which is most perplexing to the imagination:
the old method, by which nails, hooks and eyes,
and needles, were separately fashioned by
hand: or the present amount of production
by machinery. We saw, the other day, hooks
and eyes made by a machine, which gave us a
strong impression of its being alive (some one
said it could do everything but speak), by
which one manufactory sends out a ton per
week of hooks and eyes. No comment can
add to the marvel of the thought—a ton of
hooks and eyes per week! In needle-making
there is no such marvellous machinery: the
marvel consisting chiefly of the dexterity
attainable by human fingers; but the
monstrous numbers made are simply overwhelming.
We saw, on a counter of a warehouse
yesterday, a set of little parcels, such as
a lady might carry home all at once in a
hand-basket, and found that they contained
a quarter of a million of needles! Comparing
that set of parcels with what else the
room contained, we gave up the attempt to
comprehend what we saw. The room was
surrounded by compartments, each of which
was filled with similar packets. The effort to
imagine their contents, when in use, was
like undertaking to count the grains of a square
yard of sea-beach. Yet this was only one
room of one manufactory of one little town!

Needle-making is now, however, almost
gone out everywhere else. There was, once,
a famous manufacture at Long Crendon, in
Oxfordshire; but it has languished so long
that it has nearly expired. The people
intermarried with remarkable exclusiveness;
exchanged ideas with nobody else; heard, or
would hear, of no improvement; chose to
remain as they were; therefore, of course,
they sank. The population of Redditch has,
meantime, increased from fifteen hundred to
nearly five thousand; of whom almost every
man, woman, and child lives by needles. The
neighbouring villages contain a population of
from four thousand to five thousand more: a
large proportion of whom are employed by
the Redditch manufacturers. The lawyers'
and doctors' fees were once needles; and the
shopkeepers' profits, and the maid-servants'
wages, and the houses, and the schools, and
the land-allotments, and the flower-show
prizes, and all the good things that may be
found there now, were once needles too.
Finding such things come of needles, let us
see now how the needles come into being.

We are allowed to go over the Victoria
Works, the manufactory of Mr. John James;
and, moreover, into any of the houses of his
work-people who carry on their business at
home: which is the case with about three-
fourths of them. Those who work on
Mr. James's premises are well off for air,
light, and cheerfulness. Some of the rooms
overlook his pretty garden, and all have
plenty of windows. When once we have left
the furnaces and boilers, all the rest is clean
and there is no sign of ill health in any of
the intelligent faces. Intelligent they are; for
these people have had a good school education.
Mr. James admits no children under ten years
of age to his employment. He cannot prevent
some of his people from hiring the help of
children under that age; but his rule is
enforced to the utmost of his power. Of the
work-people, thirty-eight can read and write;
fourteen read, but do not write; and only
three can do neither. Those three are—a
boy, just arrived from elsewhere; a man, of
great natural intelligence, who earns two
guineas a-week; and a half-wit, who can turn
a wheel, but cannot learn his letters.

In going over the premises, we must pass
hither and thither, and walk into the next
street and back again, and even take a drive
to a certain country mill and return, in order
to present in their natural order the processes
of needle-making.

The best wire comes from Yorkshire; the
inferior from Birmingham. There is a small
chamber, really pretty in its way, from being
hung round with coils of bright wire,
suspended from hooks. This wire is of all
thicknesses, from the stout kind required for
fish-hooks for Newfoundland cod, and for
packing and sail-making needles, to the finest
for cambric-needles. In the dark and dingy
rooms below, bits of wire, each the length of
two needles, are cut by a pair of vast shears,
well fixed to the wall. The " measure " is a
steel instrument, furnished with a screw,
which determines the length of the bundle of
wires cut at once. Two iron rings, about
five inches in diameter, are placed on edge,
and nearly filled with the cut wires, of which
there is thus a pretty large faggot before us.
These wires, having come off coils, are
curved, and they must be straightened.
A sort of hooked poker is thrust into the
rings, and transports the faggot to the
furnace, where it is presently heated red-hot.
It is taken out; a curved iron bar is laid
between the rings, and the bundle is rolled
backwards and forwards on a table until the
wires are straight. This is called " rubbing
straight."

We now find ourselves in a mill in the
country—a pretty place, with its pond, its
unceasing gush of water, its little ravine, its
cheerful farmstead, its fields with cows
grazing, even at this season. There is a
miller peeping out at us. What does he do
here? One end of the mill is let for grinding
flour; the other, for grinding needles. We go
down some steps to a basement-room, where
straps are revolving with all possible zeal.
The water-wheel is under our feet; and
round us are placed four grindstones. Each
grindstone is furnished with a cap or cover,
like a collapsing Dutch oven. It does not
fit closely, but leaves a space, through which
the deadly dust is blown. Here is the secret
of the salvation of the dry-grinders. A
comfortable-looking needle-pointer is seated on
his bench. He takes up two dozen or so of