“5.  A common quill, containing 24 dozen of scissors, perfect in form, and made of polished steel.

“These are kept as trophies of skill, in the perfect execution of which, the manufacturer considers that he displays his power of producing any useful articles of which the Sheffield manufacture consists.  Mr. Rodgers obligingly conducted me through his various workshops, and I discovered that the perfection of the Sheffield manufacture arises from the judicious division of labour.  I saw knives, razors, &c. &c., produced in a few minutes from the raw material.  I saw dinner knives made from the steel bar and all the process of hammering it into form, welding the tang of the handle to the steel of the blade, hardening the metal by cooling it in water and tempering it by de-carbonizing it in the fire with a rapidity and facility that were astonishing.

“The number of hands through which a common table knife passes in its formation is worthy of being known to all who use them.  The bar steel is heated in the forge by the maker, and he and the striker reduce it in a few minutes into the shape of a knife.  He then heats a bar of iron and welds it to the steel so as to form the tang of the blade which goes into the handle.  All this is done with the simplest tools and contrivances.  A few strokes of the hammer in connexion with some trifling moulds and measures, attached to the anvil, perfect, in two or three minutes the blade and its tang or shank.  Two men, the maker and striker, produce about nine blades in an hour, or seven dozen and a half per day.

“The rough blade thus produced then passes through the hands of the filer, who files the blade into form by means of a pattern in hard steel.  It then goes to the halters to be hafted in ivory, horn, &c. as may be required; it next proceeds to the finisher, to Mr. Rodgers for examination, and is then packed for sale or exportation.  In this progression every table-knife, pocket-knife, or pen-knife, passes step by step, through no less than sixteen hands, involving in the language of Mr. Rodgers, at least 144 separate stages of workmanship in the production of a single pen-knife.  The prices vary from 2_s_. 6_d_. per dozen knives and forks, to L10.”

(To be concluded in our next.)

* * * * *

FUN.

Monosyllables are always expressive, but seldom more comprehensive than in this instance.  A thousand recollections of urchin waggeries spring up at its repetition.  Our present example is “Skying a Copper,” from Mr. Hood’s Comic Annual, of which a copious notice will be found in the SUPPLEMENT published with the present number.

A REPORT FROM BELOW!

“Blow high, blow low.”—­Sea Song.