A Month in Yorkshire Part 22

Then to the engine-room, where the sight of the tremendous machinery was a fresh surprise. Here are erected two separate pairs of engines, combining 1250-horse power, by Fairbairn, of Manchester. You see how beauty of construction consorts with ponderous strength. Polished iron, glittering bra.s.s, and shining mahogany, testify to the excellence of Lancashire handicraft in 1853, the date of the engines. The mahogany is used for casing; and here, as with the boilers, every precaution is used to prevent the escape of heat. As you watch the great cogged fly-wheels spinning round with resistless force, you will hardly be surprised to hear that they impart motion to two miles of 'shafting,' which weighs in all six hundred tons, and rotates from sixty to two hundred and fifty times a minute. And this shafting, of which the diameter is from two to fourteen inches, sets twelve hundred power-looms going, besides fulfilling all its other multifarious duties.

Then we went from one noisy floor to another among troops of spinners, finding everywhere proofs of the same presiding judgment. All is fire-proof; the beams and columns are of cast-iron; the floors rest on arches of hollow bricks; and the ventilation, maintained by inlets a few inches above the floor, and outlets near the ceiling, where hot-water pipes keep up a temperature of sixty degrees, is perfect, without draughts. The top room in the main building, running from end to end for five hundred and fifty feet without a break, said to be the largest room in Europe, is an impressive sight, filled with ranks of busy machines and busy workers.

In the weaving-shed, all the driving gear is placed beneath the floor, so that you have a clear prospect over the whole area at once, uninterrupted by the usual array of rapid wheels and flying straps. Vast as is the appet.i.te of those twelve hundred looms for warp and weft, it is kept satisfied from the mill's own resources; and in one day they deliver thirty thousand yards of alpaca, or other kinds of woollen cloth. Multiply that quant.i.ty, reader, by the number of working days in a year, and you will discover to what an amazing extent the markets of the world are supplied by this one establishment of t.i.tus Salt and Co.

Some portions of the machinery do their work with marvellous precision and dexterity,

"----as if the iron thought!"

and it seemed to me that I could never have tired of watching the machine that took the wool, one fringe-like instalment after another, from a.s.siduous cylinders, and delivered it to another series of movements which placed the fibres all in one direction, and produced the rough outline of the future thread. Another ingenious device weaves two pieces at once all in one width, and with four selvages, of which two are, of course, in the middle of the web, and yet there is no difference in appearance between those two inner ones and those on the outer edges.

The piece is afterwards divided along the narrow line left between them.

Even in the noisome washing-room there was something to admire. The wool, after a course of pushing to and fro in a cistern of hot water by two great rakes, is delivered to an endless web by a revolving cylinder.

This cylinder is armed with rows of long bra.s.s teeth, and as they would be in the way of the web on their descent, they disappear within the body of the cylinder at the critical moment, and come presently forth again to continue their lift.

In the warehouse, I was shown that the wool is sorted into eight qualities, sometimes a ninth; and the care bestowed on this preliminary operation may be judged of from the fact, that every sorting pa.s.ses in succession through two sets of hands. There, too, I learned that the first fleece of Gimmer hogs is among the best of English wool; and, indeed, it feels quite silky in comparison with other kinds. The quality loses in goodness with every subsequent shearing. The clippings and refuse are purchased by the shoddy makers, those ingenious converters of old clothes into new.

Where alpaca and other fine cloths are so largely manufactured, the question as to a continuous supply of finest wool becomes of serious importance. Mr. Salt has done what he can to provide for a supply by introducing the alpaca sheep into Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.

On my coming, I had thought the counting-house, and offices, and visitors' room too luxurious for a mere place of business; but when I returned thither to take leave, with the impression of the enormous scale of the business, and the means by which it is accomplished fresh on my mind, these appeared quite in harmony with all the rest. And when I stood, taking a last look around, on the railway bridge, I felt that he whose large foresight had planned so stately a home for industry, and set it down here in a sylvan valley, deserved no mean place among the Worthies of Yorkshire.

I walked back to Shipley, and there spent some time sauntering to and fro in the throng, which had greatly increased during the afternoon.

There was no increase of amus.e.m.e.nt, however, with increase of numbers; and the chief diversion seemed to consist in watching the swings and roundabouts, and eating gingerbread. Now and then little troops of damsels elbowed their way through, bedizened in such finery as would have thrown a negro into ecstacies. "That caps me!" cried a young man, as one of the parties went past, outvying all the rest in staring colours.

"There's a vast of 'em coom t' feast, isn't there?" replied his companion; "and there 'll be more, afore noight."

"Look at Bobby," said an aunt of her little nephew, who had been disappointed of a cake; "Look at Bobby! He's fit to cry."

"What's ta do?" shouted a countryman, as he was pushed rudely aside; "runnin' agean t' foaks! What d'ye come poakin yer noase thro' here for?"

"Ah'm puzzeld wi' t' craad" (crowd), answered the offender.

After hearing many more fragments of West Riding dialect, I forced my way to the railway-station, and went to Bradford. Few towns show more striking evidences of change than this; and the bits of old Bradford, little one-story tenements with stone roofs, left standing among tall and handsome warehouses, strengthen the contrast. Bradford and Leeds, only nine miles apart, have been looked upon as rivals; and it was said that no sooner did one town erect a new building than the other built one larger or handsomer; and now Bradford boasts its St. George's Hall, and Leeds its Town Hall, crowned by a lofty tower. But what avails a tower, even two hundred and forty feet high, when a letter was once received, addressed, "_Leeds, near Bradford!_"

Your Yorkshireman of the West Riding is, so Mrs. Gaskell says, "a sleuth-hound" after money. As there is nothing like testimony, let me end this chapter with a brace of anecdotes, and you, reader, may draw your own inference.

Not far from Bradford, an old couple lived on their farm. The good man had been ill for some time, when the pract.i.tioner who attended him advised that a physician should be summoned from Bradford for a consultation. The doctor came, looked into the case, gave his opinion; and descending from the sick-room to the kitchen, was there accosted by the old woman, with,

"Well, doctor, what's your charge?"

"My fee is a guinea."

"A guinea,--doctor! a guinea! And if ye come again will it be another guinea?"

"Yes; but I shall hardly have to come again. I have given my opinion, and leave the patient in very good hands."

"A guinea, doctor! Hech!"

The old woman rose, went upstairs to her husband's bedside, and the doctor, who waited below, heard her say, "He charges a guinea. And if he comes again, it'll be another guinea. Now what do ye say?--If I were ye, I'd say no, like a Britoner; and I'd die first!"

Though very brief, the other ill.u.s.tration is not less demonstrative. A friend of mine, whose brother had just been married, happening to mention the incident to a friend of his, during a visit to the town, was immediately met by the question:--

"Money?"

"No."

"Fool!" was Bradford's reply.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Bradford's Fame--Visit to Warehouses--A Smoky Prospect--Ways and Means of Trade--What John Bull likes--What Brother Jonathan likes--Vulcan's Head-quarters--Cleckheaton--Heckmondwike--Busy Traffic--Mirfield--Robin Hood's Grave--Batley the Shoddyopolis --All the World's Tatters--Aspects of Batley--A Boy capt--The Devil's Den--Grinding Rags--Mixing and Oiling--Shoddy and Shoddy--Tricks with Rags--The Scribbling Machine--Short Flocks, Long Threads--Spinners and Weavers--Dyeing, Dressing, and Pressing--A Moral in Shoddy--A Surprise of Real Cloth--Iron, Lead, and Coal--To Wakefield--A Disappointment--The Old Chapel --The Battle-field--To Barnsley--Bairnsla Dialect--Sheffield.

"What is Bradford famous for?" was the question put at a school-examination somewhere within the West Riding.

"For its shoddy," answered one of the boys. An answer that greatly scandalized certain of the parents who had come from Bradford; and not without reason, for although shoddy is manufactured within sight of the smoke of the town, Bradford is really the great mart for stuffs and worsted goods, as Leeds is for broadcloth.

I had seen how stuffs were made, and wished now to see in what manner they were sent into the market. A clerk who came to the inn during the evening for a gla.s.s of ale and gossip, invited me to visit the warehouse in which he was employed, on the following morning. I went, and as he had not repented of his invitation, I saw all he had to show, and then, at his suggestion, went to the 'crack' warehouse of Bradford, where business is carried on with elegant and somewhat luxurious appliances. I handed my card to a gentleman in the office, and was not surprised to hear for answer that strangers could not be admitted for obvious reasons, and was turning away, when he said, musingly, that my name seemed familiar to him, and after a little reflection, he added: "Yes, yes--now I have it. It was on the t.i.tle-page of _A Londoner's Walk to the Land's End_. How that book made me long for a trip to Cornwall! And you are the Londoner! Well, of course you shall see the warehouse."

So I was introduced into the lift, and away we were hoisted up to the fifth or sixth story, when I was first led to the gazebo on the roof, that I might enjoy the prospect of the town and neighbourhood. What a prospect! a great ma.s.s of houses, and rounded heights beyond, dimly seen through a rolling canopy of smoke. The sky of London is brilliant in comparison. May it never be my doom to live in Bradford, or Leeds, or Sheffield, or Manchester!

We soon exchanged the dismal outlook for the topmost floor, where I saw heaps of 'tabs,' stacks of boards, boxes, and paper for packing. The tabs, which are the narrow strips that hang out from the ends of the pieces while on show, are kept for a time as references. The number and variety of the boards, on which the pieces are wound, are surprising: some are thick, to add bulk and weight to the piece of stuff in which it is to be enveloped; some thin, to save cost in transport; some broad, some narrow, so that every market may have its whims and wants gratified. The Germans who pay heavily for carriage, prefer thin boards: Brother Jonathan as well as John Bull, likes the sight of a good pennyworth, and gets a thick board. The preparation of these boards alone must be no insignificant branch of trade in Bradford; and remembering how many warehouses in other towns use up stacks of boards every month, we see a large consumption of Norway timber at once accounted for.

I saw the press cutting the slips of white paper in which the pieces are tied, and tickets and fancy bands and labels intended to tickle the eyes of customers, without end. A peculiar kind of embossed paper, somewhat resembling a rough towel, is provided to wrap up the American purchases; and Brother Jonathan requires that his pieces should be folded in a peculiar way, so that he may show the quality without loss of time when selling to his own impatient countrymen. Nimble machines measure the pieces at the rate of a thousand yards an hour, and others wind the lengths promptly on the boards; and, judging from appearances, clerks, salesmen, and porters work as if they too were actuated by the steam.

And then, while descending from floor to floor, to see the prodigious piles of pieces on racks and shelves, or awaiting their turn in the hydraulic press which packs them solid as a bastion, was a wonder. There were moreen, bombazine, alpaca, camlet, orleans, berege, Australian cord, cable cord, and many kinds as new to me as they would have been to a fakir. One heavy black stuff was pointed out as manufactured purposely for the vestments of Romish priests. And running through each room I saw a small lift, in which account books, orders, patterns, and such like, are pa.s.sed up and down, and now and then a signal to a clerk to be cautious of pushing sales. And, lastly, on the ground-floor I saw the handsome dining-room, wherein many a customer had enjoyed the hospitality of the firm, and drunk the generous sherry that inspired him to buy up to a thousand when he purposed only five hundred.

This brief sketch includes the two warehouses; one, however--the elegant one--confines itself to the home trade. I made due acknowledgments for the favour shown to me, and hastening to the railway-station, took the train for Mirfield. The line pa.s.ses the great Lowmoor iron-works, where furnaces, little mountains of ore, coal, limestone, and iron, and cranes and trucks, and overwhelming smoke, and a general blackness, suggest ideas of Vulcan and his tremendous smithy. And besides there is a stir, and a going to and fro, that betoken urgent work; and you will believe a pa.s.senger's remark, that "Lowmoor could of itself keep a railway going."

We pa.s.s Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike, places that have something sylvan in the sound of their names; but although the country if left to itself would be pretty enough, it is sadly disfigured by smoke and the remorseless inroads of trade. Yet who can travel here in the West Riding and not be struck by the busy traffic, the sight of chimneys, quarries, ca.n.a.ls, and tramways, and trains heavy laden, coming and going continually! And connected with this traffic there is one particular especially worthy of imitation in other counties: it is, that nearly every train throughout the day has third-cla.s.s carriages.

Mirfield is in the pleasant valley of the Calder. While waiting for a train to Batley, I walked along the bank of the stream thinking of Robin Hood, who lies buried at Kirklees, a few miles up the valley, where a treacherous hand let out his life:

"Lay me a green sod under my head, And another at my feet; And lay my bent bow by my side, Which was my music sweet; And make my grave of gravel and green, Which is most right and meet.

"Let me have length and breadth enough, With a green sod under my head; That they may say when I am dead, Here lies bold Robin Hood."

The object of my visit to Batley was to see the making of shoddy. To leave Yorkshire ignorant of one of our latest national inst.i.tutions would be a reproach. We live in an age of shoddy, in more senses than one. You may begin with the hovel, and trace shoddy all through society, even up to the House of Peers. I had not long to wait: there was a bird's-eye view of Dewsbury in pa.s.sing, and a few minutes brought me to Batley, the head-quarters of shoddy. On alighting at the station, the sight of great pockets or bales piled up in stacks or laden on trucks, every bale branded _Anvers_, and casks of oil from _Sevila_, gave me at once a proof that I had come to the right place; for here were rags shipped at Antwerp from all parts of northern Europe. Think of that.

Hither were brought tatters from pediculous Poland, from the gipsies of Hungary, from the beggars and scarecrows of Germany, from the frowsy peasants of Muscovy; to say nothing of snips and shreds from monks'

gowns and lawyers' robes, from postilions' jackets and soldiers'

uniforms, from maidens' bodices and n.o.blemen's cloaks. A vast medley, truly! and all to be manufactured into broadcloth in Yorkshire. No wonder that the _Univers_ declares England is to perish by her commerce.

The walk to the town gives you such a view as can only be seen in a manufacturing district: hills, fields, meadows, and rough slopes, all bestrewn with cottages, factories, warehouses, sheds, clouded here and there by smoke; roads and paths wandering apparently anywhere; here and there a quarry, and piles of squared stone; heaps of refuse; wheat-fields among the houses; potato-plots in little levels, and everything giving you the impression of waiting to be finished. Add to all this, troops of men and women, boys and girls--the girls with a kerchief pinned over the head, the corner hanging behind--going home to dinner, and a mighty noise of clogs, and trucks laden with rags and barrels of oil, and you will have an idea of Batley, as I saw it on my arrival.

Having found the factory of which I was in search, I had to wait a few minutes for the appearance of the princ.i.p.al. A boy, who was amusing himself in the office, remarked, when he heard that I had never yet seen shoddy made: "Well, it'll cap ye when ye get among the machinery; that's all!" He himself had been capt once in his life: it was in the previous summer, when his uncle took him to Blackpool, and he first beheld the sea. "That capt me, that did," he said, with the gravity of a philosopher.

Seeing that the princ.i.p.al hesitated, even after he had read my letter, I began to imagine that shoddy-making involved important secrets. "Come to see what you can pick up, eh?" he said. However, when he heard that I was in no way connected with manufactures, and had come, not as a spy, but simply out of honest curiosity, to see how old rags were ground into new cloth, he smiled, and led me forthwith into the devil's den. There I saw a cylinder revolving with a velocity too rapid for the eye to follow, whizzing and roaring, as if in agony, and throwing off a cloud of light woolly fibres, that floated in the air, and a stream of flocks that fell in a heap at the end of the room. It took three minutes to stop the monster; and when the motion ceased, I saw the cylinder was full of blunt steel teeth, which, seizing whatever was presented to them in the shape of rags, tore it thoroughly to pieces; in fact, ground it up into flocks of short, frizzly-looking fibre, resembling negro-hair, yet soft and free from knots. The cylinder is fed by a travelling web, which brings a layer of rags continually up to the teeth. On this occasion, the quality of the grist, as one might call it, was respectable--nothing but fathoms of list which had never been defiled.

So rapidly did the greedy devil devour it, that the two attendant imps were kept fully employed in feeding; and fast as the pack of rags diminished, the heap of flocks increased. And so, amid noise and dust, the work goes on day after day; and the man who superintends, aided by his two boys, earns four pounds a week, grinding the rags as they come, for thirty shillings a pack.