through its prescribed ordeal; it is usually of
beech, and was formerly stained; it is now
singed to any desired tint. There is a portable
fire-place with a hole in the chimney. The
stick is thrust into that hole, and is passed
rapidly over the top of a flame; being
dexterously twisted about the while. It comes
out of a dark or light colour according to the
time of its exposure to, or its distance from, the
flame. The workers taper one end for receiving
the ferule; they cut two grooves for receiving
the two springs which respectively keep the
umbrella closed and open; they insert the
springs in these grooves, they adjust a stopper
of wire to prevent the slides from going too far,
and they fix a cross wire with a staple at each
end of it. Thus much for the stick; and now
for the ribs. The workman and his staff of
boys roughly taper the slip of whalebone
which is to form a rib; they shape it, and
smooth it, and varnish its tip; they drill a
hole in it, to facilitate the fastening to the
cover; they shape and smooth the head, lap
sheet brass round it, and drill a hole through
it for the bit of wire which is afterwards to
form a hinge; they similarly drill and shield
it at the middle point where the stretcher is
to be fastened, and they attach it to the
stretcher by means of a little axis of wire.
When all the eight ribs have been doctored
in this way, they are separately weighed or
weighted; that is, they are tested in respect
to strength and flexibility, in order that the
eight for any one umbrella may be selected as
nearly equal as possible: a necessary
condition for the symmetrical set of the umbrella
when open. Thus far done, the busy workers
proceed to thread the ribs; they insert a bit
of wire in a drilled hole in each stretcher;
they fasten the stretcher to a notch in the
slides by means of this wire, and they fasten
the ribs to their meeting point by other
pieces of wire.

Now what, in the name of all that is cheap,
does the reader imagine to be the rate of
wages paid for this labour and these bits of
iron wire and sheet brass? In the first place,
look at the movements, the separate operations.
The stick passes through the hand
nineteen times during its fashioning and
adjustment; each rib passes through the hand
thirteen times in preparing, once in weighing,
and four times in threading; and thus, for
an umbrella of eight ribs, there have been
one hundred and sixty-three successive operations,
performed by the workman and his
three or four boys. For this he receives from
a halfpenny to three farthings in the case of
parasols, and from three farthings to one
penny in the case of umbrellas, if the
manufacture be of the commonest kind, and the
ribs made of cane; but a whalebone-ribbed
umbrella brings him about twopence halfpenny.
In respect to the number of operations,
we may say that the Jury reporter
makes it one hundred and thirty-five; but as
his sum total does not quite agree with his
items, we have taken the liberty to introduce
a little arithmetic of our own. A workman
and four boys can, notwithstanding this
complexity of movements and operations, put
together nearly six hundred common
umbrellas in a week; but out of the six hundred
pence which he may receive for this labour,
his iron wire and sheet brass will have cost
him eight shillings. "When the next shower
of rain impels us to open an umbrella, let us
look at its skeleton, and ponder on the
amount of labour rendered for a penny or
twopence.

The womens' and girls' work, in covering
the umbrellas and parasols, is paid for at the
rate of from a penny to fourpence each,
according to the quality and the amount of
labour.

The iron or (so called) steel frames now made
at Birmingham, are produced in enormous
quantities. The stick, ribs, stretchers, and
ferule, are all made of iron, and can be
supplied complete so low as sevenpence each.
The small compass into. which an iron-frame
umbrella will pack, is a great source of the
favour in which it is held. France excels us
in the costly and beautiful umbrellas and
parasols; but we outvie all the world in the
humbler kinds. Several of our large City
houses are said to sell from two hundred and
fifty to five hundred dozens of umbrellas and
parasols weekly. The wholesale prices have
now reached such a low degree of cheapness
that a child's gingham parasol may be had for
fourpence, a woman's for tenpence-halfpenny,
a small silk parasol for the same, and a
gingham umbrella for sevenpence. That the
manufacture of these goods must be very
large in England, is shown by the fact that
the whalebone fins imported, and used
principally for umbrella-ribs, amount to eight or
nine thousand hundredweights annually.

The pursuit of lightness has been one of
the aims of modern umbrella makers,
insomuch that we are becoming lighter and
lighter every generation. The umbrella of
1645 is recorded to have been a weighty
affair of three pounds and a half, from which
we have travelled downwards to about half
a pound. One inventor has ingeniously shown
how to make the ribs of hollow steel tubing,
combining much strength with extraordinary
lightness; and another has a contrivance for
opening the umbrella by merely touching a
spring near the handle; a third shows you
how to draw out the stick, and use it as a
walking-stick; while another enables you to
fold up your umbrella and stow it away in
your great-coat pocket. The Alpaca is a
favourite just now; it is covered with cloth
made from the undyed wool of the South
American sheep; it fades neither in the
sunshine nor with the touch of salt-water, and
it is strong and durable. No less than twenty-
five thousand pounds' worth of Alpaca cloth
was used in England for covering umbrellas
in 1851. In Paris there are something like