Labour-saving contrivances--The nick in types--Tags of
laces--Casting shot--Candle-dipping--Tiring a
wheel--Globe-making--Domestic aids to labour--Aids to mental
labour--Effects of severe bodily labour on health and
duration of life.
We drew attention in the last chapter to a particular process in
needle-making--the sorter's sheath--to show that great saving of labour
may be effected by what is not popularly called machinery. In modern
times, wherever work is carried on upon a large scale, the division of
labour is applied; by which one man attending to one thing learns to
perform that one thing more perfectly than if he had attended to many
things. He thus saves a considerable portion of the whole amount of
labour. Every skilful workman has individually some mode of working
peculiar to himself, by which he lessens his labour. An expert
blacksmith, for instance, will not strike one more blow upon the anvil
than is necessary to produce the effect he desires. A compositor, or
printer who arranges the types, is a swift workman when he makes no
unnecessary movement of his arms or fingers in lifting a single type
into what is called his composing-stick, where the types are arranged in
lines. There is a very simple contrivance to lessen the labour of the
compositor, by preventing him putting the type into his composing-stick
the wrong side outwards. It is a nick, or two or three nicks, on the
side of the type which corresponds with the lower side of the face of
the letter. By this nick or nicks he is enabled to see by one glance of
his eye on which side the letter is first to be grasped, and then to be
arranged. If the nick were not there he would have to look at the face
of every letter before he could properly place it. This is a
labour-saving contrivance; and if the labour were not thus saved, two
compositors would certainly be required to do the work of one; and the
natural and inevitable effect would be that, as the funds for the
payment of the compositor's labours would not be increased, the wages of
each compositor would be diminished by one-half. The new labour that
would be required would enter into competition with the old labour, and
depreciate its value, because each individual labourer had lost one-half
of his efficiency.
[Illustration: Compositor at work.]
Contrivances to economize labour, such as that of the needle-sorter's
sheath, and the nicks in the type of the compositor, are constantly
occurring in manufactures. The tags of laces, which are made of thin
tin, are sometimes bent into their requisite form by the same movement
of the arm that cuts them. A piece of steel, adapted to the side of the
shears, gives them at once their proper shape. The writer can remember
that when he was a boy, and was fitted with a pair of laced boots, he
used to wait with patience in the shoemaker's shop, whilst he clumsily
bent a piece of tin into the form of a tag, and then as clumsily
hammered it round the lace. In a silk manufactory boot-laces are now
prepared with tags made by machinery. One machine cuts and hollows the
tags much more efficiently than the shears mentioned above; and at
another machine, worked by a boy, the tags are fitted to the laces with
a rapidity which is acquired by continued practice.
[Illustration: Machine for fixing tags to laces.]
If the small shot which is used by sportsmen were each cast in a mould,
the price would be enormous; but by pouring the melted lead, of which
the shot is made, through a sort of cullender, placed at the top of a
tower, high enough for the lead to cool in its passage through the
air, before it reaches the ground, the shot is formed in a spherical or
round shape by the mere act of passing through the atmosphere. Some of
the shots thus formed are not perfectly spherical--they are pear-shaped.
If the selection of the perfect from the imperfect shots were made by
the eye, or the touch, the process would be very tedious and
insufficient, and the price of the article much increased. The simplest
contrivance in the world divides the bad from the good. The shots are
poured down an inclined plane, and, without any trouble of selection,
the spherical ones run straight to the bottom, while the pear-shaped
ones tumble off on one side or the other of the plane.
[Illustration: Inclined plane for separating shot.]
In speaking of such contrivances we are constantly passing over the
narrow line which separates them from what we popularly term machinery.
Let us take an example of the readiness with which a small aid to manual
labour gradually becomes perfected into a machine, requiring little
impulse from human action. The dippers of candles have gradually, in
small establishments, made several improvements in their art for the
purpose of diminishing labour. They used to hold the rods between their
fingers, dipping three at a time; they next connected six or eight rods
together by a piece of wood at each end, having holes to receive the
rods; and they now suspend the rods so arranged upon a sort of balance,
rising and falling with a pulley and a weight, so as to relieve the arms
of the workman almost entirely, while the work is done more quickly and
with more precision. But in large candle-factories the principle is
carried much further. The wicks, having been cut by machinery of the
requisite length, instead of being cut one at a time, are arranged upon
a rod. For the sort of candle called "twelves," or twelve to a pound,
twenty-four wicks are suspended on one of these rods. Thirty rods are
connected together in a frame, which thus holds seven hundred and twenty
wicks. Attached to the machine are thirty-six of these frames. The whole
number of wicks is therefore twenty-five thousand nine hundred and
twenty. The machine, as it revolves, dips one frame into a vessel of
melted tallow; and so on till the thirty-six frames have each been once
dipped,--and the process is continued till the candles are fully formed.
One man and a boy complete this number of candles in a working-day of
ten hours.
[Illustration: Dipping-machine.]
Walking by a wheelwright's shop in some quiet village, did our readers
ever see the operation of "tiring" a wheel? The wood-work of the wheel
is entirely formed; but the joints of the felloes are imperfectly fitted
together. They used to be drawn close by separate straps of iron applied
with great labour. The wheel rests upon some raised bricks. Out from the
forge rush three or four men bearing a red-hot iron hoop. It is laid
upon the outer rim of the wood-work, burning its way as it is hammered
down with the united force of the wheelwrights. When it is nearly
fitted, floods of water are thrown upon it, till it no longer burns. The
knowledge of the simple fact that the iron shrinks as it cools, and thus
knits the whole wheel into a firm body, taught the wheelwright how to
accomplish the difficult task of giving the last strength to his wheel
with the least possible labour.
[Illustration: Tiring a wheel.]
The manufacture of a globe offers an example of the production of a most
beautiful piece of work by the often repeated application of a series of
processes, each requiring very little labour. A globe is not a ball of
wood; but a hollow sphere of papers and plaster. The mould, if we may so
express it, of a globe is turned out of a piece of wood. This sphere
need not be mathematically accurate. It is for rough work, and flaws and
cracks are of little consequence. This wooden ball has an axis, a piece
of iron wire at each pole. And here we may remark, that, at every stage
of the process, the revolution of a sphere upon its axis, under the
hands of the workman, is the one great principle which renders every
operation one of comparative ease and simplicity. The labour would be
enormously multiplied if the same class of operations had to be
performed upon a cube. The solid mould, then, of the embryo globe is
placed on its axis in a wooden frame. In a very short time a boy will
form a pasteboard globe upon its surface. He first covers it entirely
with strips of strong paper, thoroughly wet, which are in a tub of water
at his side. The slight inequalities produced by the over-lapping of the
strips are immaterial. The saturated paper is not suffered to dry; but
is immediately covered over with a layer of pasted paper, also cut in
long narrow slips. A third layer of similarly pasted paper--brown paper
and white being used alternately--is applied; and then, a fourth, a
fifth, and a sixth. Here the pasting process ends for globes of moderate
size. For the large ones it is carried further. This wet pasteboard ball
has now to be dried--placed upon its axis in a rack. If we were
determined to follow the progress of this individual ball through all
its stages, we should have to wait a fortnight before it advanced
another step. But in a large factory there are many scores of globes all
rolling onward to perfection; and thus we may witness the next operation
performed upon a pasteboard sphere that began to exist some weeks
earlier, and is now hard to the core.
The wooden ball, with its solid paper covering, is placed on its axis. A
sharp cutting instrument, fixed on a bench, is brought into contact with
the surface of the sphere, which is made to revolve. In less time than
we write the pasteboard ball is cut in half. There is no adhesion to the
wooden mould, for the first coating of paper was simply _wetted_. Two
bowls of thick card now lie before us, with a small hole in each, made
by the axis of the wooden ball. But a junction is very soon effected.
Within every globe there is a piece of wood--we may liken it to a round
ruler--of the exact length of the inner surface of the sphere from pole
to pole. A thick wire runs through this wood, and originally projected
some two or three inches at each end. This stick is placed upright in a
vice. The semi-globe is nailed to one end of the stick, upon which it
rests, when the wire is passed through its centre. It is now reversed,
and the edges of the card rapidly covered with glue. The edges of the
other semi-globe are instantly brought into contact, the other end of
the wire passing through its centre in the same way, and a similar
nailing to the stick taking place. We have now a paper globe, with its
own axis, which will be its companion for the whole term of its
existence.
The paper globe is next placed on its axis in a frame, of which one side
is a semicircular piece of metal;--the horizon of a globe cut in half
would show its form. A tub of white composition, a compound of whiting,
glue, and oil, is on the bench. The workman dips his hand into this
"gruel thick and slab," and rapidly applies it to the paper sphere with
tolerable evenness; but as it revolves, the semicircle of metal clears
off the superfluous portions. The ball of paper is now a ball of plaster
externally. Time again enters largely into the manufacture. The first
coating must thoroughly dry before the next is applied, and so again
till the process has been repeated four or five times. Thus, when we
visit a globe-workshop, we are at first surprised at the number of white
balls, from three inches in diameter to three feet, which occupy a large
space. They are all steadily advancing towards completion; and as they
advance to the dignity of perfect spheres, increased pains are taken in
the application of the plaster. At last they are polished. Their surface
is as fine and hard as ivory. But beautiful as they are, they may, like
many other beautiful things, want a due equipoise. They must be
perfectly balanced. They must move upon their poles with the utmost
exactness. A few shot, let in here and there, correct all
irregularities. And now the paper and plaster sphere is to be endued
with intelligence. The sphere is marked with lines of direction for the
purpose of covering it with engraved slips. We have now a globe with a
plain map. An artist colours it by hand.
We have given these examples of several modes of production, in which
knowledge and skill have diminished labour, for the purpose of showing
that not only machinery and scientific applications are constantly
tending to the same end, but that the mere practice of the mechanical
arts necessarily leads to labour-saving inventions. Every one of us who
thinks at all is constantly endeavouring to diminish his individual
labour by the use of some little contrivance which experience has
suggested. Men who carry water in buckets, in places where water is
scarce, put a circular piece of wood to float on the water, which
prevents its spilling, and consequently lessens the labour. A boy who
makes paper bags in a grocer's shop so arranges them that he pastes the
edges of twenty at a time, to diminish the labour. The porters of
Amsterdam, who draw heavy goods upon a sort of sledge, every now and
then throw a greased rope under the sledge, to diminish its friction,
and therefore to lessen the labour of dragging it. Other porters, in the
same city, have a little barrel containing water, attached to each side
of the sledge, out of which the water slowly drips like the water upon a
stone-cutter's saw, to diminish the friction.
In the domestic arrangements of a well-regulated household, whether of a
poor man or of a rich man, one of the chief cares is to save labour.
Every contrivance to save labour that ingenuity can suggest is eagerly
adopted when a country becomes highly civilized. In former times, in our
own country, when such contrivances were little known, and materials as
well as time were constantly wasted in every direction, a great Baron
was surrounded with a hundred menial servants; but he had certainly less
real and useful labour performed for him than a tradesman of the present
day obtains from three servants. Are there fewer servants now employed
than in those times of barbarous state? Certainly not. The middle
classes amongst us can get a great deal done for them in the way of
domestic service, at a small expense, because servants are assisted by
manifold contrivances which do much of the work for them. The
contrivances render the article of service cheaper, and therefore there
are more servants. The work being done by fewer servants, in consequence
of the contrivances, the servants themselves are better paid than if
there was no cost saved by the contrivance.
The common jack by which meat is roasted is described by Mr. Babbage as
"a contrivance to enable the cook in a few minutes to exert a force (in
winding up the jack) which the machine retails out during the succeeding
hour in turning the loaded spit, thus enabling her to bestow her
undivided attention on her other duties." We have seen, years ago, in
farm-houses, a man employed to turn a spit with a handle; dogs have
been used to run in a wheel for the same purpose, and hence a particular
breed so used are called "turnspits." When some ingenious servant-girl
discovered that, if she put a skewer through the meat and hung it before
the fire by a skein of worsted, it would turn with very little
attention, she made an approach to the principle of the bottle-jack. All
these contrivances diminish labour, and ensure regularity of
movement;--and therefore they are valuable contrivances.
A bell which is pulled in one room and rings in another, and which
therefore establishes a ready communication between the most distant
parts of a house, is a contrivance to save labour. In a large family the
total want of bells would add a fourth at least to the labour of
servants. Where three servants are kept now, four servants would be
required to be kept then. Would the destruction of all the bells
therefore add one-fourth to the demand for servants? Certainly not. The
funds employed in paying for service would not be increased a single
farthing; and, therefore, by the destruction of bells, all the families
of the kingdom would have some work left undone, to make up for the
additional labour required through the want of this useful contrivance:
or all the servants in the kingdom would be more hardly worked,--would
have to work sixteen hours a day instead of twelve.
In some parts of India the natives have a very rude contrivance to mark
the progress of time. A thin metal cup, with a small hole in its bottom,
is put to float in a vessel of water; and as the water rises through the
hole the cup sinks in a given time--in 24 minutes. A servant is set to
watch the sinking of the cup, and when this happens he strikes upon a
bell. Half a century ago, almost every cottage in England had its
hour-glass--an imperfect instrument for registering the progress of
time, because it only indicated its course between hour and hour; and an
instrument which required a very watchful attention, and some labour, to
be of any use at all. The universal use of watches or clocks, in India,
would wholly displace the labour of the servants who note the progress
of time by the filling of the cup; and the same cause has displaced,
amongst us, the equally unprofitable labour employed in turning the
hour-glass, and watching its movement. Almost every house in England has
now a clock or watch of some sort; and every house in India would have
the same, if the natives were more enlightened, and were not engaged in
so many modes of unprofitable labour to keep them poor. His profitable
labour has given the English mechanic the means of getting a watch.
Machinery, used in every possible way, has made this watch cheap. The
labour formerly employed in turning the hour-glass, or in running to
look at the church clock, is transferred to the making of watches. The
user of the watch obtains an accurate register of time, which teaches
him to know the value of that most precious possession, and to economize
it; and the producers of the watch have abundant employment in the
universal demand for this valuable machine.
A watch or clock is an instrument for assisting an operation of the
mind. Without some instrument for registering time, the mind could very
imperfectly attain the end which the watch attains, not requiring any
mental labour. The observation of the progress of time, by the situation
of the sun in the day, or of particular stars at night, is a labour
requiring great attention, and various sorts of accurate knowledge. It
is therefore never attempted, except when men have no machines for
registering time. In the same manner the labours of the mind have been
saved, in a thousand ways, by other contrivances of science.
The foot-rule of the carpenter not only gives him the standard of a foot
measure, which he could not exactly ascertain by any experience, or any
mental process, but it is also a scale of the proportions of an inch, or
several inches, to a foot, and of the parts of an inch to an inch. What
a quantity of calculations, and of dividing by compasses, does this
little instrument save the carpenter, besides ensuring a much greater
degree of accuracy in all his operations! The common rules of
arithmetic, which almost every boy in England now learns, are parts of a
great invention for saving mental labour. The higher branches of
mathematics, of which science arithmetic is a portion, are also
inventions for saving labour, and for doing what could never be done
without these inventions. There are instruments, and very curious ones,
for lessening the labour of all arithmetical calculations; and tables,
that is, the results of certain calculations, which are of practical
use, are constructed for the same purpose. When we buy a joint of meat,
we often see the butcher turn to a little book, before he tells us how
much a certain number of pounds and ounces amounts to, at a certain
price per pound. This book is his 'Ready Reckoner,' and a very useful
book it is to him; for it enables him to despatch his customers in half
the time that he would otherwise require, and thus to save himself a
great deal of labour, and a great deal of inaccuracy. The inventions for
saving mental labour, in calculations of arithmetic, have been carried
so far, that Mr. Babbage had almost perfected a calculating machine,
which not only did its work of calculation without the possibility of
error, but absolutely was to arrange printing types of figures, in a
frame, so that no error could be produced in copying the calculations
before they are printed. We mention this curious machine, to show how
far science may go in diminishing mental labour, and ensuring accuracy.
The want of government funds prevented its completion.
To all who read this book it is no difficulty to count a hundred; and
most know the relation which a hundred bears to a thousand, and a
thousand bears to a million. Most are able, also, to read off those
numbers, or parts of those numbers, when they see them marked down in
figures. There are many uncivilized people in the world who cannot count
twenty. They have no idea whatever of numbers, beyond perhaps as far as
the number of their fingers, or their fingers and their toes. How have
we obtained this great superiority over these poor savages? Because
science has been at work, for many centuries, to diminish the amount of
our mental labour, by teaching us the easiest modes of calculation. And
how did we learn these modes? We learnt them from our schoolmasters.
If any follow up the false reasoning which has led some to think that
whatever diminishes labour diminishes the number of labourers, they
might conclude, that, as there is less mental work to be done, because
science has diminished the labour of that work, there would, therefore,
be fewer mental workmen. Thank God, the greater facilities that have
been given to the cultivation of the mind, the greater is the number of
those who exert themselves in that cultivation. The effects of saving
unprofitable labour are the same in all cases. The use of machinery in
aid of _bodily_ labour has set that bodily labour to a thousand new
employments; and has raised the character of the employments, by
transferring the lowest of the drudgery to wheels and pistons. The use
of science in the assistance of _mental_ labour has conducted that
labour to infinitely more numerous fields of exertion; and has elevated
all intellectual pursuits, by making their commoner processes the play
of childhood, instead of the toil of manhood.
We cannot doubt that any invention which gives assistance to the
thinking powers of mankind, and, therefore, by dispensing with much
mental drudgery, leads the mind forward to nobler exertions, is a
benefit to all. It is not more than four hundred years ago, that the use
of Arabic numerals, or figures, began to be generally known in this
country. The first date in those numerals said to exist in England, is
upon a brass plate in Ware church, 1454. The same date in Roman
numerals, which were in use before the Arabic ones, would be expressed
by eight letters, MCCCCLIV. The introduction of figures, therefore, was
an immense saving of time in the commonest operations of arithmetic. How
puzzled we should be, and what a quantity of labour we should lose, if
we were compelled to reckon earnings and marketings by the long mode of
notation, instead of the short one! This book is easily read, because it
is written in words composed of twenty-four letters. In China, where
there are no letters in use, every word in the language is expressed by
a different character. Few people in China write or read; and those who
do, acquire very little knowledge, except the mere knowledge of writing
and reading. All the time of their learned men is occupied in acquiring
the means of knowledge, and not knowledge itself; and the bulk of the
people get very little knowledge at all. It would be just the same thing
if there were no machines or engines for diminishing manual labour.
Those who had any property would occupy all their time, and the time of
their immediate dependents, in raising food and making clothes for
themselves, and the rest of the people would go without any food or
clothes at all; or rather, which comes to the same thing, there would be
_no_ "rest of the people;" the lord and his vassals would have all the
produce;--there would be half a million of people in the United Kingdom
instead of twenty-seven millions.
When a boy has got hold of what we call the rudiments of learning, he
has possessed himself of the most useful tools and machines which exist
in the world. He has obtained the means of doing that with extreme ease,
which, without these tools, is done only with extreme labour. He has
earned the time which, if rightly employed, will elevate his mind, and
therefore improve his condition. Just so is it with all tools and
machines for diminishing bodily exertion. They give us the means of
doing that with comparative ease, which, without them, can only be done
with extreme drudgery. They set at liberty a great quantity of mere
animal power, which, having then leisure to unite with mental power,
produces ingenious and skilful workmen in every trade. But they do more
than this. They diminish human suffering--they improve the health--they
increase the term of life--they render all occupations less painful and
laborious;--and, by doing all this, they elevate man in the scale of
existence.
A late Pasha of Egypt, in one of those fits of caprice which it is the
nature of tyrants to exhibit, ordered, a few years ago, that the male
population of a district should be set to clear out one of the ancient
canals which was then filled up with mud. The people had no tools, and
the Pasha gave them no tools; but the work was required to be done. So
to work the poor wretches went, to the number of fifty thousand. They
had to plunge up to their necks in the filthiest slime, and to bale it
out with their hands, and their hands alone. They were fed, it is true,
during the operation; but their food was of a quality proportioned to
the little _profitable_ labour which they performed. They were fed on
horse-beans and water. In the course of one year, more than thirty
thousand of these unhappy people perished. If the tyrant, instead of
giving labour to fifty thousand people, had possessed the means of
setting up steam-engines to pump out the water, and scoop out the
mud,--or if he had provided the pump, which is called Archimedes' screw,
and was invented by that philosopher for the very purpose of draining
land in Egypt,--or if the people had even had scoops and shovels,
instead of being degraded like beasts, to the employment of their
unassisted hands,--the work might have been done at a fiftieth of the
cost, even of the miserable pittance of horse-beans and water; and the
money that was saved by the tools and machines, might have gone to
furnish _profitable_ labour to the thousands who perished amidst the
misery and degradation of their _unprofitable_ labour.
Some may say that this is a case which does not apply to us; because we
are free men, and cannot be compelled to perish, up to our necks in mud,
upon a pittance of horse-beans, doled out by a tyrant. Exactly so. But
what has made us free? Knowledge. Knowledge,--which, in raising the
moral and intellectual character of every Englishman, has raised up
barriers to oppression which no power can ever break down.
Knowledge,--which has set ingenious men thinking in every way how to
increase the profitable labour of the nation, and therefore to increase
the comforts of every man in the nation.
The people of England have gone on increasing very rapidly during the
last fifty years; and the average length of life has also gone on
increasing in the same remarkable manner. Men who have attended to
subjects of political economy have always been desirous to procure
accurate returns of the average duration of life at particular places,
and they could pretty well estimate the condition of the people from
these returns. Savages, it is well known, are not long livers; that is,
although there may be a few old people, the majority of savages die very
young. Why is this? Many of the savage nations that we know have much
finer climates than our own; but then, on the other hand, they sustain
privations which the poorest man amongst us never feels. Their supply of
food is uncertain, they want clothing, they are badly sheltered from the
weather, or not sheltered at all, they undergo very severe labour when
they are labouring. From all these causes savages die young. Is it not
reasonable, therefore, to infer that if in any particular country the
average duration of life goes on increasing; that is, if fewer people,
in a given number and a given time, die now than formerly, the condition
of that people is improved; that they have more of the necessaries and
comforts of life, and labour less severely to procure them? Now let us
see how the people of England stand in this respect. The average
mortality in a year about a century ago was reckoned to be one in
thirty, and now it is one in forty-six. This result is, doubtless,
produced in some degree by improvement in the science of medicine, and
particularly by the use of vaccination. But making every allowance for
these benefits, the fact furnishes the most undeniable truth, that the
people of England are much better fed, clothed, and lodged than they
were a century ago, and that the labour which they perform is far less
severe.
The effect of continued violent bodily exertion upon the duration of
life might be illustrated by many instances; we shall mention one. The
late Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, repeatedly speaks of a boatman whom
he knew at Lyons, as an old man. "His hair," says Mr. Edgeworth, "was
grey, his face wrinkled, his back bent, and all his limbs and features
had the appearance of those of a man of sixty; yet his real age was but
twenty-seven years. He told me that he was the oldest boatman on the
Rhone, that his younger brothers had been worn out before they were
twenty-five years old; such were the effects of the hardships to which
they were subject from the nature of their employment." That employment
was, by intense bodily exertion, and with the daily chance of being
upset, to pull a boat across one of the most rapid rivers in the
world,--
"The swift and arrowy Rhone,"
as one of our poets calls it. How much happier would these boatmen have
been during their lives, and how much longer would they have lived,
could their labour have been relieved by some mechanical contrivance!
and without doubt, the same contrivance would have doubled the number of
boatmen, by causing the passage to be more used. As it was, they were
few in number, they lived only a few years, and the only gratification
of those few years was an inordinate stimulus of brandy. This is the
case in all trades where immense efforts of bodily power are required.
The exertion itself wears out the people, and the dram, which gives a
momentary impulse to the exertion, wears them out still more. The
coal-heavers of London, healthy as they look, are but a short-lived
people. The heavy loads which they carry, and the quantity of liquor
which they drink, both together make sad havoc with them.
Violent bodily labour, in which the muscular power of the body is
unequally applied, generally produces some peculiar disease. Nearly all
the pressmen who were accustomed to print newspapers of a large size, by
hand, were ruptured. The printing-machine now does the same description
of work.
What is the effect upon the condition of pressmen generally by the
introduction of the printing-machine to do the heaviest labour of
printing? That the trade of a pressman is daily becoming one more of
_skill_ than of _drudgery_. At the same time that the printing-machine
was invented, one of the principles of that machine, that of inking the
types with a roller instead of two large cushions, called balls, was
introduced into hand-printing. The pressmen were delighted with this
improvement. "Ay," said they, "this saves our labour; we are relieved
from the hard work of distributing the ink upon the balls." What the
roller did for the individual pressman, the machine, which can only be
beneficially applied to rapid and to very heavy printing, does for the
great body of pressmen. It removes a certain portion of the drudgery,
which degraded the occupation, and rendered it painful and injurious to
health. We have seen two pressmen working a daily paper against time: it
was always necessary, before the introduction of the machines, to put an
immense quantity of bodily energy into the labour of working a
newspaper, that it might be published at the proper hour. Time, in this
case, was driving the pressman as fast as the rapid stream drove the
boatman of the Rhone; and the speed with which they worked was killing
them as quickly.