end and along one edge; she brushes them
one after another, taking each in her hand in
turn, and serving a hundred or a gross in—
we were about to say—no time. Another
woman takes each glued strip, and curls it
rapidly round within a little tin cylinder or
bottomless box; and when she has done
twenty or thirty in this way, she takes an
equal number of discs, and pats one into each
cylinder; she next takes a kind of rammer,
and pushes each disc down to the bottom of
its little cell, where its circumference comes
in contact with the glued edge of the strip;
and after this she places a little wedge within
and across the diameter of the box, to keep
the parts in proper circular form until the
glue is dry. In all these varied movements
the fingers seem to work spontaneously;
before the looker-on, with a high appreciation
of his own keenness, has well seen how the
little strip is curled round within the little
cell, there are twenty cells filled, twenty
discs put in, twenty actions of the rammer,
and twenty wedges adjusted. If the box be
oval instead of circular, like many wafer and
toy boxes, the wedges would distort the oval
form, and the strips are therefore temporarily
compressed by small steel springs. Whatever
the box undergoes, the same is borne by
the lid: the scaleboard is planed from the
plank, the discs are stamped from it, the
strips are cut from it, these strips are rolled,
they are glued, they are curled round within
the tin case, the disc is inserted and rammed
down, the wedge is inserted, and the fashioned
article is liberated from its cell—all this is
done for the lid as well as for the cover, and
the whole together require the services of
nearly a dozen persons.

But the veritable pill-boxes, the sight of
which has caused so many rueful countenances,
have pretty nearly got beyond
the range of chip or scaleboard: they are
now more frequently made of pasteboard;
and it is difficult to say which is more to be
admired; the neatness with which they are
made, or the cheap price at which they are
sold. Every one must employ his own
standard or test in judging cheapness; but
we cannot think there will be much
difference of opinion on this present matter.
A white pasteboard pill-box, with a nicely
fitting cover and a pink lining, is pretty,
symmetrical, and even strong; and that such
boxes can be sold at sixpence or eightpence
a gross—nay, that competition is bringing
down the price to even less than this, for the
smallest kinds—is a marvel. Pity that they
should be quite so cheap: a few pence more
per gross would not be felt by pill takers.

The manufacture of the pasteboard boxes
is more curious and interesting than even
that of the chip boxes. The primary elements
are sheets of smooth white paper, scarcely so
thick as writing paper; and—supposing the
box to have an ordinary white exterior with
a pink lining—we will trace the youthful
bringing-up of the pink and white trifle.
First, a damsel, provided with a vessel
containing a hot solution of cochineal, lays the
sheets of paper on a bench, and gives to one
surface of each a coating of the crimson
pigment, which is dried by hanging in a
heated room: these sheets are for the
circular discs. Meanwhile a man and a little
girl are at work on the sheets intended to
form the sides of the box and cover; or
rather, we should say that these sheets have
previously been coloured to the extent of
about one-fourth of their surface. The girl
pastes all the uncoloured portion; the man
takes a wooden roller, equal in diameter to
the intended box, and rolls it on the paper in
such a way that the latter forms a tube
round the roller; the tube has the pink
portion on the inside, while the paper, rolling over
itself into a fourfold thickness, has sufficient
substance to form a good firm pasteboard. The
man, by a few dexterous movements, solidifies
and smooths the tube, and then removes the
roller from within, preparatory to rolling
another sheet of paper in the same way.
How rapidly the man and his little assistant
make these tubes, we fear to say; but as the
operation is one only among many required
for a box valued at a sixth part of a farthing,
the time bestowed is necessarily wondrous
short. The tube, about ten inches in length,
is placed in the hot room to dry.

Next we trace the cutting up of the tube
into boxes or box-lids. We live in an age
when polish is required for everything, even
if the substance polished be of the smallest
possible dignity. Our fathers took pills out
of boxes which had a smooth white surface,
but not a glossy one; but our boxes must be
polished, and the maker has therefore to
devise a mode of doing this, by thrusting a
mandril or core into the tube, and then
subjecting it to pressure and friction between
two wooden surfaces. A woman then cuts
up each tube into box rings or lid rings; she
inserts a wooden mandril, and adjusts it to a
lathe; she has a small but very sharp cutting
instrument, and while the tube is rotating,
she cuts it up in bits of the proper length,
aided by a notched guide to regulate the
distances. The rapidity with which this is
done is very striking; and it is a curious
fact that no Sheffield knife renders such good
service for the cutting process as a broken
bit of watch spring, fixed at a proper angle
between two pieces of wood, and sharpened.

Each bit of tube, to form a box, is provided
with a bottom by a disc of circular pasteboard,
previously stamped out, and each lid
to form a cover is similarly provided: the
mode of adjusting these discs being nearly
the same as that adopted for the chip boxes.

Some pill-boxes, occupying a more dignified
position in the druggist's window, are more
elaborately wrought; the box and its lid are
"flush," as the carpenters would term it;
that is, they are of equal diameter. This is