St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1859-03-17
stirnte ana Art.
MATCHMAKING.

The origin of matchmaking dates
back about 200 years. The discov-
cry at that time of the balance spring
by DR.. Hooke in England led to the
perfection and introduction of the
watch into common use, as did the
discovery of the isochronism of the
pendulum at about the same period
by Galileo and Huygens to the intro
duction of the pendulum clock. Seve-
ra years later, near the close of the
18th century, an Englishman, travel
ing in Switzerland CHANGED to require
his horse to lie shod when in the cut
skirts of Locle. While the smith was
engaged with the horse, the gentleman
took out his watch, which required
some slight repair. An ingenious APP
prentice boy, named Jean David Rich
ard, who had never seen a watch be-
fore, took the watch, and after exam-
ming it while, offered to repair and
return it within three days. The gcn-
tleman asscntcd to this proposition,
and young Richard immediately com
menced work on the watch. lie took
it apart and made the necessary re-
pairs, mastered the principles of CON
structiOn, and made models and draw
ings Of every part, returning to the
gentleman his watch, according to
agreement, on the third day. From
this casual and humble beginning, the
manufacture of watches in Switzer-
land took. its rise; and during the past
Summer money has been collected
among the watch importers to detray
the expenses Of erecting monument
in Locle to Richard, whose ingenuity
made him his country's greatest bene-
factor.
After overcoming many difficulties.
Richard succeeded in making the nee
essary tools, AID produced complete
watch movement. This success soon
induced others to join him, and the
business became extended, until many
thousands of men, women and children
were engaged in it, embracing the i'll
habitants of a number Of large vii
lagos among the hills of the north of
Switzerland, of which Locle and La
Chaux des Ponds are the most cele-
bratcd after Geneva. And here is to
be found the great majority Of the
Matchmaking of the world. But there
is no establishment in Switzerland,
nor in any European country, like the
new watch Manuiactory at Waltham,
Mass, where every part OF the watch
is made from crude materials by
system Of machinery driven by steam
or other motive power, and where the
various parts of each movement are
all made to q uniform guage, and may
be transferred indiscriminately.
In Switzerland, four-fifths of the
work on each watch is executed by
the old handicrait process, while under
the system adopted by the American
Watch Company, under the superin-
tendence of b. L. Robbins, at Waltham,
not more than one-ffth Of the work,
including the setting up and regulat-
ing of the movements is performed
by handicraft.
The value and Importance of the in
vention and establishment in the
United States of Matchmaking by
machinery may be inferred by con-
trasting it with a statement taken
from an article that appeared in late
number of 1.-The journal Of Com
mcrce," in which the writer cndeav-
ors to give the impression that watch
making by machinery has long been
practiced III Switzerland, and that the
Waltham establishment is but copy
of the watch factories Of Geneva. The
writer says:
"Somc French watchmakers, it is
true, have obtained European celeb
rity. Yet few years ago, it was
stated by NJ. Arago, that an examine
ton into the watch trade of Paris
elected the fact that mot ten watches
were made in that city in the course
Of year the immense consumption
of France being furnished from Switz
erland, and the Swiss works being
only examined and rectiied by the
French manufacturers 1t is also a
fact well known in certain quarters
in England and Switzerland that com
paratively few of the watches called
English are manufactured in Great
Britain. Nearly all of the fiat cylin-
der watches are purchased by British
manufacturers in Geneva and Neut-
chatel. Their names are stamped up
on these articles, and the outside |
world buy them as the industrial pro-
duets of Albion. The sale of Swiss
watches has not by any means injured
the trade in real English watches.
Fine chronometers, and those large
watches which are simpler in their
construction than the Swiss (?) arti-
Gle are made in Liverpool and London"
The writer further states that watch
making "by machinery" has for
fifty years been practiced in Geneva"
and that the idea of claiming watch
making by machinery as an American
invention is absurd. But, after read
ing the above extract, in which it APP
pears that France and England, aided
by Switzerland, owe their watchmak-
ing reputation chiefly to systematic
false pretences, or gigantic scheme
of watch-stuffing, of which we poor
Yankees are made the wholesale vic
Tins, it will not be very difficult to
perceive the difference in simplicity
and value between the European and
American methods of manufacture.
II, as the writer says, Swiss watches
arc all made by machinery, and have
been for fifty years, it seems some
what sinUnla, that not pna in tw.pty