Life in a Railway Factory Part 20

This one cannot obtain his supply of bars from the shears. "Now Matty!

Hasn't got that iron cut? I can't wait about for thee."

"Dwunt thee be in sich a caddle. Thee ootn't get it none the zooner.

Other people got to live as well as thee, dost naa!"

"All right! I shall go and see _he_," (the overseer).

"Thee cast go an' do jest whatever thee bist a-mine to. 't.w.u.n.t make a 'appoth o' difference."

By and by the overseer comes up and shouts--"Hey! Can't you let these chaps on, Matthews?"

"No, I caan't! Tha'll hef to woite a bit. Ther's some as bin a-woitin'

all night, ver nigh. 'Tis no good to plag' I, else ya wunt get nothin'

done at all."

Here is the forger bellowing at his driver. "Go on! Go on! Hit him! Hit him! Hit him! Light, ther'! Light! 'Old on! 'Old on! Whoa, then! Castn't stop when I tells tha? Dost want to spile the jilly thing? Gi' us up they gauges. A's too thick now. Up a bit, ther! Hit un agyen! Light now!

Light! Light! That'll do! Whoa! Take 'old o' this bar, an' gi' us that cutter. Now, Strawberry! turn 'e over in the fire, an' don' stand ther'

a-gappatin'. 'Aaf thi 'ed 'll drop off in a minute. Ther's a lot to do yet, else ya won' get no balance. Hout o' the road, oot!"

"Haw-w-right. Kip yer wool on. 'Tis a long time to mornin' it. Thee bist allus in a caddle," the other answers.

"Shet thi 'ed, an' mind thi own business, else I'll fetch the gaffer to thee! Pull up ther', an' le's 'ev un out on't. We be all be'ind agyen!

Everybody else ull a done afore we begins! Hang on to that chayn, Fodgy!

Now then! ALL together! UGH!"

So the ingot is brought out with shouts and cries, the rattling and jingling of chains and the loud roaring of steam in the roof outside.

The blaze of the furnace and the spluttering, white-hot metal make it as light as day in the shed. The forger and his mates stagger under the weight of the ingot and porter-bar and incline their heads to escape the fierce heat. Their faces and necks are burnt red and purple--of the colour of blood-poisoning. Their s.h.i.+rt sleeves are hanging loose to protect their arms; they wear thin, round calico caps on their heads and leathern ap.r.o.ns about their waists. At the first blow or two the sparks shriek around, and especially if the ingot is of steel and happens to be well-heated. The smiths yell out at the top of their voice and rush to save their clothes hanging up beside the forge. The men's faces look transfigured in the bright light. Their shadows, huge, weird, and fantastic, reach high up the wall, even to the roof. The smallest object is thrown into relief and the shafts of the sledges cast a shadow as sharp and clear as from the sun at mid-day. As the mighty steel monkey descends, half covering the white ma.s.s, the shadow falls on the roof, walls, and machinery around, and rises as the smooth, shapely piston glides upward into the cylinder; up and down, up and down it goes, like the rising and falling of a curtain. This continues till the heat of the forging diminishes and the rays of the metal are no longer capable of overpowering the light cast out from the fire-holes and the smoky, sleepy-looking gas-jets hanging in lines adown the smithy.

As the iron becomes cooler the hammer beats harder and harder. The oscillation is very great and the sound nearly approaches a ring. The steam roars overhead and leaks and hisses through the joints of the pipes and glands. The oil in the stamper's dies explodes with a cannon-like report. The huge hydraulic engines _tchu-tchu_ outside; the wheels whirr and hum away in the roof, and the smith's tools clang out or ring sharply on the anvil. Without, through the open doors, the night shows inky black; the smoke and steam beat down and are blown in with the wind, or the fog is sucked in quickly by the currents. Now the rain beats hard on the roof and runs through in streams, while the wind clatters between the stacks and ventilators overhead with a noise like thunder; or, if it is mid-winter, the light, feathery snowflakes are wafted in from above and sway to and fro and round and round, uncertain where to lodge, until they are dissolved with the heat and finally descend in small drops like dew upon the faces and arms of the forgers.

At the end of every hour the watchman with his lamp pa.s.ses through, like a policeman on his beat, and stands a moment before the furnace to warm himself or to watch the shaping of the ingot. The old furnaceman views him askance, or ventures to address him with a "How do?" or "Rough night out," to which the other responds with a nod, or a "Yes; 'Tis!" and takes his departure into the blackness outside. At frequent intervals the overseer walks round and takes his stand here and there, with his hands behind him, or twisting his fingers in front, or with his thumbs thrust into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and glares at the men, spitting out the tobacco juice upon the ground or on the red-hot forging. Presently he shouts:--"Ain't ya done that thing yet? How much longer ya going to be? He'll want a bit o' salt directly. Wher's Michael? Ain't he in to-night? Wha's up wi' he?"

"He's a-twhum along o' the owl' dooman to-night," someone answers. The grimy toilers curse him under their breath and wish he would soon clear off, which he presently does, slipping quickly away into the shadows or climbing up the wooden stairway into the well-lit office.

The first spell is at ten o'clock--that is, after four hours of terrific hammering and sweating. This is the supper-hour. Here the engines cease and the wheels stop their grinding. The roar of the blast has ceased, too; there is not a flicker from the c.o.ke fires. The old furnaceman is still shovelling away, for the forger was on till the last moment. Now he "stops up," lays a little coal dust along the furnace door, shuts off his blower, puts down the damper, and proceeds to rinse his hands in the water bosh. All the while he was attending to his fire he had the wiper about his neck and held one corner of it in his mouth. After drying his hands with it he gives his grimy face a good rub, goes to his clothes hanging up by the wall, slips on his waistcoat, stirs his tea in the can with the blade of his pocket-knife, takes his food from the peg and comes and sits down near the furnace, or in the sand-bunk. The one in charge of the steam walks from boiler to boiler, setting on the injectors. They admit the cool water with a murmurous, sleepy sound--there is no priming yet. The furnace fire glitters through the c.h.i.n.ks of the door or grate like the stars on a frosty night. The old furnaceman does not eat much. He tastes a little and bites here and there, then he wraps the whole up again.

"What! Bistn't agwain to hae thi zupper, then?" some one enquires.

"No-o! Can't zim to get on wi't to-night," he answers.

"Well! Chock it out for they owld rats, they'll be glad on't. Yellacks is a girt un ther' now, in atween they piles!"

Try how you will you cannot enjoy your food on the night s.h.i.+ft. I have carried mine home again morning after morning, or thrown it out for the birds in the yard. I have seen men--and especially youths--go to sleep with the food in their mouths. You are too languid to eat much, and what you do eat has no savour. It is remarkable, also, that while you continue working you do not feel the fatigue so much, but as soon as you sit down you are a.s.sailed with increased weariness; you feel powerless and exhausted and have no strength or energy left. Many, in order to keep awake and fresh, go out into the town, deserted at that hour. Some walk outside in the yard and bruise their s.h.i.+ns against this or that obstruction in the darkness. Others, again, after partaking of a few mouthfuls of food, go on making up their fires, not only to keep themselves awake, but also to help the work forward and earn their money for the s.h.i.+ft. I have many times worked all night--through both meal-hours--in the attempt to earn my wages, and then have been deficient.

Here and there a small party will sit together and chat the meal-time away, or a few will endeavour to read. Very soon, however, the newspaper or book slips from the fingers. The tiredness and heat together prevail; the eyes close and the mouth opens--the toiler is fast asleep. Presently someone comes on the scene with a loud shout: "Hey-yup! What! bist thee vly-ketchin' agyen? Get up and check, else tha't be locked out," or another staggers round with half-closed eyes and bawls out, "'Ow beest bi tiself, Bill?" the reply to which usually is, "Thee get an' laay down," or "None the better for thy astin'." Occasionally several will start singing a song, or hymn, and be immediately a.s.sailed with loud cries of "Lay down, oot!" or "Yeow! Yeow! Kennul! Kennul!" or a large lump of coal is thrown against the roof to break and fall in dust upon the choristers. Some spread rivet bags in front of the furnace and lie upon them and others lie down upon the bare bricks or iron of the floor.

A few minutes before eleven o'clock the stragglers arrive back from the town. The old furnaceman bestirs himself, lifts the damper, sets on the blower, routs the coals of the fire and shouts, "Come on, yer," to his mates. The steam-hammer man opens the valve and raises the monkey, making it glide up and down to work the water out of the cylinder, the forgemen and smiths bustle about again and the terrific din recommences.

So the furious toil proceeds hour by hour. _Bang, bang, bang. Pum-tchu, pum-tchu, ping-tchu, ping-tchu. Cling-clang, cling-clang. Boom, boom, boom. Flip-flap, flip-flap. Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo. Rattle, rattle, rattle.

Click, click, click. b.u.mp, b.u.mp. Scrir-r-r-r-r-r-r. Hiss-s-s-s-s-s-s.

Tchi-tchu, tchi-tchu, tchi-tchu. Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank._ The noises of the steam and machinery drown everything else. You see the workmen standing or stooping, pulling, tugging, heaving, dragging to and fro, or staggering about as though they were intoxicated, but there is no other sound beyond the occasional shouting of the forger and the jerking or droning of the injectors. It is a weird living picture, stern and realistic, such as no painter could faithfully reproduce. If the oil in the stampers' forges is worse than usual the dense clouds of nauseating smoke hang over you like a pall so thickly that you cannot see your fellows a few paces away, making it intensely difficult to breathe and adding a horrible disgust to the unspeakable weariness. Then the bright flas.h.i.+ng metal and the white gas-jets show a dull red. Even the sound seems deadened by the smoke and stench, but this is merely the action of the impurity upon the sense organs; they are so much impaired with the grossness of the atmosphere as to fail in their functions. By and by, when the air has cleared a little, it all rushes back upon you with increased intensity. Everything is swinging and whirling round, and you seem to be whirled round with it, with not a thought of yourself, who you are, where you are, or what you are doing, but keep toiling mechanically away. Ofttimes you would be quite lost, but the revolutions of the machine, the automatic strokes of the hammer, and the _habit_ of the job control you. And if this should fail, your mate, half asleep, whacks his heat along and casts it upon your toe, or sears you with the hot tongs, or he misses the top of the tool at the anvil and strikes your thumb instead. There are many things to keep you alive, and always the fear of not earning your money for the turn and having to be jeered at and bullied by the chargeman or overseer and so have your life made miserable. The faces and fronts of the smiths and forgers, as they stand at the fires or stoop over the metal, are brilliantly lit up--yellow and orange. Here are the piles of finished forgings and stampings upon the ground--white, yellow, bright red, dull red, and almost black hot; the long tongues of fire leap up from the c.o.ke forges, and every now and then a livid sheet of flame bursts out from the stamper's dies. There is plenty of colour, as well as animation, in the picture, which obtains greater intensity through contrast with the blackness outside.

The greatest weariness a.s.sails you about midnight, and continues to possess you till towards three o'clock. Then Nature struggles violently, demanding her rights, twitching, clutching, and tugging at your eyelids and striving in a thousand ways to bring you into submission and force her rule upon you, but the iron laws of necessity, circ.u.mstance, and system prevail; you must battle the power within you and repel the sweet soother, struggling on in the unnatural combat. The keen eye of the overseer is upon you, who is always whipping you to your task, or the watchman is striving to take you loitering and so bring himself into notice; it is useless to give way. Necessity urges; the body must be clothed and fed. There are the wife and children at home, and you must live. I have felt it, and I know what it is. There, in the smoke and stench, the heat and cold, draught and damp of midnight I have slaved with the rest, not harder or with greater pains than they, though perhaps I have noted the feelings whereas they have not. The eyes ache, the ears ache, the teeth ache, the temples ache, the shoulders ache, the arms ache, the legs ache, the feet ache, and the heart aches. I have many times wished, in those dark, awful hours, that the hammer would smash my head; that I might be suddenly caught and hurled into eternity, and I have heard others express the same wish openly and sincerely.

Sometimes I have stolen out of the great doors to stand for a moment in the open in the cold dark or starry night, and looked out towards the hills, or away over the town with the whirl of the shed behind me. There was the great red moon showing through the clouds low down, or the fiercely glittering Mars setting in the west, or inky blackness above, with a few tiny lights twinkling in the far-off streets of the town and a silence as deep as death out beyond. If I could but have heard the old barn owl hooting in the farmyard, the cow lowing in the meadow or stall, the fox yelping in the little wood, or even the bark of a dog, I should have been strengthened and relieved, but there was never a sound of them--nothing but the black outlines of the sheds around, the small distant lights of the town and the great white blaze and crash of noises within. Even to pause there is but to intensify the torture and the cold air soon chills you to the bone. The only course open is to keep toiling away with the rest and wear the night out.

The second stop is at two o'clock and is of brief duration--twenty minutes or half an hour at the outside. It is merely a break in order to have a mouthful of food, a something, so that it shall not be said that the men have to toil for seven consecutive hours in that unspeakable weariness. Here the huge engines become silent again and the heavy pounding stops. The wheels and machinery under the wall look as inert and innocent as though they had never moved; it would be difficult to imagine that they were capable of such noise and uproar if you had not heard it yourself but a few minutes before. The boilers, relieved of the strain upon their resources, begin to prime again with a continued cras.h.i.+ng, shattering sound which the boilerman tries in vain to subdue with cold water through the injectors. The furnace glitters and the oil forges smoke. The air is laden with the peculiarly nauseous fumes of the water-gas that make the toilers feel sick and ill and destroy the appet.i.te.

This time the men are unusually silent and mopish. Each selects a place for himself and sits, or lies down, apart from the others. Only the tough, wiry forgeman, the strong smith, or the hardy coalies and ash-wheelers can attack the food. The rest usually go to their jackets, open their handkerchiefs, look at the contents, eat a little perhaps, half-heartedly, and wrap them up again. The const.i.tution of the forgeman is almost like iron itself. He and the smith can usually manage their meal, and the coal-wheelers, from being constantly out in the fresh air, are not quite as weary as are the others, and so can relish the food better. On Friday nights--when the men are more than usually drowsy--the food may be a little more tempting and tasty. At six o'clock the wages were paid, and at supper-time a few, at least, will have gone or sent out into the town for an appetizing morsel: some sausages, rashers, a mutton chop, a pound of tripe, a bloater, or a packet of fried fish and chipped potatoes--the youth's favourite dainty. Then, in the early hours, amid the din of the boilers, the black frying-pan or coal shovel is produced and the savoury odour is wafted abroad. The greatest pleasure, however, is usually in the antic.i.p.ation of the meal. The food itself is seldom eaten--or no more than a small part of it, at least--the other is cast out for the rats and rooks. Years ago, in the autumn, we boys used to gather mushrooms in the fields on our way to work and cook them for "dinner" in the early morning and suffer severely for it afterwards. Nature, disorganized with the exigences of the night s.h.i.+ft, refused the proffered dainties. It is difficult to digest even ordinary food taken in the unwholesome air of the shed at such an unearthly hour.

Punctually to the moment, if not before time, the engines begin to throb again; the piston rods, gliding slowly at first, soon attain a rapid speed. The huge crank, flas.h.i.+ng in the bright gas-light, leaps over and over. The big belt strains and creaks as though it would avoid its labour and the turning of the shaft overhead, but the heavy fly-wheel spins round, and the little pulleys and cogs go with it; they must all obey the urging of the mighty steam wizard lurking in the green-painted cylinder. The donkey engines, forcing the blast, are coughing and spitting out the white vapour and labouring painfully under the wall in the lean-to outside. Within the fires are flas.h.i.+ng and the flames leaping, and the toil goes on as before.

About three o'clock, or soon after, the weariness begins to diminish somewhat, and the old habit of the body rea.s.serts itself. The natural hour of repose is pa.s.sing, and the fountain of energy begins to bubble up within you; you feel to be approaching the normal condition again.

The fatigue now gives place to a feeling of unreality and stupidity; you seem to be dazed and irritable, as though you had been aroused from sleep before the accustomed time. Now you experience deep pains in the chest, resulting from loss of sleep. The head aches as though it would burst and the eyes are very painful and "gritty," but you feel cheered, nevertheless, with the thought of daylight, the coming cessation from toil, and the opportunity of obtaining a breath of fresh, pure air again. The overseer slips to and fro quickly about this time in order to keep the men well on the move, p.r.i.c.king here and prodding there, and visiting those whom he knows will tell him all the news of the night's work--such as may have escaped him. The toilers pay him but little attention, however, and keep plodding languidly away.

Steadily, as the day dawns, the light within increases, red, white, or golden, stealing through the thick gla.s.s of the roof or by the wide open doors, and soon after one appears with a long staff and turns off all the gas. It is really day once more, and there is not much longer to go. At twenty minutes past five the hooter sounds loudly, calling up the men of the day s.h.i.+ft, and the pace flags visibly. A few, however, who have not done any too well in the middle hours of the night, hammer away with increased energy right up to the last, for they know the day overseers and the chargemen will go round and feel the forgings to see how late the others were toiling. If the iron is cool they know that their mates have been dilatory and the tale is told around.

A few minutes before six o'clock the engines slow down and stop and the roar of the blast ceases. The steam-hammers are lowered with a loud thud and the furnace fires are banked up; the mighty toil is over, for this turn, at any rate. Now the forgers and stampers unbind their ap.r.o.ns and roll them up; the smiths stow their tools, placing these in the iron box and those in the boshes of water to soak the shafts and tighten the handles of the sledges. After that they swill their hands at the tap, put on m.u.f.fler, jacket, or great-coat, and file out of the shed--dirty, dusty, tired and sleepy-looking. Not for them the joy of morning, the vigour, freshness and bloom, the keen delight in the open air, the happy heart and elevated spirit. They slouch away through the living stream of the day toilers now arriving as black as sweeps, half-blinded with the bright daylight, blinking and sighing, feeling unutterably and unnaturally tired, out of sorts and out of place, too, and crawl home, like rats to their holes, to s.n.a.t.c.h a little rest, and recuperate for new efforts to be made on the following turn.

Few of the men's wives or parents in the town will be up to welcome them at that early hour and provide them with warm tea and a breakfast.

Accordingly, some go home and straight to bed without food at all, a few walk about the streets or out towards the country for an hour or so till the home fire is lit, while others go home and get the breakfast themselves. Perhaps, if trade in the shed is brisk, they will be required to work overtime till eight or nine o'clock. I have done this for months at a stretch and afterwards walked home to the village, ofttimes sitting down on the roadside to rest, reaching home at about ten o'clock and getting to bed an hour before noon, to be awakened by every slight noise without the house. At one time I was aroused by the old church clock striking, at another by the sound of the school bell, or the children at play underneath the window, or by the farm waggon. At four in the afternoon, rested or not, you must rise again, wash and dress, s.n.a.t.c.h a hasty meal, and plod off to the town, four miles distant, forgetful of everything behind you--the gentle peace of the village, the long line of dreamy-looking hills, the haymakers in the field, the sweetly sorrowful sound of the thres.h.i.+ng machine by the ricks in the farmyard, the eternal pageantry of the heavens, the whole natural life and scenery of the world. The knowledge of the loss lies like lead at the heart and fills one with a keen regret, a poignant sense of the cruelty of the industrial system and your own weakness with it; yet one must live. But there is real tragedy in working the night s.h.i.+ft at the forge.

CHAPTER XIV

INFERIORITY OF WORK MADE BY THE NIGHT s.h.i.+FT--ALTERING THE GAUGES--THE "BLACK LIST"--"DOUBLE STOPPAGE CHARLIE"--"JIMMY USELESS"--THE HAUNTED c.o.kEHEAP--THE OLD VALET--THE CHECKER AND STOREKEEPER

The work produced on the night turn is greatly inferior to that made by the men of the day s.h.i.+ft. It is impossible to do good work when you are tired and weary. One has not then the keenness of sense, the nerve, nor the energy to take the requisite pains. You are not then the master of your machinery and tools, but are subject to them; even where the work is with dies and performed mechanically, there will be depreciation.

Perhaps the stamper's tools have s.h.i.+fted a little. The keys want removing, the dies re-setting and then to be rammed up tight again. But he is too weary to do much with the sledge, so he keeps dragging along with his dies a-twist and makes that do, whereas, if he were working by day he would rectify them immediately and bang away at top speed.

It is the same with the forger. He, too, tough as he is, cannot maintain the precision he would exercise by day. The pile or ingot on the porter-bar seems to him to have doubled in weight. The flash of the blazing metal half blinds him. He cannot stand the heat so well; it is all against turning out good work. Unless the bloom is kept exactly square under the stroke of the hammer it lops over on one side and obtains an ugly shape, which it will be impossible to rectify; there is nothing more unsightly to the eye of the careful smith or hammerman than a shabby piece of forging. Very often, too, a portion of slag or sand from the bed of the furnace has adhered to the pile and, falling away, has left a hole in the metal. Although, in the uncertain light, the forger may think that he has hammered it quite out, when he views the piece by daylight he finds it rough and untidy and perhaps worthless. It may be too small now; there is not enough metal to clean up under the tools of the slotting- or shaping-machine.

Then there is the smith's weld or bend to be considered. In the first place, the smith is liable to mistake the heat of his parts by gaslight, for then they appear brighter and hotter than they really are, and when he brings them out to the anvil, the metal, instead of shutting up well, will be hard and gla.s.sy under the tools. It will, consequently, go together badly and leave a mark or "scarf," which is not at all desirable, though the weld may be strong enough inside. In such a case resort will be had to "n.o.bbling"; that is, covering up and concealing the scarf with the small round ball of the hand-hammer. This must be done secretly, for no foreman would tolerate much of it. It is looked upon as a mark of bad workmans.h.i.+p, though the bluff old overseer of the regular smiths' shed may condone it in a few cases with: "h.e.l.lo! You be at it agen then! But ther', you be no good if you can't do't. I allus said any fool can be a smith but it takes a good man to n.o.bble." The smiths, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, are not allowed to use a file.

They must finish their job manfully with the sledge and tools, otherwise they might fake up a bad forging, with n.o.bbling and filing, and make it look as strong as the best.

There are more cases of ill-health among men of the night than of the day s.h.i.+ft, but the reason of this will be obvious to any. It is evident that the unnatural conditions of all-night toil must weaken and wear down the body and render it unfit to bear the strain put upon it, and especially to withstand the cold draughts from the doors and roof, which are the most fruitful source of sickness among the workmen--a large number is always absent with chills and influenza. Small regard for a man's health is had at any time in the factory. It is nothing to the officials that he is out on the sick list, unless he happens to be drawing compensation for an injury. I remember once, when work was slack in the shed, the day overseer left orders for the night boss to send the men outside in the yard and keep them there for two or three hours s.h.i.+fting sc.r.a.p iron, in order that they might "catch cold and stop at home, and give the others a chance."

Accidents, too, are frequent on the night s.h.i.+ft; the greater part of the more serious ones happen on that turn. Then the men, by reason of the fatigue and dulness, are unable to take sufficient care of themselves; they lack the quick presentiment of danger common to those of the day s.h.i.+ft. There is also the matter of defective light and carelessness in the use of tools, and, very often, the mad hurry to get on in the first part of the night--the wild rush and tear of the piecework system. It was not long ago that "Smamer's" brother was killed at the drop-stamps with a blow on the head, shortly after starting work. A jagged piece of steel, ten or twelve pounds in weight, flew from the die and struck him between the eye and ear knocking out half his brains. As things go, no one was to blame. The men were all hurrying together to get the work forward, but he was murdered, all the same, done to death by the system that is responsible for the rash haste and frenzy such as is common on the night s.h.i.+ft.

Nearly all whitewas.h.i.+ng and painting out the interiors of the sheds is done by night, when the machinery is still. This is performed by unskilled hands--youths, for the most part; from one year's end to another they are employed at it, taking the workshops by turn. The work is very unhealthy and extremely dangerous. The men construct a little scaffolding and work upon single, narrow planks, or crawl like flies along the network of girders in and out among the shafting, with a single gas-jet to afford them light. One false step or overbalancing would bring them down to the ground, thirty feet below, amid the machinery; death would be swift and certain for them if they should miss their footing on the planks. Their wages, considering the risks they take, are very low; 18s. or 19s. a week is the amount they commonly receive. Several of the men, whom I know personally--steady fellows and good time-keepers--had been getting 18s. a week for twenty years till recently; then, after persistent applications for an advance, they were granted the substantial rise of 1s. a week! One st.u.r.dy fellow, braver than the rest, on meeting the manager one day, complained to him of the low wages, but was unsuccessful. His overseer, upon hearing of it, promptly told him to clear out, which he afterwards did, and went to Canada and saved 150 in less than a year. When the small boys asked Bill Richards, the old smiths' foreman, for a rise, he used jokingly to tell them to "Get up a-top o' the anvul."

The running expenses of much of the "labour-saving" plant is truly enormous and very often so great as entirely to counteract the much boasted profit-making capacity of the machine, but the managers do not mind that in the least as long as they can show a reduction of hands.

If, by any means at all, they can get one man to do what formerly required the services of two or three, they do not trouble about machinery or fuel expenses; the losses incurred by these they make good by speeding up the workman and getting a bigger share out of him. They would rather pay fabulous sums for plant and running expenses than allow the workman to get a few s.h.i.+llings more in wages.

The wholesale waste of material, fuel, and energy, in many of the sheds, is appalling; many thousands of pounds are annually thrown away in this direction. Walk where he will the keen observer will detect waste; no one seems to trouble about the real economy. I have seen it daily for years and have made numerous suggestions, but to no purpose; the overseers are too stupid and ignorant, or too haughty and jealous, to carry out ideas, and the managers are no better. They squander thousands of pounds in experiments and easily cover up their short-comings, but if the machineman happens to break a new tool, or spoil metal of a few pence in value, he is suspended and put on the "black list."

If a workman sees a way to make improvements in processes and the like, he immediately falls into disfavour with the overseers. Some years ago I, as chief stamper, was anxious to improve the process of making a forging, and also the forging itself, and waited on the overseer with a view to having the alteration made, but I could not obtain his sanction for a long time. At last, as new dies were to be made, I succeeded, after some difficulty, in obtaining his consent for the improvement.

Happening to enter the die shed while the job was in the lathe I was told by the machineman that no alteration had been authorised. Grasping the situation, I took a bold course, carried out the suggested alteration myself, and set the dies in the steam-hammer. The improvement was a complete success. I was cursed and abused by the overseer, and he was highly congratulated by the staff in my own presence and hearing.