I saw
in different workshops, in Sheffield, the steel brands of our famous
_town makers_, and the articles in wholesale quantities packing up to
meet the demand in London for "_real town made_." This is a standing
joke at the expense of cockney credulity among the Sheffield cutlers.
"Sheffield is noted for the manufacture of superior files; and many
anecdotes are told of the artifices which have been made use of to
aggrandize or to repudiate the celebrity of the marks of some well-known
makers.
"In Sheffield generally the workmen get from 20s. to 24s. per week. Dry
grinders get L2, and some L5 or L6, and these high wages are paid as an
equivalent for the shortness of life. Many women are employed as filers,
burnishers, polishers, finishers, &c. &c.; and they get from 6s. to 12s.
per week.
"Very _fine_ cutlery is manufactured by Mr. Crawshaw. I saw in his
warehouse all those elegant patterns of pen-knives which, in the best
shops of London, Bath, &c. excite so much admiration. His lobster
knives, with four or more blades, on slit springs, with pearl and
tortoiseshell handles, are the most perfect productions of British
manufacture. His pen-knives with rounded or beveled backs, to turn in
the quill and shave the point, are simple and effective improvements. He
showed me plain pocket-knives so highly finished, that the first cost is
38s., yet so deceptive is cutlery, that I might have preferred others
which I saw at only 7s.
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