much needed, and therefore very profitable;
but from which young women are at present
almost excluded, for want of the practical
part of the study. One, here and there, may
design a pattern, unexceptionable in taste,
and in every sort of fitness but one: but if it
cannot be wrought, her labour and her hopes
are lost.

Let us send a glance over what we saw at
Messrs. Elkington and Mason's the other day,
where a friend, connected with the establishment,
showed us whatever we wished to see.
From the show-room—the Art-chamber—
which we shall not describe, because every
one may go there, we were conducted to the
room where the modellers were at work.
There, on a shelf, stood some tall volumes—
books on Art, and choice engravings. Engravings,
and patterns of beautiful forms were
hung up; and at their respective tables sat
several artists, modelling in wax. One should
come here to understand what pains are spent
on the common articles which we use every
day. Here is one side of a stand for castors.
This one side consists of three pieces; the
straight centre, and the two oblique sides, on
which the pattern must be reversed, every
hair's-breadth of each of which must be
modelled with the nicest care,—a smooth
stroke here, a gentle touch there. And then
there is the stem, with the handle at the top,
and two sides again. These common articles
surprise one more by the detail than the more
luxurious productions—the nautilus shell, for
instance, in pink wax, which is the pattern of
a flower-stand; or the group of palm-tree and
oak, overshadowing the sick Hindoo, and the
soldier-surgeon stooping over him, lancet in
hand;—the piece of testimonial plate presented
to the surgeon of a regiment.

It seems as if as much precision and care
were necessary in the coarse interior parts of
the work as in the outside finish: for instance,
in raising the foundation of a sugar-basin,
which must have no join in its circumference,
because it is to be gilt inside. It is one of
the nicest arts in cookery to make a raised
pie a true circle or oval; and, in the hairdresser's
business, to make one side of a wig
match the other. In forming the foundation
of a sugar-basin, the flat sheet of metal has
to be raised in a bulge first, and then contracted;
and then it must bulge again: and
this form must be truly given by turning the
metal with one hand, on the vibrating steel
bar, which serves for the anvil, while the other
hand uses the hammer, with equal and steady
strokes. A similar process is used for raising
an embossed pattern on the metal, when the
form renders casting out of the question.
Under the process of snarling, as this is called,
it is curious to see the bumps rising under
the hammer—bumps caused by the round
head of the steel bar beneath, and destined
to group themselves into clusters of leaves or
fruit as the work advances. When a hard
mixed metal is used for these foundations,
and the copper scales at the surface, the work
must go into pickle before it can be further
dealt with. In a yard, therefore, stand little
vats of this pickle, in which sulphuric or
nitric acid predominates, causing the copper
to scale away.

But the foundations must be annealed
before hammering, that the pores of the metal
may be opened. In the annealing room is a
furnace, such as was formerly blown by
bellows, like that of a blacksmith's forge.
Now the engine saves that labour. A cock is
turned, and there is an instant commotion
among the lazy embers. Blue, yellow, red,
and white flames dance and leap, and want
something to devour. A sugar basin or teapot
is held over them on a metal slice; and,
in a few seconds, the black metal becomes
a deep red; and then, in a few more seconds,
scarlet, pink, white; and then it is laid down
on the ground, to grow black again at its
leisure.

Meantime, the ornamental rims, and little
panels, and all the decorations which are to
be afterwards attached to the article, are in
preparation elsewhere. A man stands at a
pair of shears fastened to his counter, and
cuts out pieces of German silver, as marked
roughly from a pattern. These are the little
plates which are to receive the embossed
patterns, now in course of being struck off
from steel dies in another room, or the slips
which are to become rims themselves. In
that other room are three or four men, who
seem to be seized with a frantic convulsion, at
intervals of a minute or so. They are the
stampers. Having fixed the concave part of
the die under the stamper, and attached the
punch to the stamper, they lay on a slip of
German silver, throw themselves by one foot
and hand into a sling of rope, raising the
stamper by their weight, and then let it fall,
punching the slip of metal, which then gives
place to another. There are no less than
thirty tons of steel dies on the premises, each
die being a costly and precious article of
property. They are the most expensive part
of the apparatus; as the castings are the
most expensive process of the manufacture,
from the time and minute pains required. Of
the castings, nothing need be said here, as the
process is the same as in every iron-foundry,—
the work being only on a smaller scale, and
more delicately finished. The sand, employed
in the castings, is from the neighbouring
Cemetery. As fast as the red sandstone is
hewn away there, to make room for new
chambers of the dead, and fresh nooks for
flowering shrubs and green graves, the rubbish
is bought by the manufacturers for their
castings, to an amount which materially supports
the funds of the Cemetery.

The chasing of the cast articles is one of the
most astonishing processes to an observer. It
seems as if every man so employed must be
an artist. One sits with a salver before him.
With the left hand, he turns it this way and