Author: fitz

Does machinery pay in the carriage-shop? This is a question to which we have given considerable attention during the past year, and in the descriptions of leading carriage factories which we have published, we have in each case given a full list of the machinery employed. During the coming year, we hope to ventilate this subject still further.

The following article, from the “Harness and Carriage Journal,” and evidently written by Mr. J. L. H. Mosier, who is already well known to our readers as a regular correspondent of The Hub, is valuable in this connection:

“Let us enter into a review of this question, commencing with the smithing-room and ending with the paint-shop. In the matter of power vs. hand-blast, power-blast is a saving over hand-blast of nearly one man to a fire, and yields a production of fully ten per cent more. Next come the drilling-machines: with the ordinary hand-power machines, we will allow that a good workman can drill forty three-eighth-inch holes through half-inch iron in one hour. With a power-drill, fully sixty of the same holes can be drilled in the same time by any ordinarily good boy, at 50 per cent less wages, showing a gain of 50 per cent in production, at a cost of 50 per cent less for labor, from which deduct about 20 per cent for power.”
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New York though not a leading State is an important one in the production of handles. The Lake States and other central western States have the principal factories of the larger well known corporations manufacturing fork, hoe and axe handles. Nearly every large manufacturing establishment has need for handle stock in one form or another. A number of industries like broom factories and cutlery stock occupy a prominent place. Establishments producing farm tools, files, saws, cutlery and other metal implements call for a great variety of woods.
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The farmer being often neceſſitated to build as well as to repair his Houſes, Barns, Stables, &c. and that not only upon the Account of Decays, but of damages done by Storms and other accidents; I thought it might be of uſe to give him ſome ſhort general Rules about Building and Repairs, and likewiſe of the Coſt and Charges of Buildings, and of ſuch Materials as are uſeful upon ſuch Occaſions, that he may the better compute his Coſt and Charges himſelf, and not wholly truſt to workmen to do it, (who often are very deceitful in ſuch Calculations,) and know how to Let his Work to them, which is much the beſt way, where the Owner underſtands it; provided he minds one Caution, which is not to change or vary from his firſt Contract, which Workmen are very apt to perſwade Men to do, if they have undertaken the Work at a low rate, or with deſign to ingage them in Building.

Not that I ſhall here pretend to give a full account of all the particulars relating to Building, and the ſeveral prices thereof, which would require a Volume of it ſelf; but what I propoſe, is only ſo much as may give an inſight unto thoſe that underſtand any thing of common Arithmetick, to compute the ordinary prices of Buildings and Repairs by, and to inſtruct them in the moſt material Rules of Architecture, ſo far as it may fit them for their common Occaſions, without committing thoſe very groſs Faults that many Builders run into.
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Never in any country in the world has the worship of mere talent been carried to such an extent as in France. And the word “talent” is not here intended to imply capacity, but rather a kind of aptitude enabling its owner to shine. It is the kind of superiority in which is involved so much address and readiness of wit that it quickly degenerates into savoir faire, whereas genuine “capacity” leads its possessor to varied excellence, whence force of character and steadfastness of will can never be quite absent, or the capacity is an inferior one. But among the curiosities of French civilisation too superficially studied by foreigners is the habit of identifying every sort of superiority with the superiorities recognised by “society” and the “Court”—those of birth, position, and fashion.

A very remarkable proof of this lies in the attribution of honesty itself only to a certain class. The word “les honnêtes gens” was distinctive of those only who had the necessary qualifications for moving in the highest spheres—anything lower than that was not in the magic circle; and, besides the assumption of “honesty,” and of certain qualities constituting the British notion of a “gentleman,” talent was also instinctively ranked as belonging properly to those of a distinguished social standing.
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