It is very different now. We pass and
examine large stacks of timber and poles—
beech, ash, mountain-ash, sycamore, "seal"
(sallow), hazel, birch, and alder. The greater
part is stacked under slated roofs; but some
piles stand uncovered at present. There is
timber thick enough to make posts; and
much of fourteen years' growth—as large
as a stout man's leg—which is split and
dressed into rails. While the circular saws
and the lathes are at work, it is as well to
make other things, besides bobbins; so we
observe a new and much-improved kind of
mangle in the old mill; and besides the
posts and rails for fences, we see the legs
of bedsteads lying about, and other neat
pieces of turnery.

The knots of the stouter wood are sliced off
before the splitting; and the peeling is done
on the premises, while the wood is fresh.
The peel serves for fuel; the baker buys
for his ovens the chips and dust which lie
almost knee-deep everywhere within the mill.
As for the corners, and odds and ends of the
wood, they are sold for "kindling" to the
neighbours round.

The circular-saws are from Sheffield. The
rest of the machinery is home-made. Down
in a chamber below the rest of the mill, are
the cog-wheels, which are turned by the great
water-wheel. There they whirl, smoothly,
steadily; and between, and under them,
may be seen again the clear gushing waters,
and green and grey rocks; and over them
the sunny wood, where the latest bees are
swinging in the last blossoms of the year.
Mr. Horrox's house is completely covered
with ivy; and the fuchsia and China-rose
blossom beside the door.

We may seem to dwell long on the natural
features of the place; but there is an unspeakable
charm in seeing the commonest manufacturing
toil cheered and brightened by the
presence of that antique and ever-young
beauty, who is supposed to be mournfully
displaced by the establishment of the arts of
life.—We would fain convey some sense of
this charm to our readers. We are thankful
to be able to add, that there is here no
drawback from the vice which is the curse
of the district, as of too many rural
neighbourhoods. The one great pain to the
inhabitants of the exquisite valley in which
Ambleside lies, is the intemperance of the
people. It is not quite so bad as it was;
but still, the early walker, who begins the
winter day by a walk under the stars,
when the last fragment of the gibbous
moon hangs over Wansfell, is but too likely
to meet the labourer staggering tipsy to
his work. In the summer twilight, or
the repose of Sunday afternoon, when the
mind should be awake and enjoying the
interval from bodily labour, too many two-
legged brutes may be seen, who have
abdicated their prerogative of reason, and are
courting disease and early death from drink,
amidst a scene and an air which should make
men wise and long-lived. It is pretty sure
that no such sinner belongs to this mill. It is
known that Mr. Horrox will employ none
such. From the moment that a man is found
to have been drunk, he must come no more
there. And this is an important discouragement
of vice; for nine-and-twenty men and
boys (only eight boys) are employed at the
mill; and that is a number which tells upon so
small a population as the people of Ambleside.

They are paid by the gross of bobbins;
and they earn from fourteen shillings to
twenty-three shillings a week, at an average
of fourpence per gross. There must be a
change soon. The "thread-men," (spinners
of sewing-cotton) in manufacturing towns,
have new machinery, by which bobbins can
be produced at five farthings, which here
cost fourpence halfpenny. There have been
contentions and strikes in those towns,
ending, as strikes on account of machinery
always do: and the change must reach this
place in natural course.

And now for the process. The wood being
sorted,—some sold in blocks to the turners at
so much per solid foot, and poles to the
hoopers by the thousand (six score to the
hundred),—the tree-stem to be wrought is
brought to the circular saw. It is first cut
across into blocks. Then, the block is split
into slices. A man and boy sit opposite each
other, at each end of the saw. The man
applies the block, and pushes it from him
some way; and the boy finishes the severance
by drawing it towards him;—their fingers
being thus kept out of danger. No accidents
of consequence have happened at this mill;
but, elsewhere, it has been no uncommon
thing for a careless workman to have all the
fingers of one hand sawn off across the middle.
The wood is sliced into squares, about a
quarter of an inch thick, and of different
sizes, according to the sort of bobbin, of
which these slices are to make the ends. The
squares are baked, dry as a brown crust, in
an outhouse which has an iron floor, heated
by a furnace beneath. On this floor the
squares are laid in rows, thick and close, and
shut in until they are done enough. After they
are cool, they are bored with a round hole
in the middle, which is to receive the shank.
Two slices are glued together,—the corners
of one crossing the sides of the other, that
the grain may cross, and obviate fracture.
One has a smaller hole than the other, that
the end of the shank may fit in more securely.
When glued, the cross-pieces are strung on a
round iron bar, and screwed tight upon each
other, to prevent warping. While they are
thus drying, the shank is preparing.

The shank is made round, in the lathe. It
has next to be bored. This is done by boys,
who simply drive the end against the steel
borer which is turned by machinery. In an
instant of time, the borer makes its way
through to the inner end. The shank goes