The Portland daily press., 1865-09-29
Friday Morning, Sept. 20, 1866.
TIE WORK OF DrpFHRRNr oouN-
TRIES.

An English journal Of late date has the fol-
lowing: "Industry has many curious local at
tachments, and clings with feline fondness to
particular spots. Thus, watches are made
cfeaply in Switzerland, where the men ard
women of fifty villages together-are all busy
on gtoothed wheels, mainsprings, and jeweled
holes. Soap and cheap perfumes, nasty as well
as cheap, are best compounded in central Ger
many. The Tyrol and the Black Forest have
three resources for the long. winter evenings,
when the soil is frozen stiff and the snow is
heavy ON the pine boughs---clocks, straw hats
and toys. All over Middle Europe you see the
Black Forest clocks, made by peasants round
the cottage hearth, as plentiful as Mr.. Samuel
Sticks lacquered time pieces in Canada. Ba-
den competes with Italy in straw plating;
while for toys old Deutschland bears the bell
1t is curious thing that the toys which Eng
lish children love so dearly, and which they
break, maltreat, and demolish so vivaciously,
should all be foreign. Here and there, per-
haps, rocking horse, or a straight-legged spot
ted steed with his harness nailed to his body
may be the work of an English artizan, but
not of ten. Il ssi lasaI5 sin
The wooden beasts and birds in the zoologi-
cal collections, the puzzles, the bricks, The gau-
Oily dressed Turks and hussars, squeaking
lambs, and creaking cards come from Germa-
ny; so do marbles, Dutch dolls, and baby
houses. Paris gives the superb waxen doll, in
hersatin and spangles. America sends over
the guttta percha uglinesses and clockwork
mice Az ai.s tssis9 ssoas "a isl M
Quite two-thirds of the oyershoes that keep
our feet from the wet bear the French or Am
erican eagle boastfhlly embossed upon their
soles. On the other hand England sells India
rubber tubing waterproof cloth, and Rutta-
percha of hfty forms to continental nations
The French buy more of our brandy than we
do of theirs-an exchange of which we wish
them joy; while our silks continue the cheap
est, and theirs the richest and the most taste-J
FIJI. In all that relates to calico, they own our
merit; they prefer our broadcloths to their |
own, but declare, and justly, the superiority of |
their scarlet-dyed Woolens to OUTS. AS for our
boots, they are cut out by millions of pairs in
France, sent to England to be closed, returned I
for the operation of "clinching, and re-export-
ed as of pure Partisan make.
"The Americans have great aptitude for the /
manufacture of small, delicate, labor saving
machines 1t has always been an object with /
them to get through their work with as few |
hands as possible, and we owe to them all |
manner OF dainty devices for economizing |
manual power. London is full OF elegant lit |
tie complications of steel rods no bigger than
Q wine bottle, devised for stitching all suitable
materials, for puehing, drilling and cutting,
for metallurgy and agriculture. Our own
machinery is commonly of a grand and solid
be found at work all over the world pumping
water out of mines in the Andes, lashing the
waves Of far oil oceans into foam, crushing
quartz in Victoria, and dragging burdens IN
Brazil.
I'VE cannot, perhaps, quite beat Prague in
turning out stained glass and colored services
glowing with deep pure tints of enormous
rubes, emeralds, and topics; nor are our
tubes and alembics so Fit to go through fire as
the Bohemian. The old ware of China, the
old Japanese jars, the finest French and Ger
man porcelain, have fragile beauty beyond
our Imitation. But our potteries only need
the 'open sesame Of free trade to set their
good and cheap product-plates that can bear
heat, glass fairly cut into sharp facets, and
vases modelled on choice shapes from Greece
and Etrlria--on every middle class table
abroad. French housewives who store away
their preserves in jars coated with poisonous
white lead, and dare not heat the plates lest
they should fly into fragments, and whose
clumsy coffee cups are an inch thick, are not
slow to appreciate the merits of Mr.. Glad
stones treaty of commerce"