[From Household Words.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHEAPNESS.

THE LUCIFER MATCH.

SON
NOME twenty years ago the process of ob-
taining fire, in every house in England,
with few exceptions, was as rude, as laborious,
and as uncertain, as the effort of the Indian to
produce a flame by the friction of two dry
sticks.

children, splitting deal with a common knife
The matron is watching a pipkin upon a slow
fire. The fumes which it gives forth are blind-
ing as the brimstone s quiiying. Little bun-
dles of split deal are ready to be dipped, three
or four at a time. When the pennyworth of
brimstone is used up, when the capital is ex-
hausted, the night's labor is over.
In the sum.
mer, the manufacture is suspended, or con.
ducted upon fraudulent principles. Fire is then
needless; so delusive matches must be produced

wet splints dipped in powdered sulphur. They will never burn, but they will do to sell to the unwary maid-of-all-work.

About twenty years ago Chemistry discovered that the tinder-box might be abolished. But Chemistry set about its function with especial reference to the wants and the means of the rich few.

The nightlamp and the rushlight were for the comparatively luxurious. In the bedrooms of the cottager, the artisan, and the small tradesman, the infant at its mother's side too often awoke, like Milton's nightingale, "darkling"but that "nocturnal note" was something different from "harmonious numbers." The mother was soon on her feet; the friendly tinder-box In the same way the first printed was duly sought. Click, click, click; not a books were designed to have a great resemspark tells upon the sullen blackness. More blance to manuscripts, and those of the wealthy rapidly does the flint ply the sympathetic steel. class were alone looked to as the purchasers of The room is bright with the radiant shower. the skillful imitations. The first chemical light But the child, familiar enough with the opera- producer was a complex and ornamental casket, tion, is impatient at its tediousness, and shouts sold at a guinea. In a year or so, there were till the mother is frantic. At length one lucky pretty portable cases of a phial and matches, spark does its office-the tinder is alight. Now which enthusiastic young housekeepers regarded for the match. It will not burn. A gentle as the cheapest of all treasures at five shillings breath is wafted into the murky box; the face By-and-by the light-box was sold as low as a that leans over the tinder is in a glow. An-shilling. The fire revolution was slowly apother match, and another, and another. They proaching. The old dynasty of the tinder-box are all damp. The toil-worn father " swears a maintained its predominance for a short while prayer or two;" the baby is inexorable; and the misery is only ended when the goodman has gone to the street door, and after long shivering has obtained a light from the watch

man.

in kitchen and garret, in farm-house and cottage. At length some bold adventurer saw that the new chemical discovery might be employed for the production of a large article of trade—that matches, in themselves the vehicles of fire with

In this, the beginning of our series of Illus-out aid of spark and tinder, might be manufactrations of Cheapness, let us trace this antique machinery through the various stages of its production.

The tinder-box and the steel had nothing peculiar. The tinman made the one as he made the saucepan, with hammer and shears; the other was forged at the great metal factories of Sheffield and Birmingham; and happy was it for the purchaser if it were something better than a rude piece of iron, very uncomfortable to grasp. The nearest chalk quarry supplied the flint.

The domestic manufacture of the tinder was a serious affair. At due seasons, and very often if the premises were damp, a stifling smell rose from the kitchen, which, to those who were not intimate with the process, suggested doubts whether the house were not on fire. The best linen rag was periodically burnt, and its ashes deposited in the tinman's box, pressed down with a close fitting lid, upon which the flint and steel reposed. The match was chiefly an article of itinerant traffic. The chandler's shop was almost ashamed of it. The mendicant was the universal match-seller. The girl who led the blind beggar had invariably a basket of matches. In the day they were vendors of matches in the evening manufacturers. On the floor of the hovel sit two or three squalid

tured upon the factory system-that the humblest in the land might have a new and indispensable comfort at the very lowest rate of cheapness. When Chemistry saw that phosphorus, having an affinity for oxygen at the lowest temperature, would ignite upon slight friction, and so ignited would ignite sulphur, which required a much higher temperature to become inflammable, thus making the phosphorus do the work of the old tinder with far greater certainty; or when Chemistry found that chlorate of potash by slight friction might be exploded so as to produce combustion, and might be safely used in the same combination-a blessing was bestowed upon society that can scarcely be measured by those who have had no former knowledge of the miseries and privations of the inder.box. The Penny Box of Lucifers, or Congreves, or by whatever name called, is a real triumph of Science, and an advance in civilization.

Let us now look somewhat closely and practically into the manufacture of a Lucifer Match.

borhood of Bethnal Grece there is a large open space called Wisker's Gardens. This is not a place of courts and alleys, but a considerable area, literally divided into small gardens, where just now the crocus and the snowdrop are telling hopefully of the springtime. Each garden has the smallest of cottages-for the most part wooden-which have been converted from sum-ufactured at another division of this, establishmer-houses into dwellings. The whole place reminds one of numberless passages in the old dramatists, in which the citizens' wives are described in their garden-houses of Finsbury or Hogsden, sipping syllabub and talking fine on summer holidays. In one of these garden-houses, not far from the public road, is the little factory of "Henry Lester, Patentee of the Domestic Safety Match-box," as his label proclaims. He is very ready to show his processes, which in many respects are curious and interesting.

that the bundles have been dipped at each end. There are few things more remarkable in manufactures than the extraordinary rapidity of this cutting process, and that which is connected with it. The boy stands before a bench, the bundle on his right hand, a pile of half opened empty boxes on his left, which have been man

ment. These boxes are formed of scale-board, that is, thin slices of wood, planed or scaled off a plank. The box itself is a marvel of neatness and cheapness. It consists of an inner box, without a top, in which the matches are placed, and of an outer case, open at each end, into which the first box slides. The matches, then, are to be eut, and the empty boxes filled, by oĥe boy. A bundle is opened; he seizes a por tion, knowing, by long habit, the required number with suflicient exactness; puts them rapidly into a sort of frame, knocks the ends evenly together, confines them with a strap which he tightens with his foot, and cuts them in two parts with a knife on a hinge, which he brings down with a strong leverage: the halves lie projecting over each end of the frame; he grasps the left portion and thrusts it into a half open box, which he instantly closes, and repeats the process with the matches on his right hand. This series of movements is performed with a rapidity almost unexampled; for in this way, two hundred thousand matches are cut, and two thousand boxes filled in a day, by one boy, at the wages of three halfpence per gross of boxes. Each dozen boxes is then papered up, and they are ready for the retailer. The number of boxes daily filled at this factory is from fifty to sixty gross.

The wholesale price per dozen boxes of the best matches is FOURPENCE, of the second quality, THREEPENCE.

Adam Smith has instructed us that the business of making a pin is divided into about eighteen distinct operations; and further, that ten persons could make upward of forty-eight thousand pins a day with the division of labor; while if they had all wrought independently and separately, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty. The Lucifer Match is a similar example of division of labor, and the skill of long practice. At a separate factory, where there is a steam-engine, not the refuse of the carpenter's shop, but the best Norway deals are cut into splints by machinery, and are supplied to the match-maker. These little pieces, beautifully accurate in their minute squareness, and in their precise length of five inches, are made up into bundles, each of which contains eighteen hundred. They are daily brought on a truck to the dipping-house, as it is called-the average number of matches finished off daily requir- There are about ten Lucifer Match manuing two hundred of these bundles. Up to this factories in London. There are others in large point we have had several hands employed in provincial towns. The wholesale business is the preparation of the match, in connection with chiefly confined to the supply of the metropolis the machinery that cuts the wood. Let us fol- and immediate neighborhood by the London low one of these bundles through the subsequent makers; for the railroad carriers refuse to reprocesses. Without being separated, each end ceive the article, which is considered dangerous of the bundle is first dipped into sulphur. When in transit. But we must not therefore assume dry, the splints, adhering to each other by means that the metropolitan population consume the of the sulphur, must be parted by what is called metropolitan matches. Taking the population dusting. A boy sitting on the floor, with a bundle before him, strikes the matches with a sort of a mallet on the dipped ends till they become thoroughly loosened. In the best matches the process of sulphur-dipping and dusting is repeated. They have now to be plunged into a preparation of phosphorus or chlorate of potash, according to the quality of the match. The phosphorus produces the pale, noiseless fire; the chlorate of potash the sharp, crackling illumination. After this application of the more inflammable substance, the matches are separated, and dried in racks. Thoroughly dried, they are gathered up again into bundles of the same quantity; and are taken to the boys who cut them; for the reader will have observed

at upward of two millions, and the inhabited houses at about three hundred thousand, let us endeavor to estimate the distribution of these little articles of domestic comfort.

At the manufactory at Wisker's Gardens there are fifty gross, or seven thousand two hundred boxes, turned out daily, made from two hundred bundles, which will produce seven hundred and twenty thousand matches. Taking three hundred working days in the year, this will give for one factory, two hundred and sixteen millions of matches annually, or two millions one hundred and sixty thousand boxes, being a box of one hundred matches for every individual of the London population. But there are ten other Lucifer manufactories, which are

estimated to produce about four or five times as a profit, or the production would altogether many more. London certainly can not absorb cease. But these essential qualities limit the tea millions of Lucifer boxes annually, which profit. The manufacturers can not be rich would be at the rate of thirty-three boxes to without secret processes or monopoly. The each inhabited house. London, perhaps, de- contest is to obtain the largest profit by ecomands a third of the supply for its own con-nomical management. The amount of skill resumption; and at this rate the annual retail cost for each house is eightpence, averaging those boxes sold at a halfpenny, and those at a penny. The manufacturer sells this article, produced with such care as we have described, at one farthing and a fraction per box.

And thus, for the retail expenditure of three farthings per month, every house in London, from the highest to the lowest, may secure the inestimable blessing of constant fire at all seasons, and at all hours. London buys this for ten thousand pounds annually.

quired in the laborers, and the facility of habit, which makes fingers act with the precision of machines, limit the number of laborers, and revent their impoverishment. Every condition of this cheapness is a natural and beneficial result of the laws that govern production.

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THE Sardinian Government is about to execute a grand engineering project; it is going to pierce the summit-ridge of the Alps with a tunnel twice as long as any existing tunnel in the The excessive cheapness is produced by the world. A correspondent of the Times announces extension of the demand, enforcing the factory the fact. From London as far as Chambery, division of labor, and the most exact saving of by the Lyons railroad, all is at present smooth material. The scientific discovery was the enough; and the Lyons road is indeed about to foundation of the cheapness. But connected be pushed up the ascents of Mont Meillaud and with this general principle of cheapness, there St. Maurienne, even as far as Modane at the are one or two remarkable points, which deserve | foot of the Northern crest of the Graian and attention. Cottian Alps but there all further progress is It is a law of this manufacture that the arrested; you can not hope to carry a train to demand is greater in the summer than in the Susa and Turin unless you pierce the snow. winter. The old match maker, as we have capped barrier itself: this is the very step which mentioned, was idle in the summer-without the Chevalier Henry Maus projects. The fire for heating the brimstone-or engaged in Chevalier is Honorary Inspector of the Génie more profitable field-work. A worthy woman, Civil; it was he who projected and executed who once kept a chandler's shop in a village, the great works on the Liége railroad. After informs us, that in summer she could buy no five years of incessant study, many practical matches for retail, but was obliged to make experiments, and the invention of new machinery them for her customers. The increased sum-for boring the mountain, he made his final remer demand for the Lucifer Matches shows port to the Government on the 8th of February, that the great consumption is among the masses 1849. A commission of distinguished civil -the laboring population-those who make up engineers, artillery officers, geologists, senators, the vast majority of the contributors to duties and statesmen, have reported unanimously in of customs and excise. In the houses of the favor of the project; and the Government has wealthy there is always fire; in the houses of resolved to carry it out forthwith. The "Railthe poor, fire in summer is a needless hourly road of the Alps," connecting the tunnel with expense. Then comes the Lucifer Match to the Chambery railway on the one side and with supply the want; to light the candle to look in that of Susa on the other side, will be 36,565 the dark cupboard—to light the afternoon fire metres or 203 English miles in length, and will to boil the kettle. It is now unnecessary to cost 21,000,000 francs. The connecting tunnel run to the neighbor for a light, or, as a desper- is thus described: ate resource, to work at the tinder-box. The Lucifer Matches sometimes fail, but they cost little, and so they are freely used, even by the poorest.

"It will measure 12,290 metres, or nearly seven English miles in length; its greatest height will be 19 feet, and its width 25 feet, admitting, of course, of a double line of rail. And this involves another great principle. Its northern entrance is to be at Modane, and The demand for the Lucifer Match is always the southern entrance at Bardonneche, on the continuous, for it is a perishable article. The river Mardovine. This latter entrance, being demand never ceases. Every match burnt de- the highest point of the intended line of rail, mands a new match to supply its place. This will be 4,092 feet above the level of the sea, continuity of demand renders the supply always and yet 2,400 feet below the highest or culequal to the demand. The peculiar nature of minating point of the great road or pass over the commodity prevents any accumulation of the Mont Cenis. It is intended to divide the stock; its combustible character-requiring the connecting lines of rail leading to either entrance simple agency of friction to ignite it-renders of the tunnel into eight inclined planes of about it dangerous for large quantities of the article 5,000 metres or 2 English miles each, worked to be kept in one place. Therefore no one like those at Liége, by endless cables and stamakes for store, but all for immediate sale. tionary engines, but in the present case moved The average price, therefore, must always yield by water-power derived from the torrents."