Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1869-12-24
WIS TIE.

In some respects we Americans are the
most wasteful people on the face of the
earth. Food enough is ruined by vile cook
cry or thrown away unconsumed to support
good sized colony of Fronchmen. In the
article of dress there is frightful extrava-
gance, and no fashionable person thinks of
continuing to wear piece of clothing until
it is worn out An immense amount Of
excellent paper and good ink is wasted in
the production of books, some of which no
one ought to read, and many of which it is
impossible TO read without painful effort.
But in the process of manufacture moth
ing is wasted. No manufacturing concern
can compete with others engaged in the
production of similar goods, except upon
the condition of careful economy in the use
of raw material, and an equally careful
saving Of all the ends pertaining TO the
work in hand.
4 short time ago the manufacturers of
lighting gas were puzzled how to dispose of
the villainous coal tar left in the retorts. a
more useless, nauscus substance was hardly
known to exist. Chemistry came to the
rescue, and to-day not less than thirtysix
marketable articles arc produced from this
black, vile, sticky slime-solvents, oils,
salts, colors, flavors. You eat n bit of de-
licious confectionery, happily unconscious
that the exquisite taste which you enjoy so
keenly, comes from coal tar-you buy at
the druggists a tiny phia! Of what is label
ed soto of Roses" little dreaming that the
delicious perfume is waited, not from "the
fields of Araby," but from the nasty gas
retort.
A few years since ii was thought to be the
perfection of economy to saw sticks of ma
| hognny and rosewood into thin veneerings;
to-day the loss incurred by the process is
| ruinous, because half of the timber is lost
in sawdust. By using machine that shaves
Off the slice, none of the material is wasted
and the saving on a single log of rosewood
is said TO amount to not less, in some cases.
than 5000.
No person engaged in making jewelry
can thrive, unless he exercises the greatest
care in protecting the precious metal that
he handles from the slightest waste. The
water in which the workmen wash must be
| preserved, and the sediment made to yield
! back the minute atoms of gold that are de-
| posted; they must not be allowed to wear
| pomatum or adorn their flowing locks with
bears grease, because of trick which they
have Of running their aurferous fingers
through their hair; and the windows of the
establishment must be kept closed, as FAR
as possible, to save the precious dust float
ing in the air from blowing away. a largo
manufacturer Of Attleboro jewelry once
told that he probably lost more gold by the
wind than he put upon his stock. In Wick
ford, Il. l., the floor of a jewelry establish
ment was taken and burned in furnace
for the purpose of collecting the dust that
had settled in the cracks.
It is quite suggestive to glance at the bales
| Of fbrous conglomerato used in shoddy
mills, and study the varied contents us
they lie spread out for publication in the
| fields. 1t seems impossible that such he
terogeneous mass Of sheds, patches, strings,
rags and wool dust, can ever be made to re-
appear in the form of anything like cloth.
Strange grasses sometimes get mixed with
this compound, and if ii so happens that the
are not eXterminated, funny results are
likely to ensue. After exposure to the rain
and the sunshine, the manufactured goods
have been known actually TO sprout into
life; an awkward thing it would be for ones
oVercoat ON damp day to creep out be-
tween the shoulders into verdant sward!
And what marvellous variety of waste
matter enters into the composition of paper.
Near Bergen, in Europe, there is church
Of the Corinthian order, and largo enough
to accommodate thousand persons, con-
structed of papier mache.
If the pulp of which that ediiice is built
should become vocal, what strange things
it might tell? If all the good, all the bad,
all the serious and all the absurd words
that were once inscribed on the fibre of that
church should appear again, what sermons
would be preached there? If / worshiped
in that paper structure, should imagine
all the while that heard the rustlng of old
letters, written byhands that are now spec
trial, and the rafting of silken banners that
once floated proudly on the breeze, and the
low signing of mothers over the frayed gar
ments that used to clothe the little one who
wears no mortal vostment now / should
fancy that l saw floating in the air ancient
tones, modern journals, weary biographies
loud toned orations, high strung poems,
cloudy PHILOSOPHERS, and rejected article.
all bringing up at last in the iron mill and
ground down together into common pulp.
A somewhat weird affair, that paper church
near Bergen.