The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1867-04-25
MY BOSOM FRIEND;
OR YANKEE FAIRIES AT WORK.

OR YANKEE FAIRIES AT WORK.
l HAD been reading to my little one
the legends of the Northern lands, il
which to tell the truth, / had taken as
| deep an interest as the open mouth ed
young folks themselves.
/ When the children had gone to bed,
lamented that the belief in FAIRIES had
| died out.
''Alas! said 1, that they have van
ishedv
"Weel, no ken that replied my
Scottish friend M'Haggis; "1'm thinkin'
there are as mony giants and fairies in
| the world as ever there war! Gang yer
gate to Waltham, as ye were talkin' O,
and if ye dinna see a lot O fairies there,
and if it is na a giant that carries ye
there, ye ken say I'm wrang"
"a giant carry mel?
"Aye, man. said the Scot; what
auld giants that We e'er read O can be
mated wi an engnes'
And SO one day placed myself behind
the great giant of the nineteenth century
Ia locomotive engine-and went to the
pretty town Of Waltham, Mass-a town
| famous mot for day, but for all time,
for here a pair of great steam giants
turn the wheels that again turn the wheels
that mark the time for continent. 1t
! takes four acre lot to hold these giants
each with q hundred iron arms and a
thousand steel fingers; and this four
acre lot is built within and without and
overhead with brick and iron and glass,
and is called ssThe American Watch Fac
tory Of w altham;" and it was thereabout
that M Haggis said l should find the
fairies.
But the fairies Of our day-that is, the
Waltham fairies-are not like those we
read Of. They don't play elin pranks,
for their every step is measured by the
sun and they have nothing to do with
wings, but to mark the steady motion Of
those of old Father Time himself
But to drop metaphor and come down
to the practical, as well as the poetical
part of this fairy hive of industry and
order, let US walk through some of the
long galleries of this fairy palace, and
for guide and mentor, we will take one
Of the managers.
"But first said we to our guide, will
you please inform us how this great es-
tablishment originated z
He informed me that the manufacture
ly American undertaking. For several
generations vast number of watches
have been made in England, Switzerland,
and France; but the component pieces
have been made and finished by hand in
different factories, and even in different
provinces, with no direct relation to each
other. Here in Waltham, on the con-
trary. watch is created in all its wond-
erful harmony and exquisite beauty from
the original and crude materials-the
brass, the steel, the enamel, the gold, the
unwrought jewels-under one roof and
one supervision, by mechanism that
never tires and never varies.
The task of competing with Europe
in the manufacture of watches seemed
at first sight to be hopeless Europe had
the market, the reputation, two centuries
of experience, and the cheapest of hu-
man labor. To make matters worse,
there was free trade in watches. A pet
ty tariff of only seven and q half per
cent was all the protection
or real-that existed fifteen years ago to
foster native enterprise and genius. In
genious men conceived the idea of man
ufacturing every part of the watch, and
of performing every process of manipu-
lation, by q succession Of machines, each
of which should execute one function
only, and then pass its work over to an
other piece of mechanism. The only
duty left to man in this daring concep-
ton was to superintend the work of the
iron slaves whom he had created, to car
ry their products from one to another,
and put the watch together after all its
parts had been completed The scheme
was an ideal one, but the plan was Sec
onded by capital, and, in 1858, the ex-
pertinent was tried. AT that time, al
though the chief parts of . watch were
made by machines, there were still 3
large number Of the pieces turned out
by hand, and various important process
ses intrusted to manual skill which are
now done wholly by mechanism. The
company of machines was quickly in
creased to regiment, the regiment to 3
brigade, and now tue brigade has become
an army.
asked how many watches we're i'm
ported annually.
Formerly about four million dollars
worth yearly the manager said, and il
took about four millions more to make
them go. At the present time the Eng
lish watch trade has nearly ceased. and
the Swiss has greatly fallen or