CHAPTER XIV.

We exhibited to you, in the last chapter, a few examples, such as the sheath of the needle-sorter, and the nicks in the types of the compositor, of contrivances to economise labor. Such contrivances are not machinery; but they answer one of the great purposes of machinery,-that of saving time; and in the same manner they diminish the cost of production. The objections which some of you make to machinery, namely, that it diminishes the quantity of labor required, and therefore the number of laborers, applies also to these contrivances; and it applies, also, to the greater expertness of one workman as compared with the lesser expertness of another workman. There are boot-closers so skilful that they have reduced their arms to the precision of a machine. They can begin to close a boot with a thread a yard long in each hand, throw out each arm at once to the full extent of the thread, without making a second pull, and at every successive pull contract the arm so as to allow for the diminished length of the thread each time that it passes through the leather. There are not many workmen who can do this; but those whose sense of touch is delicate enough are not blamed by

their fellow-workmen, for doing that by one movement of the arm, which other men do by two movements.

Every one of us who thinks at all is constantly endeavoring to diminish his individual labor, by the use of some little contrivance which experience has suggested. Men who carry water in buckets, in places where water is scarce, put a circular piece of wood to float on the water, which prevents its spilling, and consequently lessens the labor. A boy who makes paper bags, in a grocer's shop, so arranges them that he pastes the edges of twenty at a time, to diminish the labor. The porters of Amsterdam, who draw heavy goods upon a sort of sledge, every now and then throw a greased rope under the sledge, to diminish its friction, and therefore to lessen the labor of dragging it. The dippers of candles have made several improvements in their art within the last twenty years, for the purpose of diminishing labor. They used to hold the rods between their fingers, dipping three at a time; they next connected six or eight rods together by a piece of wood at each end, having holes to receive the rods; and they now suspend the rods so arranged upon a sort of balance, rising and falling with a pulley and a weight, so as to relieve the arms of the workman almost entirely, while the work is done more quickly, and with more precision. Are there fewer candle-makers, think you, employed now, than when they dipped only three rods with considerable fatigue, and no little pain as the candles

grew heavy? The excise returns show that seventyeight millions of pounds of candles were used in 1818, and one hundred and ten millions of pounds in 1829. There can be no doubt that we have more candlemakers, because candles are cheaper.

In the domestic arrangements of a well regulated household, whether of a poor man or of a rich man, one of the chief cares is, to save labor. Every contrivance to save labor that ingenuity can suggest is eagerly adopted when a country becomes highly civilized. In former times, in our own country, when such contrivances were little known, and materials as well as time were consequently wasted in every direction, a great Baron was surrounded with a hundred menial servants; but he had certainly less real and useful labor performed for him, than a tradesman of the present day obtains from three servants. Are there fewer servants now employed than in those times of barbarous state? Certainly not. The middle classes amongst us can get a great deal done for them in the way of domestic service, at a small expense; because servants are assisted by an infinite number of contrivances which do much of the work for them. The contrivances render the article of service cheaper; and therefore there are more servants. The work being done by fewer servants, in consequence of the contrivances, the servants themselves are better paid than if there was no cost saved by the contrivances.

The common jack by which meat is roasted, is described by Mr. Babbage as "a contrivance to enable the cook in a few minutes to exert a force (in winding up the jack) which the machine retails out during the succeeding hour in turning the loaded spit, thus enabling her to bestow her undivided attention on her other duties." We have seen, twenty years ago, in farm-houses, a man employed to turn a spit with a handle; dogs have been used to run in a wheel for the same purpose. When some ingenious servant girl discovered that if she put a skewer through the meat and hung it before the fire by a skein of worsted, it would turn with very little attention, she made an approach to the principle of the bottle-jack. All these contrivances diminish labor, and insure regularity of movement; and therefore they are valuable contrivances.

A bell which is pulled in one room and rings in another, and which therefore establishes a ready communication between the most distant parts of a house, is a contrivance to save labor. In a large family, the total want of bells would add a fourth at least to the labor of servants. Where three servants are kept now, four servants would be required to be kept then. Would the destruction of all the bells therefore add one fourth to the demand for servants? Certainly not, The funds employed in paying for service would not be increased a single farthing; and therefore, by the destruction of bells, all the families of the kingdom

would have some work left undone, to make up for the additional labor required through the want of this useful contrivance or all the servants in the kingdom would be more hardly worked,—would have to work sixteen hours a day instead of twelve.

In some parts of India, the natives have a very rude contrivance to mark the progress of time. A thin metal cup, with a small hole in its bottom, is put to float in a vessel of water; and as the water rises through the hole the cup sinks in a given time-in twenty-four minutes. A servant is set to watch the sinking of the cup, and when this happens he strikes upon a bell. Half a century ago, almost every cottage in England had its hour-glass-an imperfect instrument for registering the progress of time, because it only indicated its course between hour and hour; and an instrument which required a very watchful attention, and some labor, to be of any use at all. The universal use of watches or clocks, in India, would wholly displace the labor of the servants, who note the progress of time by the filling of the cup; and the same cause has displaced, amongst us, the equally unprofitable labor employed in turning the hour-glass, and watching its movement. Almost every house in England has now a clock or watch of some sort; and every house in India would have the same, if the natives were more enlightened, and were not engaged in so many modes of unprofitable labor to keep them poor. His profitable labor has given