Pincer

“ A stove is useless at Senegal; an ice-making machine is useless at Spitzbergen. In a locksmith's eyes, pincers are objects of first necessity; a duchess has no use for them. On the other hand, a little bonnet, which does not cover her head, is more useful to her than sixty pairs of pincers, for she requires it to drive in her carriage in the park, and she pays for it accordingly. ”

“ The large pincers are studded with highly sensitive tactile hairs, and the moment an insect touches these he is promptly seized by the pincers and stung to death, the scorpion's tail being swiftly brought over his back and the sting thrust into the struggling prey. Paralysis rapidly follows, and, when dead, the insect is pulled to pieces by the small nippers and its soft tissues sucked into the scorpion's mouth. Scorpions vary in size from about 1 in. to 8 in.; and the amount of poison instilled into a wound depends principally upon the size of the animal. ”

“ Pinçard, m. (cavalry) , horseman who possesses strong thighs, and has, in consequence, a firm grip in the saddle. From pince, grip.
Pince, f. (thieves’) , hand, or “duke.” (Horsemen’s) Pince, grip of the thighs. (Popular) Chaud de la ——, fond of women. La pince is the fork.
Puis, comme c’était un chaud de la pince qui faisait des enfants à toutes les figurantes de l’Odéon.—E. Monteil.
(Card-sharpers’) Pince, a box constructed on cheating principles, and used by sharpers at the game called consolation, a game played with dice. ”

“ The pins are of enormous size, seven or eight inches in length, and half an inch wide, and are made of various substances, such as tortoise shell, carved wood, and ivory. Some of the most characteristic hair-pins are made of glass. They are hollow, and nearly filled with some colored liquid, so that at every movement of the wearer an air bubble runs from one end of the pin to the other. Sometimes a woman will wear a dozen or more of these pins in her hair, so that at a little distance her head looks as if a bundle of firewood had been stuck loosely into it. ”

“ The word “pinches” refers to an elaborate pleating which was worn for years; it lingered in America till 1750, and we have revived it in what we term “accordion pleating.” The seventeenth-century pinching was usually applied to lawn or some washable stuff; and there must have been a pinching, a goffering machine by which the pinching was done to the washed garment by means of a heated iron.
John Lilburne.
Pinched sleeves, pinched partlets, pinched shirts, pinched wimples, pinched ruffs, are often referred to, all washable garments. ”

“ Those flakes of flint, my child, were split off by men; even your young eyes ought to be able to see that. And here are other pieces of flint—pear-shaped, but flattened, sharp at one end and left rounded at the other, which look like spear-heads, or arrow-heads, or pointed axes, or pointed hatchets—even your young eyes can see that these must have been made by man. And they are, I may tell you, just like the tools of flint, or of obsidian, which is volcanic glass, and which savages use still where they have not iron. ”

“ Reflection had taught Pincher that a refined Crescent was no fit arena for military prowess. Besides, he had reduced the dogs of the district to order, and his appearance, like that of the British Flag on the high seas of old, was saluted by tails down. Pincher looked for new worlds to conquer. He took his stand, like some adventurous knight of old, in a pass perilous. He kept that thronged thoroughfare, the Dairy Road, against all comers. No collie, or bull-terrier, or Dandie could pass, but must cross teeth with Pincher. ”

“ The pinna,2716 which is destitute of sight, opens its shell, and in so doing exposes its body within to the attacks of the small fish, which immediately rush upon it, and finding that they can do so with impunity, become bolder and bolder, till at last they quite fill the shell. The pinnotheres, looking out for the opportunity, gives notice to the pinna at the critical moment by a gentle bite, upon which the other instantly closes its shell, and so kills whatever it has caught there ”

“ When much beading of one kind is being done, a large heavy pair of round-nose pliers (Fig. 10) with the jaws bent around in a curve and sprung apart enough to allow for the thickness of the metal proves to be a handy tool. After the edge of the shell has been flared out to start the bead, the pliers are opened enough to admit the metal and then closed and the stock guided around to form the bead as far [10] as possible. In this way the larger part of a bead is rapidly formed, one jaw of the pliers acting as a spinning tool and the other corresponding to the back-stick. ”

“ Pins are of various sizes, from the blanket-pin, three inches in length, to the smallest ribbon-pins, of which 300,000 only weigh one pound. Insect-pins, used by entomologists, are of finer wire than ordinary pins, and vary in length from three inches to a size smaller than ribbon-pins. It has been calculated that ten tons of pins are made every week in England alone, requiring from fourteen to fifteen tons of brass-wire.
"What becomes of all the pins?" a question every day asked, received an answer, a few years since, upon the opening of an old sewer for repair, in Rea-street, Birmingham. ”

“ With the above-mentioned articles were numerous fragments of calcined flint, and amongst the soil of the barrow two rude instruments of flint.
At eastern (p. 73) , in one part of the mound, an instrument was found, with a fine spear-head of flint, and a small arrow-head of the same. In other parts, but in apparently undisturbed earth, a circular instrument, and various chippings of flint, and the handle of a knife of stag's horn, riveted in the usual way on to the steel. ”

“ Pincher could not abide his neighbour, Professor Blackie. The extraordinary liveliness of that scholar found vent in a kind of dance, a sort of waltz in which he indulged as he paced the street. Observing this, and not liking it, Pincher would rush from his lair in the area, circling round the Professor, and leaping up at the tails of his plaid. The learned Professor was obliged to walk like other men in Pincher’s neighbourhood. ”

“ Yet all the time, a time ages long, the utmost help they had found for the bare and unaided hand was the serrated edge of a splintered flint, or the chance-found fragment beside a stream that nature, in a thousand or a million years of polishing, had shaped into the rude semblance of a hammer or a pestle. ”

“ Not only the clerk of the spinners examines the yarn when he receives it, and counts the threads in any of the knots which appear to be too small, but the name of the spinner, with a note of the quantity of knots, accompanies the yarn into the store-room, as was before observed, and from thence to the spooler, by whom it is wound off; any frauds committed in reeling cannot fail to be brought home to the spinner. ”

“ The ancient workman had his knife, saw, adze, chisel, drill, and scraper,—or plane, as we may term it,—all made of flint. The worn and triturated edges of many of those flint-tools show abundant evidence of their use in fashioning some hard substance. ”

“ Hold the knife about six inches above at an angle of about forty-five degrees from the flint, turn your knife so that the edge of the back of the blade will strike, then come down at an angle about thirty-five degrees with a sharp scraping blow. This should send the spark into the punk at the first or second blow. Now blow the punk until it is all aglow and you are ready to set your tinder afire. Push the punk into the middle of a handful of tinder and blow it until it is aflame, and the deed is done! ”

“ The under side of these flint knives is always smooth, and a trifle arched or curved; evidently arising from the conchoidal fracture of the flint. Flints of this form have very probably been used as arrow- or lance-heads. The second general form of flints have doubtless been used as boring tools: they are distinguished from those last mentioned by having one end decidedly blunt, instead of being chisel-shaped and sharp (Plate I. fig. 4) . At all events, I have been able with the greatest ease to bore nearly circular holes in stag's-horn with similar pointed flints. ”

“ Only a piece of jagged flint, but the edge we finger was chipped by human hands for an object conceived in a human brain. See how the conical marks where each stroke of the hammer fell are still as clear and purposeful as on the day when they were made. Flaking a flint is skilled work: the blows must be cunningly aimed and exactly struck, or the stone will be shattered instead of sharpened. ”

“ The workman holds the lump of flint in his left hand, and strikes with the pointed hammer upon the edges of the great planes produced by the first breaking, whereby the white coating of the flint is removed in small scales, and the interior body of the flint is laid bare ”

“ Pincher. Ah, I've a good deal of influence in that line. Now, if there's anything Mrs. SCROOP might fancy—I know "perks" are not in your line, but the ladies, my boy, the ladies!
H. of D. (laughing) . You will have your joke, PINCHER. Well, oddly enough, the Missis was only saying last night she wanted a new piano—one of BROADWOOD's grands, for choice—and if you—
Pincher (mysteriously) . Leave it to me, my dear Sir, leave it to me. If Mrs. SCROOP isn't satisfied by this day week, why—never give me another line. Ha! ha! Good day, Mr. SCROOP! ”

“ After a few strokes of the spinning tool have been taken, the shell will appear about as shown at B, Fig. 12, and at this point it is necessary to trim the shell at the edges with the diamond-point tool. Trimming is required because spinning stretches the stock and the resulting uneven edge will cause splits in the metal if it is not trimmed occasionally. As a carpenter is known by his chips, so a spinner is known by the way his work stretches. ”

“ As for my pincushion, I fairly soaked it with tears when I first found it. I told you about the pincushion, didn't I? Why, that little lamb, for days before she went, was working away at something, she would not let me see what. After she was gone, I went up to my room for a quiet cry, and there was a gorgeous new pincushion, and 'I love you,' on it in pins. My dear little girl! ”

“ The day following, or at any time in the future, the superfluous hair and paper may be trimmed from the embryo pencil and a handle attached. A straight-grained piece of pine affords a good handle. Split in center of handle, insert the hair in the split, wrap tightly with stout linen thread, and the pencil is ready for use. In the making of the sword pencil there is often a superfluity of short hairs, of which it is desirable to be well rid. ”

“ Flint Objects.—Two views of a portion of a curved flint knife, which has been much used, are here given (Fig. 198) . Another small flint implement like a scraper is figured, because it exhibits one side which has been artificially polished (Fig. 199) . Fig. 200 represents a small central core, neatly chipped all round. There is another large core of flint 31⁄4 inches in diameter, from which many flakes appear to have been struck off. Besides the above there were found a small portion of a finely chipped scraper, and a large quantity of broken flints and chips. ”

“ A pirn, whose head is coned to fit inside a shaper, is slipped over a spindle, and both are passed, either vertically or horizontally, through a shaper; the basal end of the spindle being flattened to enter a rectangular hole in a wharve which is driven from a central tin drum. ”

“ In the third picture is shown a piece of flint that was doubtless chipped into this shape that it might be used as a knife.
I have found scores of such knives in the fields that extend along the little valley, and a few came to light in my search that afternoon in the brook-side sands and gravel. So, if this chipped flint is a knife, then, as in modern times, the children were whittlers.
fish-hooks.
Of course, our boys nowadays would be puzzled to cut a willow whistle or mend the baby’s go-cart with such a knife as this; but still, it will not do to despise stone cutlery. ”

“ They never wholly outgrow safety pins, and though they love to ornament them with jewellery, precious metal, and enamels, they are naught but safety pins after all. Some ingenious philosopher could write a full tractate on woman in her relation to pins—hairpins, clothes pins, rolling pins, hatpins. ”

“ E. Lartet demonstrated the feasibility of this process, by himself drilling the eye of a similar needle with a flint borer, found in one of the French caves. I have myself bored perfectly round and smooth holes through both stag's horn and wood with flint flakes, and when a little water is used to facilitate the operation, it is almost surprising to find how quickly it proceeds, and how little the edge of the flint suffers when once its thinnest part has been worn or chipped away, so as to leave a sufficient thickness of flint to stand the strain without being broken off. ”

“ But the knife is the most merciful means; the bird being first hung up by the legs, the mouth must be opened wide, and a long, narrow, sharp-pointed knife, like a long penknife, which instrument is made for the purpose, should be thrust firmly through the back part of the roof of the mouth up into the brain, which will cause almost instant death. ”

“ In the same beds in which the drift-type implements are found, flakes, either struck off in the formation of such tools, or especially flaked off from a core in a particular manner, indicating that they were themselves intended for use as tools, are found in considerable numbers. No more useful tool could have been used during the stone age than the plain, untouched flint flake, which, from the sharpness of the edge, is capable of being used for a variety of purposes. ”