Elihu Burritt

“ Nature has done all it could by its gracious and peaceful surroundings to make the town and its interests a united and pleasant community, and the trade could not well find a happier seat, in this respect, for its industry. ”

“ I do not know if special occupations give a shaping to men's minds, or whether the exclusive manufacture of needles and fish-hooks tends to give peculiar sharpness to competitors in the trade. If such is the case, then a Chamber of Commerce, or a Trade Guild, would be all the more necessary and valuable to Redditch, to induce the manufacturers to say we and our in regard to the great businesses of the town more heartily than they do at present. No town could value too highly such a source of income and industry ”

“ Tipton, once called Tibbington, is another compact nucleus in the nebulæ of the Black Country parishes. I fear that the fist of one brawny prize-fighter has given it a wider reputation than all the honest hammers it swings from year to year. ”

“ The population has doubled itself since 1831, numbering at the present time nearly 30,000. It is enriched with seemingly exhaustless stores of coal, and presents a scene, especially at night, which must greatly impress the traveller. Perhaps no other space in the district sends up into the red ocean above such undulating rivers of furnace-light. As a sample of the wealth stored away in its cellarage, a lump of coal was taken from it and exhibited in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851, weighing six tons. ”

“ The great distinctive industry of Walsall is saddlery and harness ware. This manufacture has doubtless been the speciality of the town for several centuries, and it may have furnished the bits and stirrups and spurs of many of the knights in the Wars of the Roses. ”

“ The quantity shipped to America, especially the year after the Civil War, was simply prodigious; showing that the bomb, ball, and bayonet had rent and tattered the clothing of millions as well as the face and faculties of their land. At least thirty millions of needles a week must have gone to the United States through the whole of 1866. ”

“ To an outsider looking into one of those sixty furnaces, and seeing, if his eyes would bear it, the boiling, bubbling mass of metal, ten times more than red hot, a puddle would sound too wet and watery to describe it. The puddlers who fish in the troubled fountain, are generally stripped to the waist, and flooded with perspiration. They fish out a mass at the end of the rod, of a weight which shows what athletes they are trained to be. ”

“ Men and women, boys and girls, are thus exposed to more than all the debasing and demoralizing influences which haunt the worst dwellings of our agricultural labourers, without a single antagonistic agency to prevent their lapse into the lowest depths of brutish immorality. With scarcely an exception, wherever salt manufactories on a large scale have existed, the population employed in them has been the disgrace and pollution of the neighbourhood, a community almost unapproachable by philanthropy and irreclaimable by religion. ”

“ Fish-hooks are the other manufacture of Redditch. This has followed the needle in different stages of its development, from the crooked fish-bone to the crooked pin and from that to the present implement. In size and use they almost equal in variety the needle itself. Here are hooks for all waters and for all fish that swim in sea, lake, river, and meadow brooks—for sharks, cod, salmon, herring, trout, roach, and minnow. As there are more fresh-water fisheries in America than on all the other continents, a vast number of hooks go to the States and the British provinces. ”

“ One travelling through the district, and seeing no water streams more rapid than the canals, must wonder how iron ore was melted before the application of this self-generating power, for such it really is, as coal underlies all the furnaces and forges of the district. The population of the town has not kept pace with the increase of other manufacturing centres, as in 1832 one-twentieth part was swept away by the cholera, and one-fourth attacked by that fearful pestilence. The town now numbers about 26,000 inhabitants. Japanned ware, including trays, caddies, &c., is a prominent manufacture. ”

“ I am not aware of any other registration in the kingdom except at our consulate that would enable one to ascertain the amount of the exportations from the district to other countries or for home consumption. It is a pity that no other registration exists. Perhaps the defect may be supplied when the manufacturers and merchants shall realize more fully the advantage of such a record. Without such statistics the material prosperity and progress of a nation can only be conjectured on the sandy foundation of fancy figures. ”

“ It is a large and elegant structure, of imposing exterior aspect, and with interior arrangements and embellishments and comforts which must make the honour and duty of a Mayor, Alderman, or Councillor more attractive and worthy of ambition. There are other buildings, especially the National School, which may serve as models, and are very creditable to the taste and liberality of the townspeople. ”

“ About 500 hands are employed, and about 3,000 tons of salt produced weekly. Droitwich, the next town, is a kind of Salina or Syracuse, whose very name breathes "the brine of the ocean." These Worcestershire springs or wells export about 50,000 tons, and those of Cheshire about 650,000 annually. Although so many corruptible things are seasoned and preserved wholesome by salt, it does but little in this way for the minds and morals of the men, women, and children engaged in its manufacture. ”

“ Should one dip a large sponge into a mud-puddle, it would fill in a moment with the impure matter, which, on compression, would all flow out again, leaving the sponge as it was before the dip. There is this difference in the simile: the meshes of the sponge are in the metal puddle itself, and they all come out together with the mass. This mass, cooling a little on its way to make it more coherent, goes under a hammer, or into a squeezing machine, which, at the first blow or turn, throws out the spray of the impure puddle-matter, such as melted stone, cinder, &c. ”

“ Walsall has an excellent Free Grammar School, where boys may reach the high roads of a good education more cheaply than at many institutions designed and founded to impart it without charge, but which, by certain perquisites and side items, make it expensive. ”

“ I had read of effigies but had never seen one before, and never knew what manner of men and women they were in marble. The town itself is built chiefly on one long street, and is quite a bustling place of business. ”

“ The number of its needles sent abroad is perfectly incredible, and I wonder the manufacturers can believe the totals of their own bills. The history of the needle runs as parallel with the history of civilization as any other implement used by man or woman. ”

“ A fine steel dust was generated, which permeated the lungs and brought on consumption frequently at middle age. But if the occupation was so fatal, the men earned extra wages by it, and measuring years by pounds and shillings, they seemed to estimate and prize the value of life by the amount of its earnings. ”

“ The work is necessarily continuous day and night, and from Monday morning to Saturday evening it often happens that the labourer never quits the precincts of the works, snatching his intervals of rest beside the pans. ”

“ Another improvement, entirely designed to render one operation less detrimental to the health of those engaged in it, was opposed by them on grounds that will seem incredible to the next generation of working-men. ”

“ I was told, they opposed the introduction of the Sheffield grinders' fan, which carried off the steel dust and made needle-pointing a more healthy employment, inasmuch as it did not pay for the extra risk of life it once involved. Labour could hardly be more minutely subdivided than in the production of the needle here. ”

“ While the men and larger boys are employed in the mines, the women and younger children are making nails at home. The population now is estimated to number about 35,000.
Walsall, about ten miles north of Birmingham, is one of the most important and populous towns in Staffordshire. It is a Parliamentary borough represented by one member in the House of Commons, and is a place of historical interest as well as of manufacturing enterprise and material prosperity. ”

“ If he did not effect this, he accomplished something they more really feared—he pulled down any of their evil habits, and Wednesbury is now one of the most active centres of the denomination he founded. The town has increased in population from about 5,000 in 1811 to 20,000 at the present time. The industries of the place are large and varied. The manufacture of axles, girders, wheels, iron and brass tubes for locomotive and marine boilers constitutes a great business. ”

“ Not only the bare hooks go in such quantities, but a large number all ready for use. Fishing tackle, embracing all kinds of alluring baits, such as artificial flies, frogs, minnows, &c., constitutes a manufacture of considerable extent. About 600 persons are engaged in the fish-hook trade of Redditch. Thus Redditch has virtually monopolized the manufacture of needles and fish-hooks, and, if rightly conducted, may retain the business thus created. ”

“ Moral and mental education has kept pace with this material progress pretty evenly, a large force of schools being kept in constant and increasing activity, and other means employed for the general enlightenment of the community. ”

“ They have now converted it into a very useful institution, or a training college for farm and domestic servants, and a goodly and comfortable place it makes for the education of agricultural foremen or labourers, who seldom have such baronial halls for their outfitting. ”

“ It would be difficult to obtain full and reliable statistics of its total production both for home and foreign markets. I believe the U. S. Consulate at Birmingham keeps the only accurate or actual record of even a portion of the wares sent abroad; but this record may serve as a basis for estimating the total amount manufactured in the district. The following tables give the total money value of exports from the district to the United States in the years 1865 and 1866, which were periods of average prosperity. ”

“ But this great establishment at Stoke Prior must be excepted from the rule; for the proprietor has entirely discontinued the employment of women at the works, and the change has already taken effect on the habits and social condition of the workpeople such a manner, it is said, as to produce a social revolution in the neighbourhood. ”