to a boy. If the men's dinners have to be heated, it is easy to purchase
ovens which will do all the work required by gas at a much cheaper rate
than by coal, if we consider the labor and attention necessary with any
coal fire. Not that gas is cheaper than coal; but say we have 100 dinners
to warm. This can be done in a gas-oven in about 20 minutes, at a cost for
gas of less than 1d.; in fact, for one-fourth the cost of labor only in
attending to a coal fire, without considering the cost of wood or coals.
Gas, in many instances, is an apparently expensive fuel; but when the
incidental saving in other matters is taken into consideration, I have
found it exceedingly profitable for all except large or continuous work,
and in many cases for this also. I only need instance wire card-making and
the brazing shops of wire cable makers to show that a large and free use
of gas is compatible with the strictest economy and profitable working.

Of all the tools in a workshop, nothing saves more time and worry than two
or three sizes of good blowpipes and an efficient blower. I have seen in
one day more work spoilt, and time lost, for want of these than would have
paid for the apparatus twice over; and in almost every shop emergencies
are constantly happening in which a good blowpipe will render most
efficient service. Small brazing work can often be done in less time than
would be consumed in going to the smith's hearth and back again,
independently of the policy of keeping a man in his own place, and to his
own work. The shrinking on of collars, forging, hardening, and tempering
of tools, melting lead or resin out of pipes which have been bent, and
endless other odd matters, are constantly turning up; and on these, in the
absence of a blowpipe, I have often seen men spend hours instead of
minutes. Things which need a blowpipe are usually most awkward to do
without one; and men will go fiddling about and tumbling over each other
without seeing really what they intend to do. They are content, as it all
counts in the day's work; that it comes off the profits is not their