the shape 
 of the mouth is introduced, and then a few 
 deft touches forms the lip, and the article is 
 ready. Of the common variety of bottles a 
 potter will turn out many hundreds in a day's 
 work. 
 
 I was fascinated ! The next time a person 
 tells me that I "potter about " people do tell 
 me so occasionally, if they are related to me, 
 or are sufficiently intimate to dispense with 
 courtesies and speak their minds frankly I 
 shall say : "Have you ever seen a potter about
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 175- 
 
 turning a piece of clay into a bottle or a tea- 
 cup ? " Perchance the person will say " No." 
 " Then," shall I answer him, "call me a < messer * 
 if you must be rude ; but speak not slightingly 
 of that which you know not of. It is sacrilege 
 and silly as well." 
 
 Handles and spouts and etceteras are, of 
 course, made separately. They are moulded or 
 shaped by hand with the assistance of a knife 
 and a bone stylus, and stuck on, the uniting 
 surfaces being scored and damped slightly to 
 make them adhere. 
 
 The potter's wheel was working in many 
 rooms more than I could possibly hope to 
 visit, let alone describe but description of a 
 detailed nature is hardly called for. I saw them 
 making teapots in one room and blacking- 
 bottles in another, while a third was devoted 
 to bottles for the reception of beer termed 
 ginger, and a fourth witnessed the manufac- 
 ture of big stoneware wine and spirit jars.- 
 The process in every case was the same, while 
 the results were vastly and entirely different. 
 
 I had some grand and beautiful thoughts 
 while I stood and watched them making 
 blacking-bottles, and I leant up against a bank
 
 176 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 of wet clay and wrestled with them, while the 
 world went past me unobserved. There seemed 
 to be fresh possibilities for the poet's Imperial 
 Csesar, dead and turned to clay, stopping a 
 hole to keep the draught away, if he should by 
 chance get brought in on a barge to Pottery- 
 Land. It is true he might be fashioned into a 
 blacking or a beer bottle in the latter case, 
 I suppose, he would become an Imperial pot 
 which would be funny, because he was un- 
 doubtedly a " pot " and Imperial when he was 
 alive but, then, he has as much chance of 
 becoming a teapot, or even a vase of great 
 value and choice workmanship. He might, if 
 there is enough of him and he proves good 
 clay, even fetch fifty guineas, which would be 
 a good "first edition" living price for any- 
 thing Imperial that ever walked over two legs 
 and a subject's rights. 
 
 But how good and truly generous must 
 Messrs. Doulton and Co. be! The average 
 man, with a piece of clay and the choice 
 between a blacking-bottle, which sells for less 
 than a penny, and, say, a teapot, which will go 
 from anything between half-a-crown and fifteen 
 shillings, would elect to do the teapot. Not so
 
 POTTERY-LAND. 
 
 177 
 
 IN THE ART STUDIOS. 
 
 12
 
 178 INDUSTRIAL EXPLO RINGS. 
 
 in Pottery-Land. They think of the needs of 
 humanity's boots there as well as of its afternoon 
 refreshment. But it is very commendable of 
 them, and I should like it to be appreciated. 
 These little everyday sacrifices for the benefit 
 of mankind are not half sufiiciently recognised 
 to my mind. 
 
 The power of the potter is autocratic, and 
 his intentions are only known to himself and 
 to those in authority over him. When he 
 picks up a piece of clay, does it know what it 
 will become ? Its parents and relatives see it 
 set out with a lofty purpose and a burning 
 ambition, and they talk significantly and 
 mysteriously about it to their friends, who are 
 thenceforth under the impression that it has 
 won fame, and is to set the world agog over its 
 " chaste design " and (< delicate grace and 
 beauty." Later on, they all meet in the kiln 
 and recognise it for a blacking-bottle, and 
 they snigger and make remarks, as friends 
 will. We are very like that piece of clay, 
 though, and Fortune, the potter at the wheel 
 of life, is more curiously impartial than the 
 potter in Pottery-Land. Of some of us she 
 makes blacking-bottles, and of others Sevres
 
 IN POTTEKY-LAND. 179 
 
 and Worcester, and then, before we are able to 
 get baked, she will mould us up afresh, and 
 the Sevres will become a blacking-bottle and 
 the blacking-bottle will become Worcester 
 ware ; and sometimes she flings us down and 
 smashes us altogether, and will construct what 
 the world terms " lamentable failures " out of 
 the remnants. 
 
 I was going on in this strain, when my 
 ;guide suggested that if I were nearly rested 
 we might proceed, and thus brought back to a 
 recollection of mundane things, I collected 
 myself together, and was shortly after inspect- 
 ing some very pretty art ware, in the shape of 
 vases and decorative oddments. 
 
 After being " thrown " on the wheel these 
 things are brought into the room in which I 
 found myself, and are " turned " in a lathe 
 just the same as a piece of wood would be. 
 Mouldings and bands are cut on them during 
 this process, and a desirable and even thickness 
 is also obtained. 
 
 The articles are then taken away to the 
 studios where, in a series of comfortable, quiet, 
 and well-appointed rooms, a number of young 
 ladies are busily engaged in artistically design-
 
 180 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 ing patterns on the soft surface. They are 
 given an entirely free hand, I gathered, and 
 the results struck me as being remarkably 
 clever and tasteful. 
 
 The last stage of all is the kiln in which the 
 pottery is " fired." I have already given you a 
 rough idea of these kilns, which are simply 
 immense bricked chambers, held together and 
 strengthened by huge iron bands and chains. 
 The fires play up the sides, over the top, and 
 down through the centre again. At least, the 
 heat and the smoke go down through the 
 centre and away to the lofty shafts that tower 
 over Pottery-Land like veritable giants. 
 
 A fairly large oval opening gives admittance 
 to the kiln, and I was fortunate enough to see 
 one being loaded up. The capacious chamber 
 was about half -full, when I saw it, of any and 
 every variety of stoneware. The articles are 
 stacked in tiers, each layer being supported on 
 movable slabs, which divide the kiln into a 
 number of cells. 
 
 I bethought me somehow of Gray's touching 
 lines as I beheld the men busily stowing away 
 sinks, and drain-pipes, and bottles of various 
 descriptions and capacities ; but the tenancy of
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 
 
 181 
 
 UNLOADING A KILN.
 
 182 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 these " narrow cells " here is reduced to eight 
 days, I subsequently discovered, and when the 
 kiln is full and the contents may be numbered 
 by the hundred they brick up the opening^ 
 and draw the chains over it and set the fires, 
 going. 
 
 The superfluous heat is utilised at the top of 
 the kiln, which is on a level with the upper 
 floor, for drying purposes. To put an article in 
 to bake with the slightest suspicion of moisture 
 in it would be disastrous, and a considerable 
 plant in the shape of steam-heated pipes and 
 chambers has to be maintained in addition to 
 the drying spaces the kiln-tops afford. 
 
 Passing into the studios again, a gentleman,, 
 whose name I did not catch, kindly unwrapped 
 the portions of a beautifully executed colossal 
 Roman group, designed for the exterior of a 
 large building, that he was modelling in clay. 
 To be vulgar a relief now and again I was 
 " flumniuxed." And yet it all seem so delight- 
 fully easy ! 
 
 I got a piece of plastic clay myself when I 
 reached home that night and designed a bust of 
 my artistic companion out of it. I asked my 
 wife if she recognised it, and she said, Yes it
 
 IN POTTERY-LAND. 18$ 
 
 was a ginger-beer bottle. She also thought it 
 was " cute," and seemed to imply that such a 
 proof of my capability was vastly creditable to 
 me and encouraging to herself. She apologised, 
 of course, when I told her who it was meant for 
 she said the tall hat rather misled her : she 
 had mistaken it for the cork ; but she seemed 
 rather to sympathise with my model, and sug- 
 gested that perhaps, after all, there were one or 
 two details about such work that would be worth 
 acquiring before doing anything for public 
 exhibition. She said the libel laws were rather 
 stringent, and it might possibly save worry and 
 expense. 
 
 From the studio we wandered down through 
 Pottery-Land, and crossed the road to a 
 magnificent building in which terra-cotta work 
 and ornamental tiling play a large part in the 
 construction. 
 
 Here I beheld many quaint, curious, and 
 costly things the product of this land that 
 filled me with wonder and delight, and a 
 vaguely envious feeling. Beautiful vases, 
 richly-coloured tiles, and handsome fireplaces 
 were on view, and the various elaborate sanitary 
 and electrical appliances that are invented,
 
 184 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 patented, and produced by Messrs. Doulton and 
 Co., showed in contrast, as evidence of the 
 magnitude and scope of the work done in 
 Pottery -Land, to timepieces and Scriptural life- 
 size groups marvellously executed in terra-cotta. 
 A greater contrast still was afforded in a big 
 storeyard adjacent, where many miles of drain- 
 pipes are stacked to fill an order for the 
 sweetening of some Colonial town that has 
 recently awakened to the advantages of these 
 productions over the old-fashioned, dirty, and 
 dangerous brickwork contrivances that Messrs. 
 Doulton were solely instrumental in dispelling 
 for ever from our own cities, and that not so 
 very long ago, either. 
 
 And so I turned and came away from Pottery- 
 Land, a land so important, so vast, and so 
 elaborately simple and simply elaborate, that I 
 know of none that can contrast with it in point 
 of interest and brain befuddlement.
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 
 
 N visiting Match- 
 Land I went by 
 way of Victoria 
 Park., which is 
 in the East. 
 The sun was 
 shining and so 
 were my boots, 
 the birds carolled 
 enthusiastically on 
 
 the trees, and all nature was as gay as it 
 could be with the wind also in the East and 
 influenza raging. I turned out of the big 
 iron gates into the Old Ford Road, and passed 
 by mean dwellings and crowded and tumble- 
 down-looking neighbourhoods ; and when I 
 at last crossed the canal bridge and entered 
 the premises of Messrs. J. Palmer and Son, 
 the resemblance between my boots and the sun 
 had faded.
 
 186 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Glancing casually round at the land I had 
 come to explore, I noted that it was built about 
 on three sides, and that huge gates occupied 
 the fourth and kept Match-Land private and 
 select from the outside world. I noticed 
 also the light bridge that runs across the 
 court and connects the buildings, and the 
 huge stacks of timber waiting to be converted 
 into boxes and " splints " ; and then I entered 
 the offices, and to me, shortly afterwards,, 
 came Mr. Mountain, the manager, at whose 
 kindly and courteous invitation I had jour- 
 neyed down to view the mysteries of match- 
 making. 
 
 " Begin at the beginning, please, and don't 
 be technical," said I. I have repeated this so- 
 often of late that it is becoming stereotyped, 
 and I use it unwittingly when I am not holding 
 my attention closely to the matter in hand.. 
 Only the other day I went into the Stores, and 
 a very civil and attentive young gentleman 
 came up to me and rubbed his hands together 
 and soliloquised with one of those loud sort of 
 soliloquies. 
 
 " Good morning, sir," he said. " A lovely 
 morning for this time of the year." It was.
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 187 
 
 raining in sheets, but I was thoughtful and 
 agreed that it was a beautiful morning. 
 
 "And what can I have the pleasure of 
 showing you, sir ? " he went on. 
 
 " Oh, just begin at the beginning, please," I 
 replied, pleasantly, " and don't be technical. 
 What I want is " I stopped in some con- 
 fusion, and begged his pardon ; but it just 
 shows you how these things grow on one. 
 
 Mr. Mountain caught my wishes readily, and 
 in a business-like way he led me forth from the 
 offices and down the yard, informing me in 
 transit that Match-Land receives its supplies 
 from the canal below, and from the railway 
 depot lying adjacent. The same handy means 
 bears away the manufactured product. 
 
 te Canadian spruce and pine," he remarked, 
 briefly, as we passed by the huge baulks of 
 timber waiting to be carried into the saw-mills ; 
 and I gathered that the match splints are cut 
 from the pine, and the spruce is required for 
 making the boxes. 
 
 Turning into the store-rooms first, I found in 
 a series of bins and tubs and sacks the materials 
 required in the works. I didn't catalogue them ;. 
 but chlorate of potash, glue, saltpetre, and
 
 188 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 stearin were variously pointed out to me as 
 being necessary for the proper construction of 
 matches, along with reels of cotton not the 
 common ha'penny reels of commerce, but great 
 spools holding miles of the soft and thick 
 variety for the making of wax matches, and 
 cases of phosphorus, that comes in in sticks 
 packed in water in pound tins, soldered down 
 and air-tight. The uses of these things were 
 explained to me; but it will be clearer if I 
 deal with them later when they are being 
 utilised. The inhabitants of Match-Land find 
 that that is the best occasion for getting satis- 
 factory results, and a well-established prece- 
 dent like that is not to be lightly forsaken. 
 
 The melancholy screech of circular-saws 
 cutting through heavy timber greeted me even 
 before we entered the mill ; and, following my 
 guide closely, I beheld a number at work re- 
 ducing massive baulks into oblong blocks of a 
 suitable and handy size for subsequent opera- 
 tions. As I before explained, Canadian spruce 
 and Canadian pine are' used. They get it from 
 Canada. The pine blocks, after being cut 
 transversely by a four-bladed saw into oblong 
 sheets the thickness of an ordinary match, are
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 
 
 189 
 
 HORIZONTAL BOX-MAKING MACHINE. 
 
 fed into a sort of guillotine that quickly covers 
 the table in front of it with splints, each splint
 
 190 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 being the length of two matches. It keeps one 
 man pretty continuously at work making up 
 the splints into bundles, which are subse- 
 quently put into a frame and carried into a 
 gloomy cavern, that struck me as unpleasantly 
 warm when I entered it, to be dried. The 
 public like them better that way, I gathered, 
 as being more serviceable and effective ; and in 
 small matters like these Match-Land doesn't 
 mind stretching a point, even to the extent 
 of maintaining steam-heated rooms for the 
 purpose of obliging its customers. 
 
 In following the box-making process, I was 
 led to a marvellously simple and a simply mar- 
 vellous machine, into which the blocks of 
 spruce, having been previously steamed to 
 make them pliant and less liable to break, 
 are brought under a knife which pares them 
 into thin slices and sends them out with 
 four lines scored across the surface at pro- 
 portionate distances. My guide took one, 
 and, bending it rapidly round, handed it to 
 me, the rough semblance of the outside of a 
 match-box. 
 
 The illustration gives you an idea of the 
 horizontal machine, and the principle of the
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 191 
 
 others is the same, only they work vertically. 
 The inside cases are cut and scored from 
 narrower strips in a similar way. The bottoms, 
 of course, do not require scoring, they are 
 simply shaved from blocks cut exactly to the 
 size required. 
 
 Each box, it will be seen then, consists of 
 three pieces the outer case, the sides of the 
 tray, and the bottom and these are given out 
 in sets, along with the paper that unites them, 
 to be made at home, in gross bundles. Ten 
 gross at a time is an ordinary supply, and where 
 whole families work at the box-making, as 
 many as fifty gross at once will be taken away 
 and made up. The inquiring mind may easily 
 familiarise itself with the method of scoring 
 and making these boxes by removing the paper 
 from one and spreading it out on the table. It 
 will be just as apparent if it is spread out on 
 the kitchen dresser, only I mentioned the table 
 as being handier. 
 
 I lingered long in the box-making room, in- 
 haling the scent of the freshly-cut wood, and 
 pottering about asking questions and laying in 
 a stock of mechanical information, while the 
 melancholy screech of the saws went on around
 
 192 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 me, and the sawdust gathered upon my togger 
 I mean wardrobe. Blocks and splints were 
 stacked about the building, and disputing the 
 floor space with spluttering little engines and 
 the machines they were operating. In one 
 corner I came across an exaggerated kind 
 of lemon-squeezer, and found that it was rather 
 a primitive sort of scoring-machine that doubt- 
 less did good and useful service in its time. On 
 its lower surface, which is screwed to a bench, 
 four blunt knives are set across, and the slip 
 being placed on these, and the upper half 
 brought down with a smart tap, the result^is 
 obvious. Primitive as it looks, however, some 
 skill is required to manipulate it. The first 
 time I essayed to work it the scoring was not 
 perceptible ; the second time it was obtrusively 
 apparent it cut the slip into pieces. 
 
 Recognising at length that the " tempus J> 
 was " fugiting " at an alarming rate, I turned 
 from the sawmills, and, crossing the court with 
 my guide, entered the buildings in which the 
 business end of the matches is made and 
 applied. The splints I had seen constructed 
 across the way do not serve for wax matches, 
 which probably will not surprise you, and the
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 
 
 193 
 
 taper to supply their place is also prepared 
 here. I visited that department first. 
 
 STEAM CUTTER IN WAX MATCH ROOM. 
 
 Along one side of a spacious room two 
 immense drums are standing, and in between 
 
 13
 
 194 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 them is a shallow, enamelled, steam-heated 
 bath, containing a liquid compound of stearin,, 
 paraffin, wax, and gum. Over one of the- 
 drums, which are operated by means of cog- 
 wheels attached to spindles running through 
 the wall, the cotton is wound up to form the- 
 tapers, each taper comprising from twenty to 
 twenty-eight strands. The ends are led through 
 the bath, and attached to the opposite drum,, 
 which is then set revolving. I described this 
 process in " Candle-Land " when dealing with 
 the taper-making department; but it is an> 
 ingenious operation, and pretty to watch, and 
 will bear repetition. On coming out of the- 
 bath each taper runs through holes drilled in 
 a steel plate, which removes the superfluous 
 material, and also serves to press and bind the 
 strands comprising it firmly together. When 
 the carrying drum is quite unwound, the 
 process is reversed, and this is repeated four or 
 five times. The taper is then firm, hard, white, 
 and shiny, as you see it in an ordinary wax- 
 match, and is reeled off on to smaller drums 
 ready for the cutting machines. 
 
 These "cutters" are small and compact 
 affairs, with a complicated motion, being:
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 195 
 
 interesting to watch, and ingenious withal. 
 Into the back the ends of the tapers are fed in 
 a straight line from the reels. I didn't count 
 them, but I should judge that there must be 
 upwards of a hundred. The machines are 
 steam-driven, and are operated by women, who 
 sit before them with one foot on a controlling 
 brake. 
 
 The frames for receiving the matches are 
 simple yet ingenious contrivances, which tend 
 to make the subsequent operations wonderfully 
 expeditious and compact. As the illustration 
 shows, they are merely stout, oblong frames. 
 The sides are rounded, and the cross-laths, 
 which are constructed to slide up and down, 
 are gathered up in the operative's hand, when 
 she introduces a frame into the machine. The 
 laths are lined with felt, and when the brake is 
 released the machine throws the row of tapers 
 forwards with one movement, cuts off the 
 required lengths in the second, after the 
 operative has released a lath which drops down 
 on to them and holds them in their places, the 
 whole frame dropping level for the next filling 
 in the third. And so the process goes on, a 
 lath being dropped after each cutting.
 
 196 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 There are about sixty laths to a frame, which 
 will thus contain when full between five and 
 six thousand matches ready to have their 
 business ends attached ; and when the last fill 
 has been made, the top bar is fitted on and 
 screwed down tight by a couple of thumb- 
 screws, after the manner of the primitive and 
 patent trouser-stretcher, to hold the contents 
 securely in place, an operation in which the 
 felt linings materially assist. Female labour is 
 extensively used in Match-Land, and these 
 machines are worked by women, who will fill 
 as many as two hundred and fifty frames in a 
 day. 
 
 Three or four hand-machines were also at work 
 filling frames with considerably more noise and 
 bustle than their steam rivals. They filled 
 them with matches as well, and the process is 
 identically the same, except in the matter of 
 driving power. My guide called them "hand- 
 machines," though, as a matter of precision, 
 they are worked by treadle on the sewing- 
 machine principle. 
 
 The frames, being filled, are carried away to 
 be dipped, and before taking up this process I 
 may as well show you how the wooden matches,
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 197 
 
 either common or safeties, arrive at the same 
 satisfactory stage, although the work is carried 
 on in another building. 
 
 The splints, cut and made into bundles as T 
 have explained, are dipped into a bath of melted 
 paraffin and resin, and are then taken to filling 
 machines bigger and stronger than those 
 employed in the wax-match making, and with 
 
 FRAME FILLED WITH WAX MATCHES. 
 
 deep troughs set at the top, into which the 
 supplies of splints are fed in lieu of being 
 unwound from reels at the back. Wooden 
 splints wouldn't unwind satisfactorily, so they 
 have to vary the programme somewhat to 
 meet the prejudice these inanimate objects so 
 frequently display and persist in. They are 
 shaken down the groove, and, finding their 
 level, are thrust forward into the frames by a 
 row of metal bars, which, moving automatically,
 
 198 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 push, them well forward into the frames. The 
 laths grasp them in the centre instead of at 
 the end, and present even rows of gleaming 
 white pegs on both sides. There is a beautiful 
 economy in this the economy of labour and 
 time which serves to make two matches in 
 the place of one; for, being dipped on each 
 side, the fillers gather them into a bundle 
 and sever them in the centre by a lever 
 knife attached to their bench, and fill each 
 two boxes. 
 
 And now to return to the dipping. The 
 composition first has to be made, and this is 
 done in a contrivance like an exaggerated 
 saucepan. For the ordinary match composition, 
 glue is melted up with chlorate of potash, 
 phosphorus, and dead matter mostly ground 
 glass. There is taste in matches, as well as in 
 everything else, and to satisfy the artistic 
 prejudices of the customers aniline dye must 
 be added. Personally, I am impartial in this 
 matter, and would as soon light my pipe with 
 a blue match as a green one ; but others are 
 more particular, I was somewhat surprised to 
 learn, and blues, browns, and reds are specially 
 prepared to meet every particular fancy. The
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 199 
 
 <lead matter is added to make bulk, and also to 
 put a brake on the active lighting principle, the 
 potash and phosphorus, which, without its 
 gentle restraint, would flare and exhaust itself 
 when ignited without catching the stick. The 
 ;glue holds the mass together, and also enables 
 ihe composition to attach itself quickly and 
 iirmly in the dipping process. 
 
 They were stirring in phosphorus when I 
 appeared on the scene, and out of a tin just 
 opened I think I explained that it comes into 
 Match-Land in rounded sticks soldered up in 
 water in ten-pound tins my guide handed me 
 a sample. 
 
 " If the room was warmer," he remarked, 
 casually, as I turned it over and smelt at it, 
 " it would flare away in your hand." 
 
 I hastened to replace it then, and went to 
 look at something else. They might be wanting 
 to use it, I reflected ; and besides, our climate 
 is very uncertain and changeable. 
 
 The composition being duly mixed and 
 stirred up to a proper consistency is taken 
 away to the dipping-rooms. A smooth iron 
 bed-plate, which is kept heated by water and a 
 gas jet underneath, represents the stone in the
 
 200 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 sort of lithographing process that is adopted to- 
 fit the matches for a useful as well as an 
 ornamental career. The composition which is. 
 spread over it the table I mean, not the career 
 may be similarly likened to the printer's ink. 
 It is smoothed out by a knife arrangement to a 
 thin, even surface, and it is curious to note how 
 the particles that become detached and dry will 
 snap and flare when the blade touches them.. 
 The workman then takes a frame in hand, and 
 lays it flat down on the composition, and when 
 he removes it again the matches are finished.. 
 In the case of the splints, the frames are left 
 for a few minutes for the composition to set,, 
 when they are turned over and similarly treated 
 on the other side. 
 
 From the dipping-room the frames are taken, 
 away and lodged in racks in a series of" 
 chambers that would offer the chronic weather 
 grumbler just the thing he requires in the way 
 of an adjustable climate. They are fitted withi 
 steam-pipes and immense steam-driven fans, and 
 the temperature can be, and has to be, regulated 
 in opposition to the weather that maintains, 
 without. Damp spoils matches, you will be- 
 interested to learn, and so does undue heat. By/
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 
 
 201 
 
 means of fans and 
 pipes they can blow 
 hot and cold at the 
 same time in these 
 rooms, which is con- 
 sidered rather a 
 shady thing in a 
 man, but is excusable in a drying-room. 
 
 It was pleasantly cool when I,went into one
 
 202 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 -after the heat of the dipping-room; but I 
 gathered that it could be made unpleasantly 
 warm, if occasion required, with equal facility. 
 
 After being dried, the frames, in the case of 
 wax matches, are taken into a long and lofty 
 Toom, with long benches fitted up and down 
 the centre and round the walls. Before these 
 benches girls and women stand working 
 unceasingly, filling the boxes which lie in a 
 heap by their side. They work very rapidly, 
 the matches, loosened in the frames previously, 
 being taken out and boxed in two movements. 
 They are filled in with the heads pointing both 
 ways to make them set evenly, otherwise they 
 would bunch up and you wouldn't get enough 
 for your money, and a long tin blade is laid 
 -over them and the cover is slipped on. This 
 facilitates operations, and saves time and loss 
 by accidental ignition. Even as it was, an 
 occasional box would flare up during the 
 filling, and be set on one side to burn itself 
 out, and be counted in with the bad debts of 
 the firm. 
 
 I never saw such a place for matches. You 
 brush them off the benches with your coat as 
 you turn round, and they explode unexpectedly
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 203 
 
 under your feet and make you jump as you 
 walk about the room. 
 
 The boxes vary greatly in size and shape, 
 a,nd range from little pill-box-shaped affairs 
 that are very popular in the Australian market, 
 to broad and lengthy tin cases that almost 
 require a hand-bag to transport them. Many 
 of them are boxed for special customers, 
 who have their own labels affixed for adver- 
 tising and other purposes that are sufficiently 
 obvious. 
 
 And then the boxes are made into dozen 
 parcels, and are taken away to the packing 
 rooms for the last stage of all. Being perish- 
 able articles, the cases for export have to be 
 metal-lined, and the contents soldered down to 
 withstand the friendly overtures of the sad salt 
 waves and damp atmospheres. 
 
 It was while viewing the packing operations 
 that I discovered the mystery of the safety 
 match, and the reason for its exclusiveness in 
 the matter of only igniting on the box. It is 
 this. The igniting principle of matches is the 
 admixture of phosphorus and chlorate of 
 potash, as I have already explained. Well, 
 they make up the composition without the
 
 204 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 former ingredient, and incorporate it instead in 
 the black strip outside the boxes. There is no- 
 fraud in this, though it is a bit artful, because 
 they give you the box and the contents for 
 the one cost; and if you like to carry your 
 matches loose in one pocket and leave the 
 box at home behind the door in another,, 
 that is, of course, your matter, and one that 
 the proprietors of Match-Land cannot reason- 
 ably be expected to hold themselves responsible 
 for. 
 
 In the next department I came upon a very 
 interesting operation, and withal a melancholy 
 spectacle. The manufacture of braided-lights 
 was the operation, and dozens of machines 
 standing idle in rust and dust and decay 
 contributed the dismal element. A decaying 
 industry is always a melancholy spectacle,. 
 and the match-makers have much to complain 
 of in this direction. In the case of the- 
 braided-lights at one time a very popular 
 article with smokers, but now neglected 
 and despised, and dubbed " stinkers "" 
 in society that is not polite prejudice has. 
 turned against them and they are considered 
 bad form, so that where one box is used now-
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 
 
 205 
 
 IN THE DKIING BOOM. 
 
 adays a hundred would have been required in 
 .years that have not long gone by.
 
 206 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 The importation of cheap foreign matches, 
 too, is dead against the well-being of Match- 
 Land. From what I had seen I could readily 
 understand that a retail price of three-halfpence 
 a dozen puts a very serious obstacle in the path 
 of the British producers. My guide spoke 
 mildly and with gentle forbearance on the 
 subject; but I was indignant, and just for 
 once I trotted out my latent stock of patriotic 
 fervour and gave it an airing. 
 
 "It is scandalous," I remarked, sweeping 
 away Mr. Mountain's attempts at pacific 
 explanation and a pile of matches standing 
 on the table near by with a gesture of indig- 
 nation as the monstrous nature of the whole 
 thing spread itself out before me. " We are- 
 being ruined by Continental cheap labour and 
 the Government wrangle over Ireland and 
 music-hall promenades and such-like things, 
 while the British workman is being forced into 
 the gutter and the steak pudding is taken out 
 of his mouth and the bread of charity is 
 substituted in minute wedges in its place." 
 
 In my excited contemplation of this crying 
 injustice I raised my temperature to a some- 
 what uncomfortable degree and, in pulling out.
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 207 
 
 a handkerchief to mop my brow, chanced to 
 dislodge with it a box of matches that I 
 usually carry with me in case of fogs. It 
 eluded my grasp and rolled under the feet of 
 my guide, who picked it up and handed it back 
 to me with a smile that was half amused and 
 half thoughtful. The box said they were 
 " made in Flanders," and arranged its position 
 so that all who walked by slowly should know 
 it. 
 
 "It is not altogether the fault of the 
 Government," he remarked, briefly, and I, 
 losing my interest in political economy, 
 hastened to inspect the processes going on 
 around me. 
 
 Braided-lights are familiar to every one r 
 with their rounded sticks and plaiting of 
 gaily-coloured cotton and exaggerated tops. 
 The thin circular rods come over in bundles 
 from Germany in forty-inch white, pliant, and 
 shapely lengths. At a row of plaiting machines, 
 which work with a terrific rattle and noise, a 
 number of women stand and feed them one by 
 one upwards through a hole drilled in the steel 
 bed-plate. 
 
 The bobbins that you see are filled with the
 
 208 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 thin yellow cotton from big reels by a machine 
 standing at the back of the "plaiters," and 
 the wire that runs up the sides of the stems 
 are similarly wound on small bobbins and are 
 set underneath the machine. It is a continuous 
 process, the various strands being connected to 
 a new supply as each bobbin becomes exhausted 
 while the rod is automatically lifted as the 
 plaiting progresses, and is followed closely by 
 another before it leaves the machine to be 
 coiled up on a huge drum above. 
 
 "Why are they wired?" I ventured to 
 inquire of my guide, and by the exercise of 
 much mental effort the observant reader will 
 detect a subtle jokelet in the question. 
 
 (f To hold the head in its place while burn- 
 ing," was the reply, and being satisfied thereat, 
 I watched the rods in one continuous length of 
 wood, wire, and cotton being passed through a 
 solution of gum to keep the plaiting from 
 unravelling when they are divided into their 
 proper sections again. They are then cut into 
 two-match lengths the same as the ordinary 
 variety and are dipped in three processes. 
 They are dipped in composition as well the 
 first two in a mixture of potash, saltpetre,
 
 IN MATCH-LAND. 
 
 209 
 
 PLAITING IN BRAIDED-LIGHT8 BOOM 
 
 charcoal, and some peculiar incense that con- 
 tributes the te smelly " element so noticeable 
 
 14
 
 210 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 when they are ignited in a close railway- 
 carriage, and the third in phosphorus, which 
 completes the operation. It likewise concluded 
 my observations as far as this particular 
 industry was concerned, so, thanking my guide 
 for his kind attention, I gathered up my over- 
 coat and umbrella, and wandered forth into 
 the mud.
 
 IN BUBBEB-LAND. 
 
 FOUND Rubber-Land 
 at the close of one 
 bright but chilly 
 afternoon in March 
 though, of course, it 
 may have been there 
 before then in a 
 quiet street turning 
 out of the Burdett 
 Road, and situated 
 within a few minutes' 
 walk of the station on 
 the Great Eastern Rail- 
 way bearing that name. 
 
 Candidly, I was disappointed with its appear- 
 ance at the outset. There seemed to be nothing 
 of promise contained in the long low block of 
 'buildings, with the staring rows of flat windows
 
 212 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING. 
 
 and the dingy colouring that had once been- 
 white, with the inscription, 
 
 ABBOTT, ANDERSON, AND ABBOTT, 
 
 in huge letters showing blackly against it, to 
 give indication of the plant and premises 
 extending backwards in a square block and 
 built in on every side with houses and manu- 
 facturing premises. 
 
 Dod Street, Limehouse, is certainly not a 
 place for the poet to dwell upon, and it didn't 
 strike me as a locality at all suitable for this 
 particular scribe to dwell in ; for mere exploring 
 purposes, however, I resolved to let it serve, and 
 went into Rubber-Land by a side door to investi- 
 gate its mysteries, and to shed the light of my 
 presence over the inhabitants, just by way of a 
 treat for them. 
 
 I am glad that my better nature triumphed 
 in this matter, because they were so genuinely 
 pleased to see me, and so courteously attentive,, 
 that I would have gone into a backyard and 
 praised the dust-bin and admired the water- 
 barrel just to reciprocate. But they really had 
 something to show me, and by the time I 
 reached the street again I had no feelings but
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 218 
 
 those of the completest gratification and 
 admiration, save, perhaps, a stray pang of 
 hunger that betokened the passing of my usual 
 Jiour for tea. 
 
 Mr. Jackson generously took upon his 
 shoulders the onerous task of guiding me 
 round, and playing the limelight upon my 
 ignorance regarding the processes by which 
 rubber and Cloth are amalgamated into a 
 damp-defying article. 
 
 As he steered me past packing-tables and 
 huge bales of cloth and finished garments, ho 
 made clear to me the nature and extent of 
 Messrs. Abbott, Anderson, and Abbott's opera- 
 tions, which are about equally divided between 
 every and any variety of mackintosh article and 
 oilskins. The last comprises sailors' and 
 fishermen's garments against the overtures of 
 the elements "when the stormy winds do 
 blow-ow-ow," and policemen's capes and 
 leggings, and 'bus-drivers' aprons, the firm 
 having standing contracts with the City and 
 Metropolitan Police authorities, and several of 
 the 'bus and tramway companies for the supply 
 of the latter items. "No," said my guide, in 
 answer to my query, " we do not do much in
 
 214 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 the way of manufacturing mechanical articles.. 
 Tubing ? Oh, yes, we make tubing and water- 
 bottles, and water-beds and that kind of thing ; 
 but oilskins and mackintoshes are our 
 specialities." 
 
 "Lead on, McDuff, I follow," said I, 
 grasping my pencil, with the light of grim 
 determination in my eyes. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said my guide,, 
 politely, turning. 
 
 " It is granted," I observed. " Begin at the 
 beginning, please, and don't be technical." 
 
 My ideal factory is plenty of noise, plenty of 
 smell, and plenty of wheels ; and two minutes 
 later I realised it, which is a thing we are 
 popularly supposed never to be able to do. 
 
 The rubber comes into Rubber-Land direct 
 from the docks, which are conveniently situated 
 barely half-a-mile away, in the shape of Dutch 
 cheeses, packed in big oblong cases. It is 
 curious and most unpromising looking stuff, 
 and is obtained from Africa and Brazil. I 
 expect that is why they call it indiarubber. 
 That obtained from Para, I gathered, is the best 
 quality of rubber in use. 
 
 The natives give it the Dutch cheese form by
 
 IN BUBBER-LAND. 215 
 
 a continual dipping process that builds it up in 
 thin layers, and it is possible to follow the 
 process by obtaining a section and separating 
 these layers, which spread out over the fingers 
 like a thin, transparent skin. 
 
 The crude rubber is stored away as it is- 
 received in big underground cellars until 
 required for use. 
 
 The first process consists in boiling it in a 
 large, open, steam-heated tank for several 
 hours, in order to soften it, after which it goes 
 through a set of horizontal rollers, with scored 
 surfaces, and such a terrible crushing power 
 that the contemplation of them at work made 
 me shiver. The rubber is too hot to comfortably 
 hold after it has passed through them and 
 emerged underneath, no longer cheese-shaped, 
 but in a long, thin sheet, despite the -fact that 
 taps overhead pour a continuous supply of cold 
 water upon it during the operation to keep the 
 temperature down, and also to wash it the 
 rubber I mean, not the temperature. I thought 
 the water was hot at first, seeing the steam 
 rising in a cloud above the machine, and I 
 covertly put my hand under it, to see if they 
 hadn't made some mistake, even after I had been
 
 216 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 assured that it was not. But there was no 
 deception, it was cold. It ran up my arm and 
 wetted my undergarments, and impressed the 
 fact upon me for the remainder of the 
 afternoon. 
 
 The men sta"nd by the machine and gather 
 the sheet up, and break it off in sections and 
 throw it back between the rollers until it has 
 been thoroughly cleansed, and it is astonishing 
 what a lot it makes of itself under this treat- 
 ment. It seemed as though it would go on rolling 
 out yard after yard of sheet from one little sup- 
 ply, and swarm over the room, and gather us all 
 up in its warm and moist embrace, and bury 
 us out of sight, so that they would have to come 
 and dig us out with pickaxes and dynamite, and 
 bury us cheaply and unostentatiously out behind 
 the naphtha-house, with perhaps a stained-glass 
 window to commemorate the tragedy, in the 
 frame overlooking the yard, and a tablet under- 
 neath inscribed with all our names, and the fact 
 that " here perished the only original explorer 
 out of Africa, and his trusty guide, victims to a 
 compound of duty and indiarubber." 
 
 Having got it into nicely-patterned sheets, in 
 the innocence of my heart I imagined that there
 
 IN EUBBEE-LAND. 
 
 217 
 
 was'nothing left to be done but to fix it on to the 
 cloth and send it out. 
 
 \ 
 
 CRUSHING MACHINE. 
 
 I made some such statement to Mr. Jackson, 
 who laughed frankly.
 
 218 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 "How would you fasten it on?" lie 
 queried. 
 
 " Tin-tack it, perhaps," I hazarded. 
 "Why not gum and safety pins?" he 
 retorted. 
 
 As a matter of fact, I discovered, so far from 
 being finished, the treatment had hardly com- 
 menced. The three sets of horizontal rollers 
 through which the rubber has been passed and 
 repassed have brought it into a condition to be 
 taken into a steam-heated chamber a stuffy 
 and smelly apartment, heated up to ninety 
 degrees where the long, black, and leathery- 
 looking sheets are slung over rods near the roof, 
 and left to dry. 
 
 This being satisfactorily accomplished, they 
 are taken down and away to a curious machine 
 termed a " masticator." This is an iron box of 
 immense strength, set horizontally, and having 
 a curved ribbed roller revolving within, with 
 only the space of a few inches between the 
 inner walls and the roller. An oblong opening 
 on one side serves to admit the material, and 
 this is covered, when the " masticator " is fully 
 charged, by a grating of thick steel bars, made 
 in three section?, which drop down and are
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 219 
 
 primitively and securely locked in their place 
 by metal wedges. 
 
 At first the traps stand open, and the rubber 
 sheets are doubled up and thrown in, where 
 they are caught up by the roller and carried 
 round slowly, and forced into an oblong ball 
 again. Then as the supply is added to, first 
 one trap is closed and then another, and, with 
 a pressure of many tons upon it, the huge mass,, 
 creaking and groaning and smoking hot from 
 the friction, is carried round and round for three 
 hours, by which time it is thoroughly kneaded 
 together in one hard, solid, oval ball. 
 Rubber is a stubborn substance, and even 
 this treatment does not quite suffice to bend it 
 to the will of those who have its manipulation 
 under control, so they take it in hand once 
 more, and place it between a pair of horizontal 
 rollers, similar to those in which the first 
 operations were effected, except that they are 
 made of chilled steel, and are smooth and 
 highly polished on the surface. These rollers 
 all work towards each other, so that the opera- 
 tives have merely to feed the supply in between 
 them, and to gather the sheets from under- 
 neath as they emerge, and throw them back
 
 220 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 until they are in fit condition for further 
 treatment. 
 
 Up to now the rubber is a solid substance, 
 and all this treatment has been necessary in 
 order to soften and prepare it in thin sheets to 
 readily absorb the naphtha that is to convert it 
 into what my guide termed " dough," and what 
 I mentally dubbed a sticky-looking mess. 
 
 Naphtha is a dangerous commodity, and, in 
 consequence, the wise old grandmothers who 
 so carefully attend to our morals and our 
 manners, our lives and our liberties, have 
 enacted that any process involving its use must 
 not be carried on within so many feet of the 
 main factory. Accordingly we had a pleasant 
 little stroll around to the unpretentious building 
 where the rubber sheets are steeped in a number 
 of shallow metal cans, in the process known in 
 Rubber-Land as " soaking down." 
 
 Naphtha and rubber are put into a bath, in 
 -due and just proportions, which is covered 
 with a closely-fitting lid. Ever and anon a 
 man will come and stir the gluey-looking mess 
 about with a pitchfork affair, just to see how 
 it is getting on. Then there comes a time 
 when they find that it has " got on " sufficiently
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 221 
 
 for their needs, and the " dough " is ready for 
 use. It does resemble dough in its consistency,. 
 
 THE MASTICATOR. 
 
 though it is of a deep black colour and redolent 
 of naphtha and warmed-up goloshes.
 
 222 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 There is a comic element in its subsequent 
 treatment that appealed to me. It called up a. 
 suggestive sling-me-and-I'll-stick-tighter-than- 
 wax sort of feeling, that impelled me to wish 
 that I had some object of private detestation 
 around, that I might gather me a handful and 
 heave it at him. It is very wrong, I know, but 
 some things do affect you like that. The 
 gentlemen and ladies down Whitechapel and 
 "Shadwell way experience the same sort of feel- 
 ing with peas-pudding ; they can't help it ; it 
 is something in their temperaments against 
 which it is useless for them to strive, and the 
 pathetically hopeless look they will cast at you, 
 along with a liberal supply of the dainty com- 
 pound, should you happen to be strolling their 
 way in a tall hat and a decent coat, has a 
 "tendency to make you feel wretched. It is 
 chiefly on that account that I never go their 
 way on peas-pudding nights, which are usually 
 Mondays and Fridays. Appropriately enough, 
 the " dough " is treated in " dough machines," 
 a series of smooth steel rollers that revolve in 
 opposite directions, and pass under metal knife- 
 shaped blades, that are adjusted byhandscrews 
 above them. Working the "dough" is cer-
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 223 
 
 Mainly a messy operation, since the men have 
 "to handle it continually, though a pail of water 
 set at hand, into which they ever and anon dip 
 their fingers, prevents its loving attachment 
 'becoming too embarrassing. 
 
 The " dough " is removed from the cans in 
 ~which it is brought from the naphtha-house, and 
 is laid between the rollers. Adhering to these, 
 it is carried round, and scraped off by the knife 
 previously mentioned. There it accumulates, 
 until the men come round, and scoop it away 
 'with their fingers, and either throw it back 
 between the rollers or into a metal can ready 
 for its reception. This operation is to absorb 
 ihe naphtha, as I gathered from Mr. Davis, the 
 foreman, whose kindness in spending a great 
 portion of his time in making me familiar with 
 the technicalities of the machines and rubber- 
 treating processes I must in justice acknow- 
 ledge. Surely never was explorer so thoroughly 
 served before ! He and my guide took me in 
 hand between them, and hammered the facts 
 into me, thus leaving me nothing to do but to 
 -add a little colouring, to make them pretty 
 but which will involve you in no extra expense 
 and give them out again.
 
 224 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 A similar set of rollers, working on the same 
 principle, is used to incorporate the colouring 
 matter, which is put in dry with the " dough," 
 and thoroughly mixed up in the operation. 
 
 There were metal -lined stock -boxes of 
 coloured " dough" standing about, all closely 
 covered, and a removal of the lids revealed to 
 me the aesthetic bliss wrapped up in the fact of 
 being able to obtain a mackintosh rubbered to 
 suit the complexion, blue, brown, white, or just 
 a common black. 
 
 Whatever the colour, the " dough " is then 
 transferred from the stock-boxes to a vertical 
 drum, into the bottom of which a metal per- 
 forated plate is fitted, to form a sort of a 
 colander, and the contents are squeezed through 
 it forcibly by a piston-rod, actuated by a screw 
 and wheel, into cans set underneath. And in 
 these cans it is transferred to the regions above,, 
 to be practically utilised in the manner that I 
 will presently detail. 
 
 Before leaving this building, I may mention 
 that a comparatively small proportion of rubber 
 is steeped to a thinner consistency than the 
 "dough," and is subsequently churned in an or- 
 dinary steam dough-mixing machine a square
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 
 
 225 
 
 A MIXING MACHINE. 
 
 box with four curved blades revolving in reverse 
 directions within. It comes out as much like 
 
 15
 
 226 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 treacle as anything, and is used for sticking the 
 garments together and great is the " stick " 
 thereof. Fairly put on and pressed, you can as 
 readily tear the stuff as drag the united sur- 
 faces apart when joined up by this means, and 
 it has other obvious advantages over machine 
 or hand stitching. There is, in fact, no sewing 
 in mackintoshes except in the buttonholing. 
 
 "And now we'll go upstairs," remarked my 
 guide, and upstairs we went, finding a con- 
 Tenient flight set outside the door, in the open, 
 which was a handy arrangement as far as 
 interior economy of space was concerned, 
 though it would have its drawbacks for or- 
 dinary domestic use. I went up twice. I went 
 up the first time because I wanted to get to the 
 top and see what there was to see, and I went 
 up the second time because, in my haste and 
 anxiety, I dropped ray notebook over the balus- 
 trade, and had to go down again to recover it. 
 
 I got up, bag and baggage, eventually, and 
 stood in a spacious chamber, the floor of which 
 was mainly occupied by four broad metal tables ; 
 and it was here, I gathered, that the cloth is 
 brought to have its damp-resisting qualities 
 added. The smearing process is still adhered
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 227 
 
 to in "proofing" the cloth, and indeed, the 
 gluey rubber renders that treatment most 
 natural. 
 
 The tables are oblong-shaped contrivances, 
 and are heated from below by steam pipes to a 
 temperature that would not induce you, should 
 you inadvertently perch yourself on one to rest 
 and meditate, to linger there any longer than 
 necessary. Indeed, on the bleak afternoon that 
 I made my inspection, the room itself was so hot 
 and oppressive with the fumes of the naphtha 
 that I was jolly glad to get outside again. 
 
 At the head of the table an arrangement of 
 rollers is seen, as the illustration shows. The 
 cloth, which is wound on to spindles for treat- 
 ment, is set in the front rather below the bed, 
 and is led away through big rubber-faced 
 rollers, over the table and back underneath, 
 where another spindle gathers it up again. 
 
 Just behind the operatives, zinc-lined stock- 
 "boxes are fitted to contain the " dough," which 
 is maintained in the soft, gluey consistency in 
 which it comes up by wet rags that prevent 
 the naphtha evaporating. A knife, similar to 
 those on the dough-making machines down- 
 stairs, is set over the rollers, and the distance
 
 228 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 between is regulated by hand-screws, so that 
 they can obtain any thickness of rubber on the 
 cloth that may be deemed necessary. Two ad- 
 justable pieces of metal are set at the sides 
 in the same way, to keep the rubber from 
 spreading. A liberal supply of " dough" is then 
 taken from the chest, and smeared along the 
 cloth at the base of the knife, and the machine 
 is started. 
 
 The inexperienced " dough " chuckles at 
 first to think what a time it is going to have. 
 It sees all sorts of possibilities of rambling 
 round that table, and messing up the floor, and 
 clogging the wheels, and spoiling the men's 
 work. Its mirth is of short duration, how- 
 ever, for immediately the cloth begins to travel 
 it is carried up against the knife, and the 
 portion that does manage to get through covers 
 the cloth with a thin, even sheet of rubber. 
 The heated table evaporates the naphtha during 
 the journey across it, and when the end of the 
 roll is reached the knife is lifted and the cloth 
 is wound back and the process is repeated over 
 again. The number of coatings given is regu- 
 lated by the service the cloth is to be put to, 
 the ordinary mackintosh cloth requiring six.
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 
 
 229 
 
 PROOFING THE CLOTH. 
 
 Precisely how many treatments shall he given 
 is determined by weight, there being a regula- 
 tion standard for the various classes of goods.
 
 230 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 If made up into garments without any 
 further treatment, the rubber would rot witli 
 the action of the weather, so a sort of setting 
 process has to be gone through, which is termed 
 "vulcanising." This is effected by heat, or by 
 sulphur, and to witness these operations, I left 
 the building, and traversed a light staging that 
 runs round on a level with it to an adjoining 
 block. 
 
 Dante's Inferno was suggested to me while 
 making my inspection, that is, if you can 
 imagine a sort of domestic Inferno constructed 
 out of connected chambers, with heavy, lead- 
 lined double doors, which meet in the centre 
 and are screwed up from outside. On the floor 
 a number of pans for burning the sulphur in 
 are dotted about, each with its gas jet under it 
 supplied by rubber tubing from pipes down 
 the sides. The cloth is suspended from bars 
 set across the top, and when the chamber is 
 full it becomes somebody's unpleasant lot to 
 set light to the gas and get out without any 
 unnecessary delay. There seemed so much 
 possibility for a few first-class tragedies here 
 that I experienced quite a thrill of anticipatory 
 horror as I remarked, carelessly, so as not to
 
 IN RUBBEK-LAND. 231 
 
 allow my eagerness for sensational " copy " to- 
 become too apparent : " I suppose you very 
 frequently lose a man or two in there ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " rejoined my guide, cheerfully. 
 
 " Not one ? " I asked, disappointedly, feeling 
 that I had been defrauded somehow in the 
 matter-of-fact denial. " Not even a little one 
 a boy, perhaps? " 
 
 Mr. Jackson shook his head. He evidently 
 sympathised with my disappointment; but, with 
 George Washington's record before him, he 
 could not strain a point, even to accommodate 
 me. 
 
 "Ah, well," I sighed, resignedly, resolving 
 to let the tragedy go ; " but I suppose there 
 have been many narrow escapes overcome 
 with the fumes man rushes in daring rescue 
 and aU that sort of thing? " 
 
 " No ; oh, no ; not at all ! " said my guide, 
 conclusively, and I had to give way. I 
 was more than disappointed, though ; I was 
 vexed; there seemed enough possibilities in 
 the thing to construct an Adelphi melodrama 
 from. 
 
 In an adjoining chamber I witnessed the 
 " dry-cure " method of vulcanising being
 
 232 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 carried on in a huge wooden, metal-lined 
 compartment that is filled with rollers and 
 heated by steam to two hundred and fifty 
 degrees. A miniature engine works these 
 rollers, and the cloth is let through a long, 
 narrow slit from the rollers outside, and sent 
 on a devious journey that occupies an hour and 
 a-half before it emerges again overhead to be 
 wound up on another spindle. Here, too, a 
 man has occasionally to crawl in to repair a 
 breakdown. The idea of groping one's way 
 into that dismal box among hundreds of yards 
 of cloth in such a temperature, heavily charged 
 with sulphurous fumes into the bargain, gave 
 me the horrors ; but there were no casualties to 
 report. 
 
 "What does it suggest?" I queried of the 
 man in charge, hoping to draw him. 
 
 "It suggests getting out again as soon as 
 possible, sir," he replied, laconically. It is a 
 reasonable suggestion, too, when you come to 
 think of it. 
 
 After this the cloth is taken away and 
 doubled. Two lengths of cloth meet together 
 between heavy steel rollers, and the rubber sur- 
 faces unite of their own accord, assisted thereto
 
 IN RUBBEK-LAND. 
 
 233 
 
 by the persuasive pressure that is put upon 
 them. And then it goes up to the cutting and 
 
 THE TUBING MACHINE. 
 
 making departments, where feminine labour 
 transforms it into mackintoshes, and capes,
 
 234 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 and other dress items so serviceable in our 
 inoist and uncertain climate. 
 
 I spent half-an-hour or so in the making-up- 
 rooms, in which dexterity of hand-work was 
 apparent, and the rattle and noise of countless 
 machines was unpleasantly obtrusive. I also 
 explored the oilskin buildings ; but there was 
 nothing much to record. It is smelly and very 
 messy, the garments being made of cotton or 
 linen, rubbed over continuously with oil until 
 sufficient is absorbed, and again when they are 
 made up. They are then sweated in heated 
 chambers, and are varnished, and ready for the 
 road, the river, or the sea, according to their 
 nature. 
 
 "It is very messy and rather unsavoury 
 work," said I to my guide. 
 
 " It is well paid," said he. 
 
 "It ought to be," said I. "I should want 
 something considerable myself before I con- 
 sented to veil my identity in oil, so that my 
 friends and acquaintances would be unable to 
 distinguish which was me and which was- 
 linseed." 
 
 One curious little construction I passed, on, 
 my way out of Eubber-Land, in the shape of a
 
 IN RUBBER-LAND. 235 
 
 sausage-machine sort of affair, in which rubber 
 tubing is made. Dry rubber, worked soft, is 
 introduced on top, and the tubing flows out 
 at the end in a continuous coil that, like 
 Tennyson's famous brook, flows on for ever, as 
 long as material is given it. 
 
 The shades of eve had done falling when I 
 reached this last stage of my explorings, and 
 the stars and the gas lamps were twinkling in 
 their respective twinkling places, so I thanked 
 Mr. Jackson for rendering my visit to Rubber- 
 Land so pleasant and profitable, and wended 
 my way to the railway station.
 
 WIKE-LAND. 
 
 AKE a ticket to the 
 West India Dock 
 Station/' said Mr. 
 Pelham Bullivant 
 to me, on the me- 
 morable morning 
 that I set out to 
 explore Wire-Land, 
 at the close of a brief interview during which 
 I duly made my wishes known unto him. 
 " There's a 'bus running from there which 
 will set you down at our gates." 
 
 And I thanked him and withdrew ; and I 
 took (the ticket and the 'bus or, rather, the 
 'bus took me and was shortly after come unto 
 the Isle of Dogs. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert's famous admiral, who never ran 
 a ship ashore, evidently doesn't live down 
 Millwall way. There they seem to have been 
 practising that kind of sport in their spare half-
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 237 
 
 hours, and the result is picturesque but not alto- 
 gether pleasing. It lacks dignity, to my mind. 
 As a rule, you associate steamships with heav- 
 ing, white-crested waves and blustrous winds 
 with the "i" accentuated, please and the 
 poetic mind receives a shock when it sees an 
 imposing specimen of Neptune's playmates 
 endeavouring to poke out a coffee-shop pro- 
 prietor's bedroom window with her bowsprit, 
 over a tarred fence which separates her from 
 the traffic in the street, and prevents her from 
 climbing up over the roadway and getting 
 under the horses' feet and hindering them 
 from their lawful business. It is not in 
 keeping with the fitness of things, I think. 
 However, I had not travelled down purposely 
 to regenerate Millwall, so I held my peace 
 while the dirty little 'bus jolted me roughly 
 through long and dingy thoroughfares, and 
 carried me over bridges constructed above 
 lock-gates, until I was thankful when the time 
 came for me to deliver up my penny through a 
 hole in the roof, through which the driver's 
 hand protruded, and alight on the threshold 
 of Wire-Land. 
 
 I knew it for Wire-Land though the gates
 
 238 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 "bore the brass-lettered statement, " Bullivants," 
 and I went inside and presented my credentials. 
 
 In due course a gentleman came round to me 
 and announced that he was Mr. Selby, and that 
 he was at my service. 
 
 I told him then my intention and purpose, 
 and added a fancy outline sketch concerning 
 the depth and extent of my remorse at so 
 victimising him. 
 
 He said he was pretty robust and calculated 
 that he should survive it, and seeing him take 
 the matter thus lightly I resolved to go ahead, 
 nor let any sentiment of pity hinder me from 
 doing my duty to the British public. 
 
 The operations in Wire-Land comprise the 
 manufacture of any and every variety of wire 
 ropes, wire netting, and torpedo - nets, and 
 appliances for working in conjunction with 
 them. 
 
 The ropes are used for manifold purposes, 
 and are of all sorts, shapes, and sizes, varying 
 from a pliable hemp- covered line which cannot 
 be readily distinguished from an ordinary rope 
 up to cables six or eight inches in diameter for 
 working tramways and lifts, and hawsers for 
 towing purposes.
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 239 
 
 In view of the fact that Messrs. Bullivant 
 and Co. are the largest manufacturers of their 
 kind in the world, I need hardly state that 
 Wire-Land covers an immense tract of ground 
 which stretches back from the main entrance 
 in West Ferry Eoad to the river, where 
 the company has a wharf of its own, with 
 steam-cranes and other appliances for handling 
 the weighty products of their manufacture. 
 Facilities are further afforded in this direction 
 by a complete system of trolley rails which 
 runs throughout the premises and passes into 
 the main buildings. The advantage of this 
 can be estimated when it is considered that a 
 steel cable weighing upwards of thirty tons is 
 not an unusual nor an outside order. 
 
 As most of the manufactured product is 
 shipped away from this wharf, so the bulk of 
 the raw material comes in by the same route, 
 being transferred from lighters on to trolleys 
 in the shape of huge coils of iron and steel 
 wire of various grades, which are first lodged 
 in a series of immense store-rooms. 
 
 It was to these that I was first conducted. 
 Tens of thousands of coils of wire were lying 
 ^around the floor space and stacked up in bins
 
 240 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 round the walls just as it is received from the 
 wire mills away off in distant Lancashire. 
 
 Hemp-rope is also used in Wire-Land, a fact 
 which astonished me somewhat, to form the 
 core of the ropes and cables manufactured. 
 
 My guide did his best to make me dis- 
 criminate between one quality of wire and 
 another ; but it was wasted effort ; my under- 
 standing was strained to the utmost to grasp 
 and retain the fact that ropes could be made of 
 such material at all. A.nd then I was led into 
 the rope-machine shop, a tremendously long 
 building one little machine in it that was 
 packed over against the further wall measured 
 three hundred and eighty feet set over every 
 square inch with the biggest and most marvel- 
 lously complicated machinery that I have ever 
 beheld. Hundreds of men and boys were at 
 work there, and the rattle and clash was simply 
 indescribable. Talking seemed out of the 
 question ; but nevertheless we managed to 
 make ourselves understood, although I don't 
 think this would have been possible if Mr. 
 Selby hadn't had the particular machine we 
 were inspecting stopped while he was explaining 
 its action to me.
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 
 
 241 
 
 ROPEMAKING MACHINE. 
 
 Wire-rope making lias many points in 
 common with the manufacture of ordinary rope. 
 The wire is first of all wound off on to bobbins 
 
 16
 
 242 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING^. 
 
 big iron reels that will weigh when full from- 
 three and four hundredweight to as many tons 
 and are then taken to the stranding or closing 
 machines. 
 
 It seems that it is a vital point not to 
 " throw a turn " into, or twist, the wire when 
 working it, and in consequence it is necessary 
 to swing the bobbins on frames that will 
 always retain their horizontal position even 
 when being spun over at one hundred and 
 thirty revolutions a minute. 
 
 Most of the making machines are long 
 horizontal contrivances which carry from six 
 to twelve bobbins set round an open ironwork 
 cage affair, as the illustration shows better 
 than I can describe. The various strands 
 converge up near the head of the machine, 
 and through the centre the rope core is led. 
 When the machine is started, it lays the wire- 
 round this core in a process very similar to that 
 which I described in rope-making. The rope 
 core is put in for the purpose of pliability, and 
 is previously steeped in oil to preserve it. 
 
 The ingenuity of these mechanical con- 
 trivances is something astonishing, and surprise 
 and admiration struggled within me and gave
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 245 
 
 me a headache unless, perhaps, it was the 
 noise that gave me that as I stood and watched 
 one monster whirling tons of metal round 
 the bobbins alone would account for five so 
 rapidly that I could only see a white gleam 
 where they were situated, though my guide 
 assured me that the operatives could follow 
 each bobbin, and be ready at a moment's notice 
 to stop the machine if a wire should break. 
 And the result of it all is the flexible, beauti- 
 fully woven steel rope that is being coiled 
 slowly upon a big drum at the end of the 
 machine. 
 
 As in rope-making, the after treatment 
 is merely a duplication of process strand 
 within strand to form rope, and rope within 
 rope to form a cable. Grasping this fact, I 
 strayed round and watched the machines and 
 the men at work, and my guide kept me atten- 
 tive company. 
 
 " Cut a wire, there," he would observe to a 
 man in charge, and before I could protest the 
 machine would come to a halt and a wire be 
 parted. In the event of this happening either 
 purposely or by accident, the ends are cut off 
 clean by a pair of powerful nippers, and twisted
 
 244 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 round each other, or tucked, or brazed together, 
 and the machine is started slowly until the 
 spliced portion has run through. The man in 
 charge of the work knew whereabouts in the 
 length of strand being formed that occurred, 
 and so did mj guide, but I didn't, though I 
 felt and examined diligently. 
 
 I came at length to the 380ft. machine that 
 I alluded to a little way back. It is a low, 
 horizontal construction, and has the bobbins 
 set up and down its length at regular intervals, 
 the core coming off the last, counting from the 
 foot. It was not working while I made my 
 inspection, at which fact I was not unduly 
 grieved ; but I could understand and follow its 
 action by which the strands are led along and 
 finally laid around the core, which in this case 
 consists of an already manufactured stout 
 steel rope. A big wheel at the head records 
 the length of the cable as it is wound off, and 
 three thousand fathoms is its average showing 
 for a day's work. 
 
 Another fearful complication of wheels and 
 work was shown me in a " closing " machine 
 an immense structure that towers high above 
 you, and affords a walking tour in brief to
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 
 
 245 
 
 examine thoroughly which takes already 
 decent-sized ropes and lays them up into one 
 
 CABLE COMING OFF THE MACHINE. 
 
 substantial cable weighing upwards of forty 
 tons, and fit to do any service, from slinging
 
 246 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 hundred-ton guns about to towing an Atlantic 
 liner around the globe the wet part of course. 
 A recent exploit of this machine was the 
 making of a six-mile cable for the Melbourne 
 Tramway. 
 
 Unlike the hemp rope-making variety, it 
 must be remembered that these machines carry 
 their supplies with them, and a thirty-ton cable 
 means, of necessity, thirty tons of steel wire 
 alone, to say nothing of the ponderous frame- 
 work on which it is carried, whirling round 
 at a prodigious rate. But contrary to my 
 expectation, the noise this monster made when 
 Mr. Selby set it in motion was easily surpassed 
 by its humbler prototypes, which showed 
 powers and possibilities of rattling a man like 
 myself not brought up to them into a lunatic 
 asylum any time within a month. There was 
 more draught than noise, and I am more than 
 half inclined to attribute a stiff neck that 
 I acquired that afternoon to its agency in 
 emptying half a gale of cold atmosphere down 
 my back when I wasn't looking. 
 
 The effect of the bobbins on these machines, 
 all waltzing sedately round like partners in 
 some curious outlandish dance, is very quaint,
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 247 
 
 and I was induced to untimely mirth on more 
 than one occasion when witnessing it. Another 
 contrivance that amused me was made in the 
 shape of a scold's cage, or, for the benefit of 
 those who are not acquainted with this old 
 civilising influence, of a hooped skirt. The 
 core here rises through the centre, and the 
 bobbins are set round it. 
 
 The latest stranding machine, a handsome 
 and complicated affair, stood away in a shop by 
 itself and fairly filled one side of it. It 
 measured ninety-eight feet in length, and could 
 be worked separately as three machines, or, 
 joined up, as one. 
 
 Before quitting this section of my exploring, 
 I will endeavour to make you understand, as I 
 understand it, the ordinary process of making 
 wire rope. 
 
 In the first instance, the machines vary in 
 size and capacity, and will carry anything from 
 six to twenty-four bobbins. The process in any 
 case is exactly the same ; but the number of 
 bobbins and, of course, the gauge of the wire 
 determines the thickness of the rope. As the 
 machines revolve, the wire is drawn from the 
 bobbins through the head and twisted into a
 
 248 INDUSTEIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 11 strand." Six or eight " strands " again laid 5 
 round a rope or metal core will form a rope,, 
 and six of these ropes again plaited will make 
 a cable-laid rope. It is suggestive of the 
 weights and measures tables, isn't it? Of 
 course, I am using these figures for ordinary 
 requirements. There is a considerable lati- 
 tude in the actual performances ; but the 
 big machine just mentioned is capable of 
 meeting them all. It will throw off a 
 cable in one length weighing forty tons, and 
 another having a circumference of twenty-one 
 inches. 
 
 Deeply interested as I was, I was not sorry 
 to at length turn away from the main rope- 
 making building, with its awful din and clatter,. 
 and its grease there is oil everywhere, and the 
 floor is black and slippery with it and walk 
 out to the comparatively peaceful and sylvan 
 retreat along by the water's edge, where 
 there was nothing, save, perhaps, the con- 
 versation of the pa'sying bargemen who talked 
 to each other across intervening spaces of water 
 of a few hundred yards in that picturesque 
 dialect so peculiarly their own and the hoarse 
 tooting of some big steamship, or the syren of
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 
 
 249 
 
 THE GALVANISING BATH. 
 
 a fussy little tug, to mar the silence of that 
 rural spot. 
 
 I felt then, like Mr. Carroll's walrus, that
 
 250 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 the time had come to talk of many things, and 
 during the interval I elicited some curious and 
 interesting facts from my guide. For instance, 
 unaided you would never come to believe that 
 the more wires a steel rope contains the greater 
 is its pliability, yet it is a fact, I assure you ; I 
 have it from the most reliable source. Similarly, 
 torpedo nets, which are supplied in large 
 quantities to various Governments from Wire- 
 Land, and of which Messrs. Bullivant hold all 
 the patents, are entirely hand constructed, being 
 woven through stout galvanised iron rings in a 
 manner that is not to be made public property. 
 Mr. Pelham Bullivant is a kindly gentleman, 
 and it would, I am sure, grieve him sorely, if 
 I were to put any of you in a position to invest 
 your front doors with these contrivances and 
 get to defying your neighbours or the tax 
 gatherer, or, who knows, the village con- 
 stable, on the strength of your immunity from 
 harm. 
 
 We were walking slowly back from the 
 wharf when I came upon a supply of wire that 
 had been recently landed. It looked stout and 
 uncompromising, and I essayed to lift a small 
 coil, and failed dismally.
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 251 
 
 "Surely you do not make rope with this 
 stuff ! " I remarked. 
 
 " Oh, yes," my guide replied, unconcernedly. 
 '" That is not out of the way. Now here is a 
 piece " singling out another coil " of much 
 stouter stuff a three-eight-inch mild steel." 
 
 " Great Scott ! " I ejaculated, and then I 
 waxed facetious. 
 
 " And this, too," said I, pointing to a long, 
 hollow steel shaft of curious construction. 
 " Perchance you curl that up for fishing lines, 
 or does its consistency justify you in preparing 
 top-string from it ? " 
 
 "Not quite," he replied, taking me in my 
 humour. " We just use that out straight as a 
 torpedo boom." 
 
 Shortly after we came into a building where 
 the cables are brought to be fitted. This is 
 done by hand, the cable, previously bound 
 round with tarred rope, being doubled at the 
 ends, and an immensely stout galvanised iron 
 ring, termed a " thimble, "inserted. It is then 
 laid in a vice which a man screws up, while the 
 operative pounds it into place with a heavy 
 short-handled hammer. It is then fastened off 
 with soft iron wire, and presents a very neat and
 
 252 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 pretty finish when the operation is concluded. 
 Turning from this building, we crossed the- 
 tram lines again and entered the galvanising 
 shops. Just outside I passed the acid tanks, 
 huge structures in which caustic potash is 
 boiled up by steam. It is in these that the- 
 wire netting to be galvanised is first of all 
 pickled. 
 
 There was something suggestive about 
 those tanks of bubbling, yellowish-green fluid 
 that impelled me to keep at a safe distance. 
 Its destructive properties are marvellous, and 
 a thick rope hanging from a pulley above was 
 eaten away almost past use by its action, 
 although, as I was informed, it had only 
 recently been put up. The men, too, who have 
 to deal with it wear clogs, a pair of boots every 
 three days being considered too heavy a tax on 
 their resources as family men with other claims 
 on their banking accounts. 
 
 Now, I don't mind confessing that I was 
 astonished when I followed my guide into the 
 building. There is always something that we 
 don't know, and amongst the few matters that 
 I could not claim to be intimate with previous to 
 my visit is the method of galvanising with zinc.
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 
 
 253 
 
 My idea the little thought I have ever given 
 the subject was that they hitched an electric 
 
 MAKING TORPEDO NETS. 
 
 battery to it somewhere or other, and smeared 
 something on it, and the job was done, being
 
 254 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 really simple, and not particularly interesting* 
 to watch or record. 
 
 In reality it is a sort of wholesale soldering- 
 process. The room was as hot as a furnace, 
 and the heat, I soon noticed, proceeded from a, 
 series of low, squatty coke furnaces, in the 
 centre of which great tanks of spelter, each 
 holding from eight to nineteen tons of metal, 
 were simmering. At the back of the one I 
 inspected the wire was running off a series of 
 bobbins through a bath of muriatic acid, which 
 is contained in a slate tank set just in front of 
 the furnace. Some of the acid splashed over 
 on the foreman's hand while he was explaining* 
 the process to me ; but he wiped it off quite 
 unconcernedly and went on talking. 
 
 " Doesn't it burn ? " I queried, in astonish- 
 ment, knowing something of the peculiarities 
 of these fluids. 
 
 "Not if you are used to it," was his 
 reply. 
 
 I was silenced, but not convinced, and I was 
 about to practically display my scepticism by 
 dipping my hand in the bath when Mr. Selby, 
 observing my action, stopped me. 
 
 " Wait a minute," he said. And he picked
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 255 
 
 up a piece of broken wire and stirred the 
 seething liquid with it. 
 
 A dense white cloud spread out from it, and 
 when he withdrew it I could see that it had 
 fused. I shivered, despite the temperature, 
 and resolved that henceforth trust should be 
 my motto. It is well to possess an inquiring 1 
 mind, I remembered; but where practical 
 experiments are concerned it is better to- 
 temper inquiry with discrimination in large 
 proportions. The wire passes through a heap 
 of heated " breeze " (powdered coke), and then 
 enters the spelter bath, being carried and kept 
 below by a series of rollers. It emerges at the 
 other end, and after passing through another 
 bed of breeze to prevent oxidisation, it is coiled 
 up in glistening white threads on another 
 series of bobbins. 
 
 They keep the spelter at between 850 and 
 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and as I before 
 remarked, the building was warm, not to say 
 sultry. And yet there was no fire to be seen 
 anywhere until the foreman picked out a loose 
 brick from many such that were set at intervals 
 around the stove, and then I could see a fiercely 
 glowing mass that blinded me to look in upon..
 
 256 IXDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Everything was warm in that building, and 
 I gathered that the men had never raised any 
 objections on the score of feeling chilly at 
 their work, and were not given to petitioning 
 for rugs or draught-excluders, or such-like 
 vanities. Seeing the foreman test the wire by 
 rubbing his finger along it, I did likewise. It 
 was beautifully smooth, but it was also mag- 
 nificently hot, and I spent the next few minutes 
 in a can-can round the room with my finger in 
 my mouth, and my guide and the foreman 
 smiled audibly. 
 
 Wire-netting is galvanised in precisely the 
 same way, except that a couple of men stand 
 by it on either side with hooks in their hands 
 as it emerges, and keep it straight and even as 
 it is rolled up. 
 
 In a little chamber adjoining, the beautiful 
 lesson of economy was being illustrated, the 
 spelter being separated there in a small copper 
 from the " hard," and formed up into cakes to 
 be used over again. Another curious process 
 was that of "sweating" the ashes. I have 
 already mentioned the fact that a considerable 
 amount of coke-dust is used in the galvanising 
 process to heat the wire before it enters the
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 
 
 257 
 
 
 A NETTING MACHINE. 
 
 17
 
 258 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 bath, and at the other end of the process to 
 prevent the wire from oxidising. This coke- 
 dust absorbes the zinc fumes, and when a 
 sufficient quantity has been collected, it is put 
 into an oven, and the zinc is extracted from it ; 
 even then a certain amount is left in what are 
 called zinc ashes, which I was told are worth 
 about seventy shillings per ton. They do all 
 things on a magnificent scale in Wire-Land, 
 and use up spelter lavishly. A little supply of 
 ninety tons kept temporarily to go on with was 
 casually shown me stacked in plates in one of 
 a number of store-rooms. 
 
 The motive power and a considerable 
 quantity of it is required is derived from three 
 Lancashire boilers and two pair of compound 
 engines with widely separated cylinders, each 
 of a hundred indicated horse-power. I was 
 told that the horse- power was indicated, which 
 was as well, for I should never have seen it 
 for myself; the engine-room was too gloomy 
 at the moment to see anything except the dim 
 outline of a ponderous wheel and a maze of 
 intricate machinery. 
 
 I came across a fact which pleased me 
 excessively in connection with the engine-
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 259 
 
 house. They dodge the water company in 
 Wire-Land, their supplies being obtained from 
 a well in the vicinity of the boiler-house. It 
 is pumped up and softened and purified in 
 special tanks, and sent direct into the boilers. 
 I have a vendetta against all water companies, 
 hence my fiendish exultation. 
 
 After making a brief inspection of the 
 electric lighting plant, which is contained in 
 a small chamber opening from the engine- 
 house and run by an engine of its own, I 
 followed my guide out through the rope- 
 making room to a well-stocked fitting-shop, 
 where every appliance necessary for making 
 and retaining in repair the immense quantity 
 of machinery used by the firm, is kept, and 
 kept pretty continuously busy, too. 
 
 " Are you also blacksmiths and engineers ? " 
 I queried of Mr. Selby. "Oh no," he said, 
 " we only do our own work. But we make the 
 appliances we sell in connection with our wire 
 rope, such as reels, nippers, thimbles, and 
 pulley-blocks and similar work, you know." 
 This was in addition to the making and repair- 
 ing I previously referred to, and I ceased to 
 wonder at finding six blacksmith's fires at
 
 260 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 work; and there seemed a use, too, for con- 
 siderably over a hundred men and boys 011 the 
 various lathes, planing, shearing, drilling, 
 moulding, and other machines and engineers' 
 "tools, including a heavy steam hammer with 
 which the blacksmiths seemed to revel in 
 creating an unearthly din. 
 
 And then I came to the last scene of all, 
 which embraced several scenes the wire- 
 netting departments. 
 
 Just to whet my curiosity, Mr. Selby first led 
 me through the store-rooms, where a thousand 
 tons of wire-netting, of assorted sizes, is kept 
 stocked, and after I had duly pondered on the 
 gravity of being responsible for a thousand tons 
 of wire-netting, we went upstairs together and 
 witnessed the process of construction. 
 
 Well, I have seen machines of every con- 
 ceivable sort; I have seen many that could 
 rival it in power, speed, and size ; I have heard 
 a few, not many, that could give it points in 
 ihe matter of noise ; but for sheer ingenuity, 
 commend me to the wire-net making machine. 
 
 This machine is in operation in many shops ; 
 but I will confine myself to a description of a 
 representative specimen of its class. It is, in
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 261 
 
 the first place, a vertical machine, and like the 
 countryman's horse, is nothing much to look 
 at, but a marvel to go. Half the wires used in 
 the net, each contained on a bobbin, are set 
 underneath and lead up and into the machine 
 bj the side of a row of metal tubes, into which 
 the other half of the wires are inserted in 
 tightly-closed coils. A row of levers work with 
 an oscillating motion, right and left, and the 
 diagonal-patterned mesh is made by this motion, 
 which carries the wire strands alternately to 
 right and left, and fashions that twist that will 
 be seen by examining the specimen in your 
 own fowl-yards, presuming you keep fowls, or 
 in your next-door neighbour's, if you don't. 
 He will be sure to next-door neighbours 
 always do keep fowls where you make a special 
 point of not doing so yourself on account of an 
 inherited dislike of the cackling and crowing. 
 
 A wooden roller at the top, studded with 
 spikes, engages the net as it is made, and pulls 
 it forward to be rolled up at the back. 
 
 One gigantic machine used for constructing 
 big-mesh nets for sheep runs of a very stout 
 wire was capable of the most extravagant 
 performances.
 
 262 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Indeed, the machines I saw could make be- 
 tween two hundred and two hundred and fifty 
 miles of netting a week. I sought to discover 
 from my guide what became of it all. 
 
 " Rabbits and pigeons ? " said I, tentatively. 
 
 " They help, I daresay," he replied. " Bat, 
 with the exception of a few million yards we 
 make for the London factors, it chiefly goes to 
 Australia. A year or two ago, we had over 
 nine thousand miles on order for this market 
 booked in lines of from one hundred to two 
 thousand miles." 
 
 And so I came away back through Wire- 
 Land, staying a while to visit the testing-shop, 
 where every coil of wire on being received, and 
 every rope and cable before being sent out, 
 is thoroughly and practically tested. The 
 appliances here vary from ingenious little 
 contrivances, well calculated to detect faulty 
 wire, to powerful hydraulic apparatus, which 
 <?an easily put a hundred-ton strain on a cable. 
 
 And so it came to pass that I had. wandered 
 the length and breadth of Wire-Land for the 
 space of three and a-half hours, and I had 
 acquired for my pains much useful and 
 interesting information, a fearful headache,
 
 IN WIRE-LAND. 263 
 
 ;and a grime-and-oil cast of countenance that 
 I could have matched against a professional 
 engine-driver's. 
 
 However, such things, you know, must be at 
 every famous victory ; and I thanked my guide 
 for his courteous and most painstaking assist- 
 ance, and went home in a third-class smoker, 
 and by back ways and devious routes on getting 
 into my immediate neighbourhood, in case any- 
 body should see me and hail me for a chimney- 
 sweep taking a day off, and order me to come 
 in and sweep the copper-chimney at six the 
 following morning.
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 ONCE read a poem 
 about a village con- 
 stable who set out 
 one morning to serve 
 a batch of summonses 
 on several defendants 
 living in various parts- 
 of the suburbs of 
 London. He wrestled 
 with his task man- 
 fully, so the poem said, but it was a weary 
 business, for, 
 
 . . . when he came to Grloster Road, it almost made 
 
 him sick 
 To find the next defendant ke pt a pub. at Hackney Wick.. 
 
 I know now why that constable was so over- 
 come at his discovery. Hackney Wick is a 
 place where it is well-nigh impossible to 
 discover anything in the shape of an
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 265 
 
 address. In fact, you speedily come to 
 think you have good reason to congratulate 
 yourself if you succeed in finding Hackney 
 Wick. Nobody knows where it is if you 
 ask, or else they have sworn never to 
 divulge the secret, and put you off with mis- 
 leading explanations and directions. They did 
 this to me when, in the glare of the noonday 
 sun, I left Hackney Station, and set out for 
 Sweet-Land. I was directed to go up one 
 street and down another, and take the third 
 turning to the left, and keep round by a boot- 
 shop, and when I got there some one else 
 would tell me to go right back to my starting- 
 place and strike out in an entirely opposite 
 direction. I did this for nearly an hour, and 
 then I felt like that village constable almost 
 sick. I hailed a cabby at length, as I stood 
 faint and weary under the railing of Victoria 
 Park. 
 
 "Hackney Wick, cabby," said I, " and put 
 the pace on a bit I'm in a hurry." 
 
 " Why, you're in it now, sir," said the cabby, 
 looking surprised. 
 
 " In what ? " queried I. " In a hurry ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; in 'Ackney Wick," said he.
 
 26(> INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 And so it proved, and five minutes later I 
 -entered Sweet-Land by a side door and made 
 my way up to the general offices, where I found 
 Mr. Horn, the managing director, waiting for 
 me. 
 
 Sweet-Land is spread out along the bank of 
 a canal, with a large tract on the opposite side 
 and connected to it by means of a substantial 
 bridge, and many other ramifications in the near 
 vicinity. A.nything in the nature of a syste- 
 matic exploration of it, I pretty soon discovered, 
 was out of the question in the time that I had 
 -at my disposal. Its operations are so many 
 and so distinctive that I walked through it for 
 over four hours and only grasped the main 
 processes, and even those not at all in detail. 
 Needless to say, it is a fairly representative, 
 and I believe it is the largest, works of its 
 kind, being worked on the profit - sharing 
 system and employing many hundreds of hands 
 the majority of them feminine ; and the 
 owners of it all stand as 
 
 CLARKE, NICKOLLS, & COOMBS, Limited, 
 
 Mr. Horn communicated these facts to me 
 .as we made our way downstairs to the show-
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 267 
 
 rooms, where the various kinds of confections 
 are set out in cases for the inspection and 
 assistance of customers. 
 
 Things were going swimmingly in Sweet- 
 Land, I judged, and the laying down of addi- 
 tional boilers and plant and the erection of 
 new buildings spoke elequently of anything 
 but trade depression. 
 
 An immense quantity of steam is required 
 for boiling purposes as well as for motive 
 power, and the boiler accommodation has to 
 be continually increased to meet the growing 
 demands. 
 
 " We are rather slack here just now," said 
 my guide, leading me into a long, open room 
 of tropical temperature. 
 
 We were in the jam-making department I 
 .saw then, and I understood that I had come 
 at an inopportune time. The fruit seasons 
 influence this department, of course, and 
 .although a certain quantity of jam, of one 
 description or another, is always being made, 
 -and marmalades serve to keep the building in 
 .a state more or less active all the year round, 
 I could then only witness the nature and not 
 .the extent of the processes.
 
 268 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 The raw materials, mostly sugar and fruit I 
 should premise, come into Sweet-Land by way 
 of the canal previously alluded to, and in vans 
 direct from the fruit-growing counties. 
 
 The jam-making departments consist of a 
 series of large rooms on the ground floor, set 
 about with rows of shining copper boilers, in 
 which the fruit is boiled up with sugar by 
 steam, being stirred continually the while by 
 means of a rod with a blade on either side, 
 actuated by a cog set over each pan. From 
 these pans the jam is tipped out into copper 
 store tubs, each provided with a very accom- 
 modating tap, through which it flows into 
 smaller cans that serve to make the bottling 
 or " jarring " process simple and easy. 
 
 Away in a further corner I came upon a 
 contrivance for dealing with stone fruits, in 
 the shape of a big, horizontal, copper-lined 
 box, in which the plums and cherries and any- 
 thing else requiring treatment are rubbed 
 through a copper sieve into a chest below, the 
 stones being retained and cleared out by the 
 sackful. 
 
 Opposite this a hydraulic press of immense 
 power for pressing fruits was stationed ; but
 
 SWEKT-LAND. 
 
 269 
 
 BOILING THE SUGAR.
 
 270 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOKINGS. 
 
 this, like the other machine, was just then idle r 
 although in a month's time its services will 
 again be in great demand. 
 
 Through the further door I came upon a still 
 used in the preparation of essences for flavour- 
 ing purposes, and in the essence macerating 
 room adjoining, lemon and other essences were 
 stored in a series of sixty-gallon drums. A 
 businesslike-looking laboratory for testing pur- 
 poses completed this branch of Sweet-Land, 
 which has a temperature so high that I found 
 it convenient to go and sit in the boiler-house 
 awhile to cool off a bit before continuing my 
 exploration. The alleviation I thus obtained 
 was immediately afterwards discounted, for, 
 closely following my guide, I found myself in 
 a building in which numerous coke fires were 
 boiling up huge coppers of sugar at a tem- 
 perature of 320 degrees. I began to ooze and 
 decline visibly as I stood between them while 
 Mr. Horn initiated me into the mysteries of" 
 making the succulent " drop." The process is 
 simple but ingenious. The sugar is first melted 
 with water, and then boiled up to the required 
 temperature, when it is poured en to iron, 
 tables, and kneaded out into long flat slabs-
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 271 
 
 While these are still warm and pliant they are- 
 passed through heavy gun-metal rollers, which 
 are stamped out to form a series of half-moulds 
 of the shape the drop is to assume. Two 
 halves of these moulds meet together as the 
 rollers revolve, and when the slab has run its 
 length through them, it only has to be set to 
 get cold, when a knock will break it up into 
 more drops than half-a-crown would purchase 
 retail at the " sucker shop." 
 
 Affixed to each of the numerous pillars that 
 run from floor to roof up and down the room 
 is a stout iron hook, and these, I was shown, 
 are used for sugar drawing. A workman will 
 roll a mass of the pliant dough into a round 
 length, and will cast it over the hook and draw 
 it out with an astonishing rapidity. The effect 
 of this manipulation is soon observable in the 
 lightening of colour, and after a time it 
 becomes quite white and opaque, being at the 
 outset of a pretty red tinge. 
 
 As any schoolboy is aware, these drops are 
 of all colours and shapes and sizes, and are 
 flavoured according to the name they bear. 
 
 I was very much struck with the cheerful 
 docility of these sugary compounds under treat-
 
 272 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 ment ; and the good-natured way the drops 
 consented to separate themselves wholesale in 
 response to tapping, instead of insisting on 
 being pulled apart by tedious hand labour, 
 affords a lesson in docility and wisdom to any 
 citizen who sets his back up and struggles 
 vainly but obstinately with the authorities for 
 his rights. 
 
 Cocoanuts play a very large part in sweet- 
 stuffs, and one building I found given over 
 solely to preparing them for future treatment. 
 Huge sacks of nuts were stored up there wait- 
 ing their turn to go under the small-toothed 
 circular saws which sever the shells into four 
 equal quarters and leave the nut entire. 
 This is managed by a gauge that prevents 
 the blade biting too deeply, and the rapidity 
 with which the operation is carried on by 
 girls is astonishing, or it would be to those 
 who have not come to understand how very 
 perfect long continued practice can make one. 
 If I had to do a job of that sort I should take 
 it much more leisurely, at the outset at any 
 rate, for I should attach a greater importance 
 to keeping my fingers whole and entire. 
 
 Another ticklish operation from my point of
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 273 
 
 MOULDING SWEETS. 
 
 18
 
 274 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 view consists in removing the husks, which is 
 also done in machines where a series of rasps 
 revolve at the rate of 2,000 revolutions a minute. 
 " Gr-gr-gr " it went, and the young lady whose 
 privilege and pleasure it was to exhibit her 
 skill before me handed me a nut from which 
 the brown husk had been evenly and completely 
 removed. 
 
 After that the nuts are thrown wholesale 
 into the feeding trough of a grating machine, 
 :and fall below it in a white powder suggestive 
 of a snowstorm in miniature. 
 
 Wandering through rooms filled with feminine 
 energy and dexterity, I came upon another 
 endless array of steam-boiled coppers, where 
 incipient sweetstuff hissed and bubbled as it 
 was stirred vigorously round by machinery. 
 A double motion is ingeniously imparted to 
 Ihese revolving blades by having one set loosely 
 and actuated in a contrary direction by means 
 -of a cog-wheel. 
 
 Ascending from the heat and the clatter 
 below, I entered a room calculated to make an 
 ordinary man of small means feel sick. It is 
 where certain of the flavouring essences are 
 kept, and on a series of unimposing-looking
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 275 
 
 shelves, in jars and bottles and small metal 
 tanks, the value of thousands of pounds is 
 stored up in the shape of vanilla and other 
 costly extracts, oils, and essences. 
 
 " Concentrated banking," you might term 
 this means of laying up treasure ; although if 
 I had a few hundred pounds lying idle I think 
 I should still prefer the old-fashioned method 
 of storing it up against a rainy day. Banks do 
 break occasionally, but not so readily as glass 
 bottles do ; and to have 70 set up on a shelf 
 about the house in a twelve-ounce phial would, 
 I feel sure, be a source of anxiety to me that 
 would prove a serious obstacle to the mainte- 
 nance of a calm and placid frame of mind. 
 
 Of course, these essences are not used just as 
 I saw them. They certainly form a very con- 
 siderable item in the expenses of Sweet-Land ; 
 but that would be altogether too costly. As a 
 matter of fact, they are first diluted down in 
 spirits, and several cans in process were even 
 then ranged round the room in which the 
 essences are stored. 
 
 A great quantity of the essence is used in 
 the preparation of table jellies, of which many 
 tons are turned out from Sweet-Land annually.
 
 276 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Continuing my travels, I entered still 
 another wrapping and packing room, and in 
 the corner of it came across a waxing-machine 
 for preparing the wrappers. Long sheets of 
 paper are run through a bath of melted wax, 
 and are passed through a pair of powerful 
 rollers which squeeze the superfluous fluid from 
 them, and leave them dry and ready for use. 
 The thinner paper which will be found round 
 caramels and similar sweets is bought, it being 
 found cheaper to obtain it thus than to prepare 
 it on the premises. 
 
 I think, without exception, Sweet-Land is 
 the most intricate of any that I have explored 
 in the way of business. Devious turnings,, 
 unexpected staircases, and rambling passages 
 led me through more rooms than I could take 
 count of, in which hundreds of busy girls and 
 women were employed in various preparing and 
 packing operations, in which prize-packets,, 
 bonbons, and sherbet were bottled and boxed 
 with marvellous dexterity. 
 
 Through a long, narrow passage, andj up a, 
 supplementary staircase, which usually serves- 
 as a provision in case of fire, and constrained 
 me to duck my head and go warily in the
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 277 
 
 STEAMING SWEETS.
 
 278 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOBINGS. 
 
 interests of my head-gear, and I emerged OIL 
 something definite a distinctive process that 
 I could lay hold of and follow. 
 
 There was warmth, and a pleasant smell 
 pervaded the atmosphere with a subtle infusion 
 of something in it that promptly resolved itself 
 when, in answer to my query, Mr. Horn 
 remarked tersely : " Ginger conserves." 
 
 The ginger is imported in immense casks in 
 syrup, and is shot out, as the first step towards 
 its preparation, on to sieves to drain. It is 
 then cut up into squares with dexterity and a 
 knife, boiled, and left to crystallise in huge- 
 tanks. 
 
 Taking a casual view of the export packing 
 department in an adjoining chamber as I 
 passed through it, I came upon a very 
 interesting process a sort of sweet-foundry,, 
 where fishes, and frogs, and other saccharine 
 novelties are moulded. 
 
 Everything within that room, including the 
 operatives, was white as white could be, and I 
 began to take on the prevailing hue before I 
 had been there two minutes. The moulds are 
 formed in starch, long narrow tables covered 
 with this material standing down the room in,
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 279 
 
 serried rows. The matrix is formed by a board, 
 on which dozens of the articles to be moulded 
 are carved in relief, it being the duty of one 
 set of operatives to walk down the table and 
 impress this firmly in the receptive starch-bed. 
 Other girls follow up behind with curiously 
 constructed cans of liquid sweetstuff, having 
 anything from six to a dozen spouts set at 
 proportionate distances, and by a dexterous 
 movement tip a supply of its contents into the 
 moulds. 
 
 The starch is subsequently brushed or blown 
 off the sweets by hand, and in the case of gum 
 drops and such-like varieties, they are further 
 cleaned by a steam jet. 
 
 It is a necessity and a great convenience in 
 Sweet-Land, owing to its numerous and varied 
 operations, that each department shall be 
 practically complete in itself, and worked 
 through, from boiling and preparing the 
 material to packing the finished articles, in its 
 precincts. There are certain exceptions to this 
 rule, of course, but as a general thing it is 
 adhered to. 
 
 When I grasped this fact I came to look for 
 the rows of shining copper pans as a matter
 
 280 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 of course I should have been disappointed if 
 I hadn't seen them ; and the moulding rooms 
 are no exception to the rule. There they stood 
 ranged round the wall, and differing in little 
 except the temperature at which they are boiled. 
 This difference is not perceptible to the naked 
 eye, and is only apparent in the rows of steam 
 pipes that the peculiarity necessitates. If 
 sugar were not so finnicky in this particular, 
 one main steam supply would serve the purpose 
 that now necessitates almost a separate pipe to 
 each pan ; but this is one of the rights that 
 sugar is inclined to stand up and fight for, and 
 they deem it best to humour it and to supply 
 steam at high or low pressure according to 
 requirements. 
 
 A light iron staircase runs from ground to 
 roof on all the buildings in Sweet-Land, with a 
 landing on each floor. The main purpose of 
 these is to meet the yearning desire to reach 
 the ground that would doubtless arise in the 
 breasts of the operatives should a fire inoppor- 
 tunely break out below. I know I should feel 
 particularly grateful for the kindly forethought 
 if I found myself in such a plight. As it was, 
 I appreciated it when, after a prolonged tour
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 281 
 
 IN THE LOZENGE BOOM. STAMPING LOZENGES.
 
 282 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 through extra-heated rooms that hot May 
 day, I debouched on to it in company witK 
 Mr. Horn, and took a breathing spell in the 
 pleasant breeze that blew across the canal 
 below me. 
 
 Not for long, however, could I view the rural 
 charms of Hackney Wick that were spread out 
 so alluringly around me. Duty called, and to 
 that voice let no man, woman, or little children, 
 so that they value their well-being, turn a deaf 
 ear. I never do; but if I chance to be too 
 busy, or too lazy, or too tired, and deem the 
 call untimely, I say : " Oh, yes ! I hear you 
 quite plainly, but I ain't a-coming." 
 
 In this case 1 did go, and after following the 
 roof round I entered another building, where 
 liquorice is prepared for the market. 
 
 Huge tubs filled with the black paste were 
 standing round, and from these the contents 
 are supplied to the cooking-kettles. 
 
 The liquorice is made up in various styles, 
 from big hollow tubes to the long black strips 
 that pass with schoolboys as " shoe-laces." 
 
 Some ingenious and complicated machinery 
 is concerned in preparing the liquorice for the- 
 trade, and one of these expresses a row of six.
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 283 
 
 continuous long thin black tubes on to a board 
 that is put to receive them bj the woman in 
 charge. They lie side by side like policemen 
 detailing an assault case, and adhere to each 
 other, though what they were intended to 
 represent I couldn't conceive. Doubtless it 
 was merely a schoolboy's whim in preferring 
 his liquorice fashioned to receiving it in square 
 chunks. 
 
 A neat and noisy little machine is also at 
 work on this floor husking almonds, which is 
 done wholesale, the nuts being fed into the top 
 and thrown out below with every shred of skin 
 removed. 
 
 And then we went downstairs, and upstairs,, 
 and round corners, and through passages, and 
 came at length into the lozenge-making depart- 
 ment, where some novel features were to be 
 encountered. 
 
 Great masses of dough, containing the re- 
 quired ingredients soda, sulphur, or cough- 
 cure, as the case may be mixed in with the- 
 sugar or gum solution, are first prepared and 
 rolled out into long flat slabs. These are 
 thrown on to a travelling platform which 
 carries them under a series of punches, all
 
 284 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORING. 
 
 working together, stamping out lozenges by 
 the hundred. A feature in this machine is 
 that the network of lozenge material left after 
 the punching process is carried back under- 
 neath to be made up again and once more 
 passed through the punches. It is entirely 
 automatic in action, and deposits the lozenges 
 on a travelling blade, which carries them 
 forward at each movement and throws them 
 out on a table to be gathered up and added to 
 the general stock. 
 
 We went outside again after leaving the 
 lozenge department, and, descending to a 
 lower floor, my guide opened a door, and 
 my ears were saluted with an awful din. 
 Two cyclones, one thunderstorm, and a small 
 boy with a tin can and a tack-hammer might 
 rival it if they worked hard ; but it would be 
 a task. 
 
 The sight I obtained when I got inside, how- 
 ever, was the most striking and impressive of 
 any that I have witnessed in connection with 
 these explorations of mine. A number of 
 immense copper pans termed "comfit-pans," 
 capable of holding many hundredweight of 
 material, were set diagonally and, revolving
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 285 
 
 THE COMFIT PANS. 
 
 slowly, kept in motion bushels upon bushels of 
 sweets. There were sixteen of these pans m
 
 286 INDUSTRIAL EXPLOEINGS. 
 
 all, and I gathered from Mr. Horn that they 
 are used for all spheroid-shaped sweets. The 
 pans contain a false convex bottom, which is 
 used as a steam chest, and the sweets are built 
 up from seeds like aniseed, for instance, in 
 the case of the familiar aniseed balls and 
 almonds, by a continuous supply of boiling 
 syrup, which is thrown upon them from time to 
 time by the men in charge. The motion dis- 
 tributes this fairly and evenly around them, 
 and the seed gradually increases in size while 
 retaining its original shape, until it presents a 
 serious obstacle even for the average schoolboy 
 to tackle. 
 
 The process is slow, but very sure, and as an 
 instance of what the comfit-pans are capable 
 of effecting Mr. Horn informed me that four 
 hundredweight of some minute seed, such as 
 caraway or aniseed, rolled round in them for 
 two months, will result in twenty tons of sweet- 
 stuff. The pans are emptied every night, and 
 the contents are kept in a series of heated 
 chambers ready for the morning's resumption 
 of work. 
 
 The next time a moralist seeks to floor me 
 with that silly little fact about a rolling stone
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 287 
 
 not being good at gathering moss and it may 
 be because there is no moss to gather I shall 
 go him one better, and inform him that a 
 rolling caraway-seed at any rate can gather a 
 considerable quantity of sugar. 
 
 " This is our main supply of material," re- 
 marked my guide a few minutes later, as we 
 turned into another building that was white 
 from floor to roof with the concentrated essence 
 of sweetness. 
 
 It was, I discovered, the sugar-grinding 
 room, where an insignificant-looking machine 
 of marvellous possibilities disputed the floor 
 space with an immense chamber constructed of 
 wooden staves and a very close netting. 
 
 It takes a special engine, and one of consider- 
 able power too, to operate the crusher in which 
 a drum, set with short, stout spokes, revolves 
 at 3,700 revolutions a minute, and quickly 
 converts the sugar into a dust as fine or finer 
 than cornflour. 
 
 It is difficult to form, an idea of what this 
 really means, and I myself only understood it 
 by outside considerations. For instance, a 
 capacious copper pipe leads from the crusher 
 to the receiving chamber, and in obedience to
 
 288 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Mr. Horn's suggestion I laid my hand on it. 
 It was hot, and, I was informed, was made so 
 solely by the friction of the sugar which is 
 blown through it by the velocity of the 
 revolving drum of the crusher. 
 
 " That is where we make caramels," said 
 Mr. Horn, indicating a jealously closed door 
 that opened out on our right ; " but " 
 
 " A trade secret? " said I. 
 
 Mr. Horn nodded, so I passed caramels 
 and went to see chocolate instead. 
 
 In a series of immense rooms, filled with 
 gleaming machinery of complicated and 
 ingenious device, I found this operation being 
 carried on in sections. After the cocoa bean 
 has been roasted by gas, it is put into a coffee- 
 mill sort of affair to be crushed, the cocoa 
 being separated from the husks and falling to 
 the floor below. After that it is put through 
 a mill which has a steam-heated chest in its 
 construction, and then as a result of the heat 
 and pressure the cocoa flows out in a thickish 
 oily liquid, which is caught in cans set 
 purposely below. 
 
 I daresay you have heard that old chestnut 
 about King Georgey and the apple-dumpling !
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 289 
 
 PACKING CHOCOLATES.
 
 290 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 Well, I was reminded of it when I saw them 
 making chocolate creams, which, by the way, 
 is merely sugar whipped up into a creamy 
 white paste by a revolving blade, in pans very 
 similar to those used in sweet-making. I have 
 often mentally admired the patience and per- 
 severance expended by the sweet-makers in 
 filling yearly millions of these little chocolate 
 cases with the cream, and now I have 
 learnt, as a matter of fact, that they don't 
 do anything of the sort. They put the 
 chocolate over the cream wholesale by a dip- 
 ping process, the cream being first fashioned 
 and then thrown into pans of liquid choco- 
 late. After this it merely remains to fish 
 them out again, and lay them to drain on wire 
 gratings. 
 
 It was about this time that I discovered, to 
 my dismay, how late it was growing, and the 
 remainder of my exploring was rather in the 
 nature of a hasty scramble. I lingered longest 
 in the butter-scotch rooms, for the operation 
 recalled familiar scenes of my youth, when I 
 would borrow cook's saucepans, without leave, 
 and fill them with a messy concoction of butter, 
 sugar, and bits of orange or lemon peel, and
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 291 
 
 then burn the bottoms out in endeavouring to 
 cook it, unless Martha happened to appear in 
 time to box my ears and discourage me from 
 my enterprise. 
 
 Art in sweet-making was illustrated in several 
 pretty and effective specimens of mosaic work, 
 designed and carried out by a deaf and dumb 
 operative, quite a young fellow, too, who makes 
 this a speciality, and of whom the firm are 
 rather proud. 
 
 I mentioned that Sweet-Land spreads out 
 on both sides of the canal, and, on crossing 
 the bridge, I found that candying peels and 
 box-making are the staple industries in the 
 branch over the water. I came to the peel- 
 yard first, and discovered huge tubs of halved 
 oranges and lemons, which are kept in salt 
 water to preserve them until they are required 
 for treatment. When this time draws near, 
 they are steeped in fresh water that is con- 
 tinually being changed, and pulped. 
 
 It is necessary to retain the pulp in them to 
 the last minute, I gathered from Mr. Horn, to 
 preserve the skins in shape, and when the 
 interior is removed they are transferred to 
 tubs of syrup, from which they emerge, trans-
 
 292 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 parent and tempting, to aid in the manu- 
 facture of cakes and cookies. 
 
 It is rather a reversal of the general order 
 of things to retain the skins and throw the 
 pulp away, and one of these days I shall found 
 a moral story on it about the uppish orange 
 and the triumphant peel. 
 
 The stables are also situated on this side of 
 the canal, and are designed and fitted with 
 commendable care and thought for the reception 
 of the firm's dumb employes. 
 
 Immense wood-piles, too, encumber the 
 ground, and after making an inspection of the 
 extensive and well-appointed box-making 
 buildings where tools and machines are alike, 
 with few exceptions, worked by girls with a 
 skill thai discounts the musty old jokelet about 
 women not being able to wield a hammer I 
 gained an increased respect for the extent of 
 the firm's business, more particularly when my 
 guide informed me that in addition to their 
 own manufacture quite one-third of the sweet- 
 boxes used, and all the packing cases, have to 
 be imported ready-made. Cardboard boxes 
 are made in another department across the 
 road, where German confectionery is prepared,
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 in separate buildings that were once blocks of 
 private houses, and are now a provoking and 
 moral-destroying maze to any one who 
 endeavours to find his way round in them 
 unattended. 
 
 I visited these departments later, and saw 
 Easter eggs and Christmas-tree decorations, 
 tasteful (using the word in its double sense) 
 little sweet baskets and bird-cages, being 
 prepared, it being the constant endeavour there 
 to devise fresh and attractive novelties for each- 
 recurring season. 
 
 Easy as these processes are to catalogue, 
 they involved the expenditure of much energy 
 and time to inspect and record, and I have an 
 uneasy feeling that I am not doing sufficient 
 justice to my subject, even when I add that 
 table jellies, essences and fruit cordials for 
 summer and winter drinks, and sauces of 
 various descriptions form part of the operations 
 in Sweet-Land, and were all duly shown and 
 explained to me freely and with no unnecessary 
 reservation. 
 
 But I am generally considerate to these 
 gentlemen, and I am always so towards myself, 
 and it was fearfully late and I was travel-
 
 294 INDUSTRIAL EXPLORINGS. 
 
 stained and weary, so that when my guide 
 hinted at further explorings I struck, in his 
 interests and my own. 
 
 Mr. Horn's information and no one is 
 better able to give it, seeing that he has 
 watched the place grow round him for the 
 past twenty-three years seconded my impres- 
 sions, obtained by practical inspection, that 
 Sweet-Land and its proprietors merit every 
 commendation firstly, as a firm; secondly, 
 for its manufactures ; and lastly, but not least, 
 for the instructive and entertaining qualities it 
 presents to a perambulating scribe such as 
 myself, with a big streak of professional and 
 personal curiosity in his composition. I give 
 the commendation on all counts as heartily as 
 I appreciate the courtesy and attention which 
 I was accorded on my visit. 
 
 A small boy undertook to guide me back to 
 the railway-station for a coppery consideration, 
 and he opened his mouth wide in wonderment 
 when I talked to him, as the Ancient Mariner 
 did to his victim, of tons upon tons of sweet- 
 stuff, and babbled musingly of square miles of 
 candied peel and yards of liquorice. He said 
 I was a " corf-drop " when I gave him his
 
 IN SWEET-LAND. 
 
 295 
 
 twopence. I know I was sugar-coated, and a 
 sticky sweetness clung about me for days 
 afterwards.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 W. SPEATGHT AND SONS, PBIS.TEES, 
 KKTTF.R LANE.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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