to great perfection. With one fire he roasts, boils with water and
steam, and bakes. Economy and completeness were never more usefully
combined; and a public establishment in Sheffield is fitted with one
which has cooked a dinner complete for above three hundred persons. It
cost nearly £300, but such grates for small families may be had at ten
guineas.

"The mercantile part of the Sheffield trade is performed chiefly by
travellers, but the principal shops in London deal directly with the
manufacturers here. To humour public prejudice in regard to "_Town
make_," as it is called, and to serve as an advertisement for various
retailers in London and other large towns, their connexions in Sheffield
keep steel brands, with which their names are placed on the articles,
and they thereby pass with the public as the real manufacturers. 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 £2, and some £5 or £6, 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.