Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

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. In the same way the first printed books were designed to have a great resemblance to manuscripts, and those of the wealthy class were alone looked to as the purchasers of the skillful imitations. The first chemical light producer was a complex and ornamental casket, sold at a guinea. In a year or so, there were pretty portable cases of a phial and matches, which enthusiastic young housekeepers regarded as the cheapest of all treasures at five shillings. By-and-by the light-box was sold as low as a shilling. The fire revolution was slowly approaching. The old dynasty of the tinder-box maintained its predominance for a short while 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 without aid of spark and tinder, might be manufactured 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 tinder-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.

The combustible materials used in the manufacture render the process an unsafe one. It can not be carried on in the heart of towns without being regarded as a common nuisance. We must therefore go somewhere in the suburbs of London to find such a trade. In the neighborhood of Bethnal Green 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 summer-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.

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 requiring two hundred of these bundles. Up to this point we have had several hands employed in the preparation of the match, in connection with the machinery that cuts the wood. Let us follow one of these bundles through the subsequent processes. Without being separated, each end of the bundle is first dipped into sulphur. When dry, the splints, adhering to each other by means of the sulphur, must be parted by what is called 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 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 manufactured at another division of this establishment. 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 cut, and the empty boxes filled, by one boy. A bundle is opened; he seizes a portion, knowing, by long habit, the required number with sufficient 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.

There are about ten Lucifer Match manufactories in London. There are others in large provincial towns. The wholesale business is chiefly confined to the supply of the metropolis and immediate neighborhood by the London makers; for the railroad carriers refuse to receive the article, which is considered dangerous in transit. But we must not therefore assume that the metropolitan populations consume the metropolitan matches. Taking the population 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 many more. London certainly can not absorb ten millions of Lucifer boxes annually, which would be at the rate of thirty-three boxes to each inhabited house. London, perhaps, demands a third of the supply for its own consumption; 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.

The excessive cheapness is produced by the extension of the demand, enforcing the factory division of labor, and the most exact saving of material. The scientific discovery was the foundation of the cheapness. But connected with this general principle of cheapness, there are one or two remarkable points, which deserve attention.

It is a law of this manufacture that the demand is greater in the summer than in the winter. The old match maker, as we have mentioned, was idle in the summer – without fire for heating the brimstone – or engaged in more profitable field-work. A worthy woman, who once kept a chandler's shop in a village, informs us, that in summer she could buy no matches for retail, but was obliged to make them for her customers. The increased summer demand for the Lucifer Matches shows that the great consumption is among the masses – the laboring population – those who make up the vast majority of the contributors to duties of customs and excise. In the houses of the wealthy there is always fire; in the houses of the poor, fire in summer is a needless hourly expense. Then comes the Lucifer Match to supply the want; to light the candle to look in the dark cupboard – to light the afternoon fire to boil the kettle. It is now unnecessary to run to the neighbor for a light, or, as a desperate 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.

And this involves another great principle. The demand for the Lucifer Match is always continuous, for it is a perishable article. The demand never ceases. Every match burnt demands a new match to supply its place. This continuity of demand renders the supply always equal to the demand. The peculiar nature of the commodity prevents any accumulation of stock; its combustible character – requiring the simple agency of friction to ignite it – renders it dangerous for large quantities of the article to be kept in one place. Therefore no one makes for store, but all for immediate sale. The average price, therefore, must always yield a profit, or the production would altogether cease. But these essential qualities limit the profit. The manufacturers can not be rich without secret processes or monopoly. The contest is to obtain the largest profit by economical management. The amount of skill required in the laborers, and the facility of habit, which makes fingers act with the precision of machines, limit the number of laborers, and prevent their impoverishment. Every condition of this cheapness is a natural and beneficial result of the laws that govern production.

TUNNEL OF THE ALPS

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 world. A correspondent of the Times announces the fact. From London as far as Chambery, by the Lyons railroad, all is at present smooth enough; and the Lyons road is indeed about to be pushed up the ascents of Mont Meillaud and St. Maurienne, even as far as Modane at the foot of the Northern crest of the Graian and Cottian Alps: but there all further progress is arrested; you can not hope to carry a train to Susa and Turin unless you pierce the snow capped barrier itself: this is the very step which the Chevalier Henry Maus projects. The Chevalier is Honorary Inspector of the Génie Civil; it was he who projected and executed the great works on the Liége railroad. After five years of incessant study, many practical experiments, and the invention of new machinery for boring the mountain, he made his final report to the Government on the 8th of February, 1849. A commission of distinguished civil engineers, artillery officers, geologists, senators, and statesmen, have reported unanimously in favor of the project; and the Government has resolved to carry it out forthwith. The "Railroad of the Alps," connecting the tunnel with the Chambery railway on the one side and with that of Susa on the other side, will be 36,565 metres or 20 3/4 English miles in length, and will cost 21,000,000 francs. The connecting tunnel is thus described:

"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. Its northern entrance is to be at Modane, and the southern entrance at Bardonneche, on the river Mardovine. This latter entrance, being the highest point of the intended line of rail, will be 4,092 feet above the level of the sea, and yet 2,400 feet below the highest or culminating point of the great road or pass over the Mont Cenis. It is intended to divide the connecting lines of rail leading to either entrance of the tunnel into eight inclined planes of about 5,000 metres or 2-1/2 English miles each, worked like those at Liége, by endless cables and stationary engines, but in the present case moved by water-power derived from the torrents."

THE FLOWER GATHERER

[from the german of krummacher.]"God sends upon the wings of Spring,Fresh thoughts into the breasts of flowers."Miss Bremer.

The young and innocent Theresa had passed the most beautiful part of the spring upon a bed of sickness; and as soon as ever she began to regain her strength, she spoke of flowers, asking continually if her favorites were again as lovely as they had been the year before, when she had been able to seek for and admire them herself. Erick, the sick girl's little brother, took a basket, and showing it to his mamma, said, in a whisper, "Mamma, I will run out and get poor Theresa the prettiest I can find in the fields." So out he ran, for the first time for many a long day, and he thought that spring had never been so beautiful before; for he looked upon it with a gentle and loving heart, and enjoyed a run in the fresh air, after having been a prisoner by his sister's couch, whom he had never left during her illness. The happy child rambled about, up hill and down hill. Nightingales sang, bees hummed, and butterflies flitted round him, and the most lovely flowers were blowing at his feet. He jumped about, he danced, he sang, and wandered from hedge to hedge, and from flower to flower, with a soul as pure as the blue sky above him, and eyes that sparkled like a little brook bubbling from a rock. At last he had filled his basket quite full of the prettiest flowers; and, to crown all, he had made a wreath of field-strawberry flowers, which he laid on the top of it, neatly arranged on some grass, and one might fancy them a string of pearls, they looked so pure and fresh. The happy boy looked with delight at his full basket, and putting it down by his side, rested himself in the shade of an oak, on a carpet of soft green moss. Here he sat, looking at the beautiful prospect that lay spread out before him in all the freshness of spring, and listening to the ever-changing songs of the birds. But he had really tired himself out with joy; and the merry sounds of the fields, the buzzing of the insects, and the birds' songs, all helped to send him to sleep. And peacefully the fair child slumbered, his rosy cheek resting on the hands that still held his treasured basket.

But while he slept a sudden change came on. A storm arose in the heavens, but a few moments before so blue and beautiful. Heavy masses of clouds gathered darkly and ominously together; the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled louder and nearer. Suddenly a gust of wind roared in the boughs of the oak, and startled the boy out of his quiet sleep. He saw the whole heavens vailed by black clouds; not a sunbeam gleamed over the fields, and a heavy clap of thunder followed his waking. The poor child stood up, bewildered at the sudden change; and now the rain began to patter through the leaves of the oak, so he snatched up his basket, and ran toward home as fast as his legs could carry him. The storm seemed to burst over his head. Rain, hail, and thunder, striving for the mastery, almost deafened him, and made him more bewildered every minute. Water streamed from his poor soaked curls down his shoulders, and he could scarcely see to find his way homeward. All on a sudden a more violent gust of wind than usual caught the treasured basket, and scattered all his carefully-collected flowers far away over the field. His patience could endure no longer, for his face grew distorted with rage, and he flung the empty basket from him, with a burst of anger. Crying bitterly, and thoroughly wet, he reached at last his parents' house in a pitiful plight.

But soon another change appeared; the storm passed away, and the sky grew clear again. The birds began their songs anew, the countryman his labor. The air had become cooler and purer, and a bright calm seemed to lie lovingly in every valley and on every hill. What a delicious odor rose from the freshened fields! and their cultivators looked with grateful joy at the departing clouds, which had poured the fertilizing rain upon them. The sight of the blue sky soon tempted the frightened boy out again, and being by this time ashamed of his ill-temper, he went very quietly to look for his discarded basket, and to try and fill it again. He seemed to feel a new life within him. The cool breath of the air – the smell of the fields – the leafy trees – the warbling birds, all appeared doubly beautiful after the storm, and the humiliating consciousness of his foolish and unjust ill-temper softened and chastened his joy. After a long search he spied the basket lying on the slope of a hill, for a bramble bush had caught it, and sheltered it from the violence of the wind. The child felt quite thankful to the ugly-looking bush as he disentangled the basket.

But how great was his delight on looking around him, to see the fields spangled with flowers, as numerous as the stars of heaven! for the rain had nourished into blossom thousands of daisies, opened thousands of buds, and scattered pearly drops on every leaf. Erick flitted about like a busy bee, and gathered away to his heart's content. The sun was now near his setting, and the happy child hastened home with his basket full once more. How delighted he was with his flowery treasure, and with the pearly garland of fresh strawberry-flowers! The rays of the sinking sun played over his fair face as he wandered on, and gave his pretty features a placid and contented expression. But his eyes sparkled much more joyously when he received the kisses and thanks of his gentle sister. "Is it not true, dear," said his mother, "that the pleasures we prepare for others are the best of all?"

Royal Road to Knowledge. – A Mr. Jules Aleix, of Paris, states that he has discovered a new method of education, by which a child can be taught to read in fifteen lessons, and has petitioned the Assembly to expend 50,000 francs on a model school to demonstrate the fact.

[From Household Words.]

SHORT CUTS ACROSS THE GLOBE

To a person who wishes to sail for California an inspection of the map of the world reveals a provoking peculiarity. The Atlantic Ocean – the highway of the globe – being separated from the Pacific by the great western continent, it is impossible to sail to the opposite coasts without going thousands of miles out of his way; for he must double Cape Horn. Yet a closer inspection of the map will discover that but for one little barrier of land, which is in size but as a grain of sand to the bed of an ocean, the passage would be direct. Were it not for that small neck of land, the Isthmus of Panama (which narrows in one place to twenty-eight miles) he might save a voyage of from six to eight thousand miles, and pass at once into the Pacific Ocean. Again, if his desires tend toward the East, he perceives that but for the Isthmus of Suez, he would not be obliged to double the Cape of Good Hope. The eastern difficulty has been partially obviated by the overland route opened up by the ill-rewarded Waghorn. The western barrier has yet to be broken through.

Now that we can shake hands with Brother Jonathan in twelve days by means of weekly steamers; travel from one end of Great Britain to another, or from the Hudson to the Ohio, as fast as the wind, and make our words dance to distant friends upon the magic tight wire a great deal faster – now that the European and Columbian Saxon is spreading his children more or less over all the known habitable world: it seems extraordinary that the simple expedient of opening a twenty-eight mile passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, to save a dangerous voyage of some eight thousand miles, has not been already achieved. In this age of enterprise that so simple a remedy for so great an evil should not have been applied appears astonishing. Nay, we ought to feel some shame when we reflect that evidences in the neighborhood of both isthmuses exist of such junction having existed, in what we are pleased to designate "barbarous" ages.

Does nature present insurmountable engineering difficulties to the Panama scheme? By no means: for after the Croton aqueduct, our own railway tunneling, and the Britannia tubular bridge, engineering difficulties have become obsolete. Are the levels of the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, which should be joined, so different, that if one were admitted the fall would inundate the surrounding country? Not at all. Hear Humboldt on these points.

Forty years ago he declared it to be his firm opinion that "the Isthmus of Panama is suited to the formation of an oceanic canal – one with fewer sluices than the Caledonian Canal – capable of affording an unimpeded passage, at all seasons of the year, to vessels of that class which sail between New York and Liverpool, and between Chili and California." In the recent edition of his "Views of Nature," he "sees no reason to alter the views he has always entertained on this subject." Engineers, both British and American, have confirmed this opinion by actual survey. As, then, combination of British skill, capital, and energy, with that of the most "go-ahead" people upon earth, have been dormant, whence the secret of the delay? The answer at once allays astonishment: Till the present time, the speculation would not have "paid."

Large works of this nature, while they create an inconceivable development of commerce, must have a certain amount of a trading population to begin upon. A gold-beater can cover the effigy of a man on horseback with a sovereign; but he must have the sovereign first. It was not merely because the full power of the iron rail to facilitate the transition of heavy burdens had not been estimated, and because no Stephenson had constructed a "Rocket engine," that a railway with steam locomotives was not made from London to Liverpool before 1836. Until the intermediate traffic between these termini had swelled to a sufficient amount in quantity and value to bear reimbursement for establishing such a mode of conveyance, its execution would have been impossible, even though men had known how to set about it.

What has been the condition of the countries under consideration? In 1839, the entire population of the tropical American isthmus, in the states of central America and New Grenada did not exceed three millions. The number of the inhabitants of pure European descent did not exceed one hundred thousand. It was only among this inconsiderable fraction that any thing like wealth, intelligence, and enterprise, akin to that of Europe, was to be found; the rest were poor and ignorant aboriginals and mixed races, in a state of scarcely demi-civilization. Throughout this thinly-peopled and poverty-stricken region, there was neither law nor government. In Stephens's "Central America," may be found an amusing account of a hunt after a government, by a luckless American diplomatist, who had been sent to seek for one in central America. A night wanderer running through bog and brake after a will-o'-the-wisp, could not have encountered more perils, or in search of a more impalpable phantom. In short, there was nobody to trade with. To the south of the isthmus, along the Pacific coast of America, there was only one station to which merchants could resort with any fair prospect of gain – Valparaiso. Except Chili, all the Pacific states of South America were retrograding from a very imperfect civilization, under a succession of petty and aimless revolutions. To the north of the isthmus matters were little, if any thing better. Mexico had gone backward from the time of its revolution; and, at the best, its commerce in the Pacific had been confined to a yearly ship between Acapulco and the Philippines. Throughout California and Oregon, with the exception of a few European and half-breed members, there were none but savage aboriginal tribes. The Russian settlements in the far north had nothing but a paltry trade in furs with Kamschatka, that barely defrayed its own expenses. Neither was there any encouragement to make a short cut to the innumerable islands of the Pacific. The whole of Polynesia lay outside of the pale of civilization. In Tahiti, the Sandwich group, and the northern peninsula of New Zealand, missionaries had barely sowed the first seeds of morals and enlightenment. The limited commerce of China and the Eastern Archipelago was engrossed by Europe, and took the route of the Cape of Good Hope, with the exception of a few annual vessels that traded from the sea-board states of the North American Union to Valparaiso and Canton. The wool of New South Wales was but coming into notice, and found its way to England alone round the Cape of Good Hope. An American fleet of whalers scoured the Pacific, and adventurers of the same nation carried on a desultory and inconsiderable traffic in hides with California, in tortoise-shell and mother of pearl with the Polynesian Islands.