Category: Historical Images

The Baltimore News says:

“Really skillful mechanics are becoming more and more scarce and trades are only half learned. Old-time workmen were proud of their work and a man would consider himself guilty of a piece of flagrant dishonesty to leave a bad job behind him. The artisan had as much pride in anything he touched as was to be found in the literary creator. But there seems to be no such feeling now. Men are only half educated at their trades and about the only thing that gives real concern is the question of pay.”

The breaking up of the old apprentice system is the cause of this evil, and its restoration will be the only cure. The Gazette was informed some time ago by one of the most reputable and respected employing mechanics in this city, that it was a hard matter for him to get good native journeymen, and that the best skilled workmen he got now-a-days were foreigners.
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We earnestly recommend to the attention of our readers a small pamphlet, price 6d., which has just made its appearance, entitled, “Advice to Journeymen Mechanics and others going to France.” To which is added, “A Brief Account of Paris, the Price of Provisions, Rent, Clothing, Rate of Wages to Mechanics, &c. &c. By C. Best.”

The work is the result of the author’s own personal experience, and has therefore peculiar claims to the attention of his fellow tradesmen. His advice is, that our mechanics should by all means stay at home; but he gives, at the same time, such directions as may enable any of them who may choose to make the experiment of crossing the channel,—either for pleasure, or with a view to settling in France,—to make the trip in the cheapest and most expeditious way, to obtain an asylum among their own countrymen when they arrive there, and to satisfy themselves completely on every point relating to rates of wages, and expence of living.

The author states, we believe most truly, that most of the particulars contained in his pamphlet are “entirely new, and not to be found in any work hitherto published.” We shall extract, as the specimen we like best, some of his reasons for staying at home:—
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…I entered upon the execution of this plan for self examination, and continued it with occasional intermissions for some time. I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.

To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, became full of holes, I transferred my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum-book, on which the lines were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain, and on those lines I marked my faults with a black-lead pencil, which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge.

After a while I went thro’ one course only in a year, and afterward only one in several years, till at length I omitted them entirely, being employed in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered; but I always carried my little book with me.
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Why was the grindstone placed in that obscure corner where no light ever comes? And why was so much care taken to adjust the belt so precisely that conjointly with any pressure of the tool on the stone the belt flies off? In the present instance, by a change in the locality of the shop, and a consequent re-setting of machines, these evils have been done away with, but the places are not a few where such things still exist.

This may seem to some an unimportant subject, but in the opinion of those who work with good tools it is not. I have never owned or managed a large manufacturing concern—nor a small one either—but in a shop employing between 500 and 800 men all the year round, a large proportion of whom consist of cabinet makers, car builders, finishers, some carpenters and pattern makers, we think that a grindstone kept in condition for grinding wood chisels and plane bits would be worth its keeping.
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The continuing and growing demand for bicycles has its effect upon the hardwood lumber trade. It is estimated that there will be produced in American factories this year nearly 800,000 bicycles.

Practically all of these are equipped with wood rims. Each wood rim requires 2½ feet board measure, and allowing one-third for waste, that would mean a consumption of 6,000,000 feet, almost exclusively rock elm. This is for the rims alone, to say nothing of the guards and handlebars, but of the latter there is another story.

The consumption of 6,000,000 feet or thereabouts of rock elm does not look very large in a business which is accustomed to deal with hundreds of millions, but when it is remembered that only about 15 per cent of hard maple is available for rim purposes, and that therefore 40,000,000 feet of one of the minor hard woods must be handled over in order to obtain this material, the importance of the bicycle demand in this special way will be recognized.
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