Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II.», sayfa 20

At this moment, the noise burst forth from the middle of the enormous shed, of several beats of a gong: so loud, that they even drowned the thundering inquiries with which Mr. Bossle was teasing one of the "teasers." In an instant the men hastened to a focus, like giants in a Christmas pantomime about to perform some wonderful conjuration; and not a whisper was heard.

"Aha!" exclaimed the director, "they are going to cast. This way, gentlemen!"

The kitchen in which the Ogre threatened to cook Jack and his seven brothers could not have been half so formidable an apartment as the enormous cuisine into which we were led. One end was occupied with a row of awful ovens; in the midst, stood a stupendous iron table; and upon it lay a rolling-pin, so big, that it could only be likened to half-a-dozen garden-rollers joined together at their ends. Above, was an iron crane or gallows to lift the enormous messes of red-hot gruel, thick and slab, which were now to be brought from the furnaces.

"Stand clear!" A huge basin, white with heat, approaches, on a sort of iron hurley; at one end of which sits, triumphant, a salamander, in human form, to balance the Plutonian mass, as it approaches on its wheeled car – playing with it – a game of see-saw. It stops at the foot of the iron gallows. Mr. Bossle approaches to see what it is, and discovers it to be a cuvette filled with molten glass, glowing from the fiery furnace. What is that man doing with a glazed mask before his face? "Why, if you will believe me," exclaims Mr. Bossle, in the tones of a speaking-trumpet (we are at a prudent distance), "he is ladling off the scum, as composedly as if it were turtle-soup!" Mr. Bossle grows bold, and ventures a little nearer. Rash man! His nose is assuredly scorched; he darts back, and takes off his spectacles, to ascertain how much of the frames are melted. The dreadful pot is lifted by the crane. It is poised immediately over the table; a workman tilts it; and out pours a cataract of molten opal which spreads itself, deliberately, like infernal sweet-stuff, over the iron table; which is spilled and slopped about, in a crowd of men, and touches nobody. "And has touched nobody since last year, when one poor fellow got the large shoes he wore, filled with white-hot glass." Then the great rolling-pin begins to "roll it out."

But, those two men, narrowly inspecting every inch of the red hot sheet as the roller approaches it – is their skin salamandrine? are their eyes fire-proof?

"They are looking," we are told, "for any accidental impurity that may be still intruding in the vitrifaction, and, if they can tear it out with their long pincers before the roller has passed over it, they are rewarded. From the shape these specks assume in being torn away, they are called 'tears.'"

When the roller has passed over the table, it leaves a sheet of red-hot glass, measuring some twelve feet by seven.

This translucent confection is pushed upon a flat wooden platform on wheels – sparkling, as it touches the wood, like innumerable diamonds – and is then run rapidly to an oven, there to be baked or annealed. The bed or "sole" of this carquèse is heated to a temperature exactly equal to that of the glass; which is now so much cooled that you can stand within a yard or so of it without fear of scorching off your eyelashes. The pot out of the furnace is cooled, too, out in the rain, and lies there, burst into a hundred pieces. It has been a good one: for it has withstood the fire seventy days.

So rapidly are all these casting operations performed, that, from the moment when Mr. Bossle thought his spectacles were melting off his nose, to the moment when the sheet of glass is shut up in the oven, about five minutes have elapsed. The operations are repeated, until the oven is full of glass-plates.

When eight plates are put into the carquèse, it is closed up hermetically; for the tiniest current of cold air would crack the glass. The fire is allowed to go out of its own accord, and the cooling takes place so gradually, that it is not completed until eight days are over. When drawn forth, the glass is that "rough plate" which we see let into the doors of railway stations, and forming half-transparent floors in manufactories. To make it completely transparent for windows and looking-glasses, elaborate processes of grinding and polishing are requisite. They are three in number: roughing down, smoothing, and polishing.

"I perceive," said Mr. Bossle, when he got to the roughing-down room, where steam machinery was violently agitating numerous plates of glass, one upon the other, "that the diamond-cut-diamond principle is adopted."

"Exactly; the under-plate is fastened to a table by plaster-of-paris, and the upper one – quite rough – is violently rubbed by machinery upon it, with water, sand, and other grinding-powders between. The top-plate is then fastened to a table, to rough down another first plate; for the under one is always the smoother."

Then comes the "smoothing." Emery, of graduated degrees of fineness, is used for that purpose. "Until within the last month or so, smoothing could only be done by human labor. The human hand alone was capable of the requisite tenacity, to rub the slippery surfaces over each other; nay, so fine a sense of touch was requisite, that even a man's hand had scarcely sensitiveness enough for the work; hence females were, and still are employed."

As our pains-taking informant spoke, he pushed open a door, and we beheld a sight that made Mr. Bossle wipe his spectacles, and ourselves imagine for a moment that a scene from an Oriental story-book was magically revealed to us; so elegant and graceful were the attitudes into which a bevy of some fifty females – many of them of fine forms and handsome features – were unceasingly throwing themselves. Now, with arms extended, they pushed the plates to one verge of the low tables, stretching their bodies as far as possible; then, drawing back, they stood erect, pulling the plate after them; then, in order to reach the opposite edge of the plane, they stretched themselves out again to an almost horizontal posture. The easy beauty of their movements, the glitter of the glass, the brilliancy of the gas-lights, the bright colors of most of the dresses, formed a coup d'œil which Mr. Bossle enjoyed a great deal more than Mrs. Bossle, had she been there, might have quite approved.

The fairy scene is soon, however, to disappear. Mr. Blake the ingenious manager of the works, has invented an artificial female hand, by means of which, in combination with peculiar machinery, glass smoothing can be done by steam. The last process is "polishing." This art is practiced in a spacious room glowing with red. Every corner of the busy interior is as rubicund as a Dutch dairy. The floor is red, the walls are red, the ceiling is red, the pillars are red. The machinery is very red. Red glass is attached, by red plaster of Paris, to red movable tables; red rubbers of red felt, heavily weighted with red leads, are driven rapidly over the red surface. Little red boys, redder than the reddest of Red Indians, are continually sprinkling on the reddened glass, the rouge (moistened crocus, peroxyde of iron), which converts the scene of their operations into the most gigantic of known Rubrics.

When polished, the glass is taken away to be "examined." A body of vigilant scrutineers place each sheet between their own eyes and a strong light: wherever a scratch or flaw appears, they make a mark with a piece of wax. If removable, these flaws are polished out by hand. The glass is then ready for the operation which enables "the beauty to behold herself." The spreading of the quicksilver at the back is, however, a separate process, accomplished elsewhere, and performed by a perfectly distinct body of workmen. It is a very simple art.

The manufacture of plate-glass adds another to the thousand and one instances of the advantages of unrestricted and unfettered trade. The great demand occasioned by the immediate fall in price consequent upon the New Tariff, produced this effect on the Thames Plate Glass Works. They now manufacture as much plate-glass per week as was turned out in the days of the Excise, in the same time, by all the works in the country put together. The Excise incubi clogged the operations of the workmen, and prevented every sort of improvement in the manufacture. They put their gauges into the "metal" (or mixed materials) before it was put into the pot. They overhauled the paste when it was taken out of the fire, and they applied their foot-rules to the sheets after the glass was annealed. The duty was collected during the various stages of manufacture half-a-dozen times, and amounted to three hundred per cent. No improvement was according to law, and the exciseman put his veto upon every attempt of the sort. In the old time, the mysterious mixer could not have exercised his secret vocation for the benefit of his employers, and the demand for glass was so small that Mr. Blake's admirable polishing machine would never have been invented. Nor could plate-glass ever have been used for transparent flooring, or for door panels, or for a hundred other purposes, to which it is now advantageously and ornamentally applied.

Thanking the courteous gentlemen who had shown us over the works, we left Mr. Bossle in close consultation with the manager. As, in crossing the yard, we heard the word "soda!" frequently thundered forth, we concluded that the Johnsonian drysalter was endeavoring to complete some transactions in that commodity, which he had previously opened with the director. But, it is not in our power to report decisively on this head, for our attention was directed to two concluding objects.

First, to a row of workmen – the same we had lately seen among the fires and liquid glass – good-humoredly sitting, with perfect composure, on a log of timber, out in the cold and wet, looking at the muddy creek, and drinking their beer, as if there were no such thing as temperature known. Secondly, and lastly, to the narrow passages or caves underneath the furnaces, into which the glowing cinders drop through gratings. These looked, when we descended into them, like a long Egyptian street on a dark night, with a fiery rain falling. In warm divergent chambers and crevices, the boys employed in the works love to hide and sleep, on cold nights. So slept De Foe's hero, Colonel Jack, among the ashes of the glass-house where he worked.

And that, and the river together, made us think of Robinson Crusoe the whole way home, and wonder what all the English boys who have been since his time, and who are yet to be, would have done without him and his desert Island.

"BIRTHS: – MRS. MEEK, OF A SON." – A PLEA FOR INFANTS

My name is Meek. I am, in fact, Mr. Meek. That son is mine and Mrs. Meek's. When I saw the announcement in the Times, I dropped the paper. I had put it in, myself, and paid for it, but it looked so noble that it overpowered me.

As soon as I could compose my feelings, I took the paper up to Mrs. Meek's bedside. "Maria Jane," said I (I allude to Mrs. Meek), "you are now a public character." We read the review of our child, several times, with feelings of the strongest emotion; and I sent the boy who cleans the boots and shoes, to the office, for fifteen copies. No reduction was made on taking that quantity.

It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that our child had been expected. In fact, it had been expected, with comparative confidence, for some months. Mrs. Meek's mother, who resides with us – of the name of Bigby – had made every preparation for its admission to our circle.

I hope and believe I am a quiet man. I will go further. I know I am a quiet man. My constitution is tremulous, my voice was never loud, and, in point of stature, I have been from infancy, small. I have the greatest respect for Maria Jane's mamma. She is a most remarkable woman. I honor Maria Jane's mamma. In my opinion she would storm a town, single-handed, with a hearth-broom, and carry it. I have never known her to yield any point whatever, to mortal man. She is calculated to terrify the stoutest heart.

Still – but I will not anticipate.

The first intimation I had, of any preparations being in progress, on the part of Maria Jane's mamma, was one afternoon, several months ago. I came home earlier than usual from the office, and, proceeding into the dining-room, found an obstruction behind the door, which prevented it from opening freely. It was an obstruction of a soft nature. On looking in, I found it to be a female.

The female in question stood in the corner behind the door, consuming sherry wine. From the nutty smell of that beverage pervading the apartment, I had no doubt she was consuming a second glassful. She wore a black bonnet of large dimensions, and was copious in figure. The expression of her countenance was severe and discontented. The words to which she gave utterance on seeing me, were these, "Oh, git along with you, sir, if you please; me and Mrs. Bigby don't want no male parties here!"

That female was Mrs. Prodgit.

I immediately withdrew, of course. I was rather hurt, but I made no remark. Whether it was that I showed a lowness of spirits after dinner, in consequence of feeling that I seemed to intrude, I can not say. But, Maria Jane's mamma said to me on her retiring for the night, in a low distinct voice, and with a look of reproach that completely subdued me, "George Meek, Mrs. Prodgit is your wife's nurse!"

I bear no ill-will toward Mrs. Prodgit. Is it likely that I, writing this with tears in my eyes, should be capable of deliberate animosity toward a female, so essential to the welfare of Maria Jane? I am willing to admit that Fate may have been to blame, and not Mrs. Prodgit; but, it is undeniably true, that the latter female brought desolation and devastation into my lowly dwelling.

We were happy after her first appearance; we were sometimes exceedingly so. But, whenever the parlor door was opened, and "Mrs. Prodgit!" announced (and she was very often announced), misery ensued. I could not bear Mrs. Prodgit's look. I felt that I was far from wanted, and had no business to exist in Mrs. Prodgit's presence. Between Maria Jane's mamma, and Mrs. Prodgit, there was a dreadful, secret understanding – a dark mystery and conspiracy, pointing me out as a being to be shunned. I appeared to have done something that was evil. Whenever Mrs. Prodgit called, after dinner, I retired to my dressing-room – where the temperature is very low, indeed, in the wintry time of the year – and sat looking at my frosty breath as it rose before me, and at my rack of boots: a serviceable article of furniture, but never, in my opinion, an exhilarating object. The length of the councils that were held with Mrs. Prodgit, under these circumstances, I will not attempt to describe. I will merely remark, that Mrs. Prodgit always consumed sherry wine while the deliberations were in progress; that they always ended in Maria Jane's being in wretched spirits on the sofa; and that Maria Jane's mamma always received me, when I was recalled, with a look of desolate triumph that too plainly said, "Now, George Meek! You see my child, Maria Jane, a ruin, and I hope you are satisfied!"

I pass, generally, over the period that intervened between the day when Mrs. Prodgit entered her protest against male parties, and the ever-memorable midnight when I brought her to my unobtrusive home in a cab, with an extremely large box on the roof, and a bundle, a bandbox, and a basket, between the driver's legs. I have no objection to Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby, who I never can forget is the parent of Maria Jane), taking entire possession of my unassuming establishment. In the recesses of my own breast, the thought may linger that a man in possession can not be so dreadful as a woman, and that woman Mrs. Prodgit: but, I ought to bear a good deal, and I hope I can, and do. Huffing and snubbing, prey upon my feelings; but I can bear them without complaint. They may tell in the long run; I may be hustled about, from post to pillar, beyond my strength; nevertheless, I wish to avoid giving rise to words in the family.

The voice of Nature, however, cries aloud in behalf of Augustus George, my infant son. It is for him that I wish to utter a few plaintive household words. I am not at all angry; I am mild – but miserable.

I wish to know why, when my child, Augustus George, was expected in our circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the little stranger were a criminal who was to be put to the torture immediately on his arrival, instead of a holy babe? I wish to know why haste was made to stick those pins all over his innocent form, in every direction? I wish to be informed why light and air are excluded from Augustus George, like poisons? Why, I ask, is my unoffending infant so hedged into a basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico, with miniature sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him snuffle (and no wonder!) deep down under the pink hood of a little bathing-machine, and can never peruse even so much of his lineaments as his nose.

Was I expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the brushes of All Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George? Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of those formidable little instruments?

Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of sharp frills? Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding surface is to be crimped and small-plaited? Or is my child composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the finer getting-up art, practiced by the laundress, are to be printed off, all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly observe them? The starch enters his soul; who can wonder that he cries?

Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a Torso? I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual practice. Then, why are my poor child's limbs fettered and tied up? Am I to be told that there is any analogy between Augustus George Meek, and Jack Sheppard.

Analyze Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears to that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty of Maria Jane to administer to Augustus George! Yet, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with systematically forcing Castor Oil on my innocent son, from the first hour of his birth. When that medicine, in its efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and inconsistently administering opium to allay the storm she has raised! What is the meaning of this?

If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require, for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and linen that would carpet my humble roof? Do I wonder that she requires it? No! This morning, within an hour, I beheld this agonizing sight. I beheld my son – Augustus George – in Mrs. Prodgit's hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit's knee, being dressed. He was at the moment, comparatively speaking, in a state of nature; having nothing on, but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the length of his usual outer garments. Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit's lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage – I should say, of several yards in extent. In this, I SAW Mrs. Prodgit tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over and over, now presenting his unconscious face upward, now the back of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe entered the body of my only child. In this tourniquet, he passes the present phase of his existence. Can I know it, and smile!

I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. Not for myself; for Augustus George. I dare not interfere. Will any one? Will any publication? Any doctor? Any parent? Any body? I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane's affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us. I do not complain of being made of no account. I do not want to be of any account. But Augustus George is a production of Nature (I can not think otherwise) and I claim that he should be treated with some remote reference to Nature. In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention and a superstition. Are all the faculty afraid of Mrs. Prodgit? If not, why don't they take her in hand and improve her?

P.S. Maria Jane's mamma boasts of her own knowledge of the subject, and says she brought up seven children besides Maria Jane. But how do I know that she might not have brought them up much better? Maria Jane herself is far from strong, and is subject to headaches, and nervous indigestion. Besides which, I learn from the statistical tables that one child in five dies within the first year of its life; and one child in three within the fifth. That don't look as if we could never improve in these particulars, I think!

P.P.S. Augustus George is in convulsions.