Elihu Burritt

“ Thus I would suggest to any one who goes out from Birmingham or other large town to visit The Black Country, to go on, after he has seen its salient features, to the Green Border-Land beyond, and he will find several watch-towers of Nature planted at convenient distances around the iron district, as if on purpose to show the brightest, happiest, heavenliest of her sceneries in contrast with the huge swart industries of man. ”

“ The Wrekin is not only a remarkable eminence for the eye but also for the ear; especially just as the sun is sinking to the rim of the horizon. From all hills, both great and small, voices, that would not be heard at noon, come up to you as if the lower skies exhaled them, as they do the earth's invisible vapours. ”

“ These crops come out rich in the autumn landscape here; and when alternated with the bright stubble of recently-harvested wheat and barley-fields, and fields of lake-coloured soil harrowed and smoothed to a garden's surface for the harvests of another year, you have the ground-work of a picture which the English May does not present, and which our American autumn cannot equal, because these root-crops do not make a feature of our landscape. ”

“ There is that famous old city itself standing with its brave, tall steeples half-melted in the mist, with the Severn folding it clear around the waste with its arm, as if it were the very bride of its love. All the space between, and up and down the valley is dotted with centres of historical and industrial interest interspersed with the varied aspects of the landscape. ”

“ The greatest mystery of all is this, that the demands of these necessities should not only produce occupations but tastes of endless variety. I have not the slightest doubt that every mother's son of these subterranean toilers would prefer, at the same price, to grub on his back or knees by lamp-light down in the coal seams fifty fathoms under ground, rather than to plough, reap, or mow in the sunniest fields in England, with its sweetest singing-birds piping to him from the hedge. ”

“ The trees in hedge-row, copse, and grove seem to thank heaven out of the whispering lips of all their leaves that they can breathe its pure air and drink in the life of its blessed sun, with no black, despotic chimneys to molest or make them afraid. ”

“ While at Willenhall I went to see one of the numerous coal-mines in the neighbourhood, which have erected many parallels of high, black bulwarks, which no army could scale without tall ladders. The men were just ascending from the pit, so I only ventured to look over into its dark mouth, and to wonder if the apostle of the Apocalypse ever saw anything of the kind before he had the sublime vision which he described with such splendid diction and imagery. How wonderful is the industrial economy of human necessities! ”

“ But in an English autumn you have all the colours on an equal footing, and no one has an absorbing place or power in the landscape, although its own is retained to all its life. You see a green in the middle of November which the grass or grain-fields never show in spring. ”

“ It exalts every valley, brings high places low, makes rough places smooth, and forms a little world and walls it in with an horizon to fit and grace its own altitude. Far beyond the Severn sloped up the successive ranges of Welsh hills and mountains, as if they were the folds of the same azure cloud, that dipped its upper edge in the sun's nearer glory. ”

“ Wolverhampton is the border-town of the district. On its western outskirt the scene changes with surprising and sudden contrast. In a few minutes you are in the Green Border-Land. All is quiet, rural, and peaceful. Everything looks and feels as if it had a safe and permanent foundation. All the houses stand level and strong. You see none tipped over end-ways with one leg sunk to the knee. ”

“ In the Middle Ages locks and keys exercised and disciplined the finest mechanical skill and artistic taste of various ingenious communities. They were not only elaborated for security but for ornament, and nothing made in these modern days can approach those unique productions. Indeed, the artist in iron, steel, and brass set to work upon the lock and key for a city gate, cathedral, or palace door to connect the memory of his name with the edifice for ever ”

“ The plane scenery in England in autumn cannot be equalled by that of any other country, nor by the view in this at any other time of the year. Our American skies, mountains, and trees in the Indian summer are more brilliant in their tinting than those of Eng- land; but the surface or landscape picture here in the same month excels ours in finish and beauty, and also surpasses the English scenery in spring or summer. In spring there is a monotony of tinting in the general landscape after all that the flowers can do to vary the aspect. The green shows all its resources of colouring ”

“ What has been already exhumed shows that it was built for a permanent and enlightened community, like all the other Roman cities in Britain that the Roman soldiers were only its garrison, to defend a civilian population of all ages, of mostly husbands and wives and children. For twice the space of time that our American Boston has lived as a civilized community, this Uriconium had a consecutive population, increasing through a dozen successive generations. No history is extant to tell us how many women from Italy were brought into the country ”

“ Each is charged with its covered pot full of blistered steel with coal to match. Their lidded mouths dull the roaring sound of the terrible combustion, but the furnace-men show by their looks the intensity of the heat. The pouring-off sight is really thrilling. When the lid is removed from each furnace, and the pot of molten metal lifted out by a pair of long-handled tongs with rounded jaws, even a spectator must have steady nerves to look at it. ”

“ It is truly a representative establishment, embracing in itself nearly all the industries and productions of the district. I doubt if such another can be found in England or the world for this remarkable variety of enterprise. In the first place, the company have sunk seven pairs of coal mines around their works. Most of the good coal they sell, using themselves the refuse for their furnaces and forges. They also own and work their own iron ore. Then from the furnace to the forge, from pig to bar, goes this raw material of their manufactures. ”

“ In returning to the railway station we saw a score of houses sunk up to their knees, and we looked down from the street upon floors once above its level, but now four or five feet below it. This is a characteristic feature of The Black Country. Everywhere you have the signs and presentiment of treacherous foundation. You see buildings that have subsided from their first levels at different angles of deflection, one end often sinking lower than the other, and making a rent in the outer walls. ”

“ At every rod of our ascent the shape showed some new feature of resemblance, until the elephant was fully developed in all his good-natured strength and stature, as if looking off into the great valley northward like a huge beast of burden that had brought it a splendid load of good weather. ”

“ It is probable that all the other Roman cities in England became just such self-increasing populations of what may be called the Latin race in blood and language, and that they had advanced a long way in the arts, habits, tastes, and occupations of civilized life when the Roman soldiery was withdrawn to defend the great metropolis of the world. The Roman empire died suddenly of heart disease. A man may be a Titan in size, with legs and arms of immense length and strength ”

“ Having luxuriated for an hour or two on the helmet of this famous hill in the scenery it commanded, we descended, with the descending sun, the western side, and made our way back to Wellington along the wooded skirt of the eminence. Following footpaths which were faintly marked among the leaves and across brooks, we reached the main road to the town. Midway we over-took a regular Saxon—a fair-haired broad-shouldered man of about thirty, wearing the hereditary livery and untaxed powder of a miller. ”

“ Thus Uriconium, though in the first decade may have been only a fortified camp of soldiers, in the next would have become the residence of families, even if no Roman-born woman had ever been introduced within its walls. This Latinized community must have increased without any accessions from Italy, probably by the same ratio of augmentation as any other city population multiplying itself without immigration from abroad. ”

“ Most of the iron made into cast-steel and shear-steel comes from Sweden, and is the best for that purpose yet found in the world. In fact, no really good edge-tool can be made of any other iron. The English makes good blistered steel for wagon-springs and common tools; but does not combine toughness with hardness sufficiently for axes, cutlery, and even hoes and hammers. Still the quality of steel made of English iron has been so much improved by the new processes lately introduced, that the Swedish has been considerably reduced in price. ”

“ As the stalwart men, naked to their waists, remove the cover from the pot and pour the fluid into flasks for ingots, the brightness is almost blinding even to one standing at the distance of several paces. As the whizzing stream runs into the mould, it emits a sparkling spray dashed with rainbow tints from various ignited gases. When the metal is sufficiently cooled and hardened, it is taken from the moulds in ingots or bars of cast-steel about twenty inches in length, and an inch and a half square. ”

“ The mellowest sun of an English autumn was descending the western horizon, and no other autumn sun the wide world round equals it, even at noon. In the first place, it seems to come down twice as near the earth as in America, as if it had closer social relation to it ”

“ France, and Germany are energetic rivals of the English manufacturers. The Americans have a great advantage not only in their application of labour-saving machinery to the process, but from the superiority of their moulding sand over that used in this country. ”

“ Now, considering that, with the exception of the iron imported from Sweden for making their cast-steel, the Brades Works draw all the material they manufacture into these infinitely-varied implements from the bowels of the earth around and under them, one cannot contemplate their operations and productions without admiration. ”

“ No wonder that, in the days of old when religious men essayed to get nearer to God and His fellowship by climbing the silent mountains for prayer, some long-bearded devotee of sequestered meditation should have pitched his sanctum on this lofty and solemn hill. ”

“ The Brades Works use themselves most of the steel they make in the manufacture of their agricultural and other tools. They get better prices for the steel they sell than any other house in England except Huntsman, of Sheffield. They supplied the pen trade of Birmingham up to about 1850, at which time the rolled cast-steel was reduced to 38s. per cwt., and Sheffield took the business. They make their own files for economy's sake, as they last so much longer when made of such steel as they manufacture themselves. ”

“ As the largest manufactory of door locks and fittings in America is that of my old neighbours in New Britain, Connecticut, Russell, Erwin, & Co., I had a particular desire to see what may be called a rival establishment in Willenhall, about ten miles north of Birmingham. This is one of the oldest and most extensive lock factories in the kingdom, and is called The Summerford Works ”

“ The few noticed are some of the 120 varieties patented in Great Britain, many of which came into extensive use.
Willenhall is the chief town of the district in the lock trade. There are about 275 employers and 3,000 hands engaged in the manufacture. The earnings of the men and boys vary from 18s, to 30s, per week. The production of the whole district, including padlocks and every other thing that goes by a key, is estimated at 31,500 dozens per week, 450 employers and about 5,000 hands being engaged in the trade. Nearly all countries of the world supply a market ”

“ Indeed they constitute one of the chief lions of The Black Country. I said, under them; which is literally true, for the whole village of buildings comprising the establishment has sunk full eleven feet below their first level. Once their foundations stood higher than the canal that runs by their side. The top of the canal is now nearly as high as their eaves, as it has been watched by rangers who have kept up its first level, while the furnace and forge-buildings with all their chimneys have sunk from being undermined. ”

“ They make about 200 different kinds, and six sizes to each kind, or 1,200 different locks in pattern or size. They produce about 200 dozen a week; the price varying from 7d, to £1 per lock. But if the American market is virtually closed against these articles, it is still open widely to another which yet holds its own against any protected competition on our side. That is, the currycomb. The cheapness and facility with which this is produced here are truly remarkable, and not easily to be matched by American ingenuity. The factory makes about 1,100 dozens a week, most of which go to America. ”