which the foresters opposed the brave
tranquillity of a conscience at rest, and at length
obtained protection and support from the
officials. These proved to the communal
authorities of Vallarona that the Black Foresters
had for forty years been the mainstay of the hat-
factories: that when war had kept all other
purchasers aloof, they had not allowed
themselves to be frightened, and hence their coming
had been heralded with peals of joy-bells by the
workmen, whose only hope was in them. The
truth of this statement eventually gained the
mastery, the communes no longer opposed the
settlement of the company, and they have since
derived considerable profit from the immense
trade carried on by the company in all parts
of the world.

The great events of the War of Liberation
naturally checked the Schwarzwald trade, and
when it was hoped that peace would give it a
fresh impetus, obstacles were raised by the
restoration of those frontier regulations which
it was supposed that the French Revolution had
abolished for ever. The new generation,
however, that now represented the firm of Faller
and Co., was not to be baffled by this: one of
the partners attended to the business at
Lenzkirch, the other at Vallarona. They were also
the founders of the hat-manufacture in the
Black Forest. The government of Baden had
frequently requested them to transplant this
trade to their native land; but all attempts
failed, through the proportionately higher price
of the raw material—the straw. An augmented
tax on straw-hats induced the company to make
a fresh essay, and the daughter of the Florence
manager set to work teaching the Lenzkirch
girls the art of straw-plaiting. The manufacture,
after many struggles, became a semi-success,
and then competition set in. The augmentation
of the import duties in America, where
the chief trade in straw hats went on, almost
entirely ruined the factories. All the smaller
rivals disappeared from the scene, and Faller and
Co. alone continued the struggle. The universal
crisis of 1832 was another very severe blow for
the young factory, which did not burst into full
life until Baden joined the Zollverein in 1835,
and the protection thus afforded the company
restored its courage.

The Lenzkirch hat-manufacture soon went on
so regularly and satisfactorily that the grandsons
of those brave "porters," who defied all
the trouble, privation, and dangers of the hawking
trade, did not find sufficient toil and excitement
in it. In the same way as the earliest
founders took to the hat trade, because it offered
them employment for the summer, while the clock
trade appeared to them almost too hard for the
winter, their descendants considered that the
summer trade in hats did not suffice them, and
they returned to the clocks. The first Black
Forest clocks were made at the beginning of the
last century. Porters, who had seen such in
Holland, on their return employed the long winter
evenings in experiments. Some of them
succeeded sufficiently to introduce their clocks into
trade, and the secrecy with which they
surrounded their work, caused a general desire to
discover it; hence clock-making soon was
established in several villages. Improvements were
then made in the plain wooden clock. In 1730
the first cuckoo-clocks were made; ten years
later, perpendicular clocks; ten years after that
again, metal works were substituted for wooden.
About the year 1770, eight-day clocks were
manufactured in the Schwarzwald; and almost
simultaneously musical clocks, first with bells,
and then with whistles. The latter were gradually
so improved that they performed the masterpieces
of Haydn and Mozart. At the present
day, magnificent musical instruments, playing
any quantity of tunes, may be inspected at
Schöpperlin's manufactory in Lenzkirch. Some
fifteen years ago, a young man of the name of
Hauser worked for this gentleman, who gradually
grew dissatisfied with his task, and desired
progress. A characteristic feature is perceptible
throughout the history of the Schwarzwald
trades; the forester who comes across
anything that strikes him, never rests till he has
thoroughly learned how to produce it. The
first wooden clocks, as we have seen, were made
by peasants, who admired similar articles in
foreign parts, and the other foresters no sooner
saw their neighbours turn out such things, than
they must also set to work at them, and
generally improved them. The lucky inventors took
the greatest trouble to hand down the secret to
their children; but the ambitious neighbours set
every wheel in motion, until they had detected
it. The same was the case with young Hauser;
he knew no peace, because both table clocks
and pendules were made in the Paris factories,
but none in the Black Forest. He set to work
in his leisure hours, making experiments, and
was tolerably successful, though he convinced
himself that, until he had visited Chaux Ie
Fonds, Geneva, or Paris, he should never be able
to produce so perfect a work as was made at
those places. Hence he formed the resolution
of going on his travels.

In the mean while, he found a supporter in the
manager of Faller's Hat Company, who warmly
applauded his plans, and promised to find the
money to set the business going. Hauser set
out and worked as a simple mechanic in the
clock factories of Switzerland, and eventually in
those of Paris. Of course, the secrets of the
trade were not shown him at once; he had often
to undertake jobs which he knew by heart
during entire months; but as this was the only
way in which he could get at the heart of the
secret, he put up with it. The result of his
perseverance was, that he returned to
Lenzkirch in 1850, competent to make as good
pendules as were turned out of hand anywhere. A
company was soon formed, with a capital of one
hundred thousand florins; in 1851 operations
were commenced, and although for the first few
years no profits were made, the partners bided
their time, and at the present moment the shares
pay so considerable a dividend, that they are
quoted considerably above par.