In most occupations, the profit of the master and the journeyman bear a
proportion: if the former is able to figure in genteel life, the latter
is able to figure in silk stockings. If the matter can afford to allow
upon his goods ten per cent. discount for money, the servant can afford
to squander half his wages. In a worn-down trade, where the tides of
profit are reduced to a low ebb, and where imprudence sets her foot upon
the premises, the matter and the man starve together. Only _half_ this
is our present case.
The art of nail-making is one of the most ancient among us; we may
safely charge its antiquity with four figures.
We cannot consider it a trade _in_, so much as _of_ Birmingham; for we
have but few nail-makers left in the town: our nailers are chiefly
masters, and rather opulent. The manufacturers are so scattered round
the country, that we cannot travel far, in any direction, out of the
sound of the nail-hammer. But Birmingham, like a powerful magnet, draws
the produce of the anvil to herself.
When I first approached her, from Walsall, in 1741, I was surprized at
the prodigious number of blacksmiths shops upon the road; and could not
conceive how a country, though populous, could support so many people of
the same occupation. In some of these shops I observed one, or more
females, stript of their upper garment, and not overcharged with their
lower, wielding the hammer with all the grace of the sex. The beauties
of their face were rather eclipsed by the smut of the anvil; or, in
poetical phrase, the tincture of the forge had taken possession of those
lips, which might have been taken by the kiss.
Struck with the novelty, I inquired, "Whether the ladies in this country
shod horses?" but was answered, with a smile, "They are nailers."
A fire without heat, a nailer of a fair complexion, or one who despises
the tankard, are equally rare among them. His whole system of faith may
be comprised in one article--That the slender two-penny mug, used in a
public house, _is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked_.
While the master reaps the harvest of plenty, the workman submits to the
scanty gleanings of penury, a thin habit, an early old age, and a
figure bending towards the earth. Plenty comes not near his dwelling,
except of rags, and of children. But few recruits arise from his
nail-shop, except for the army. His hammer is worn into deep hollows,
fitting the fingers of a dark and plump hand, hard as the timber it
wears. His face, like the moon, is often seen through a cloud.