The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1869-12-03

AkS ooAAAS AScRSSso W. <AluCIlCS3uS 6IC buC
most wasteful people on the face of the
earth. Food enough is ruined by vile
cookery or thrown away unconsumed, to
support o good-sized colony of French
men. In the article of dress there is
frightful extravsgance, and no fashionable
person thinks Of continuing to wear a
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 Q painful effort
But, in the processes Of manufacture, moth
ing 10 wasted. No manufacturing con-
Germ 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 odds and ends
pertaining to the work in hand.
A short time ago the manufacturers of
lighting gas were puzzled to know how to
dispose of the villainous coal tar left in the
retorts. It defiled the air and corrupted
the waters. A more useless, nauseous
substance was hardly known to exist.
Chemistry came to the rescue, and to-day
not less than thirty-six marketable articles
are produced from this black. vile, sticky
slime solvents, oils, salts, colors, favors.
You eat bit Of delicious confectionery,
happily unconscious that the exquisite
taste which you enjoy SO keenly comes
from coal -tar-you buy at the druggists a
tiny phial of what is labeled lotto of
Rose" little dreaming that the delicate
perfume is waited, not from "the fields of
Araby," but the nasty gas-retort.
A few years since it was thought to be
the perfection of economy to saw sticks
of mahogany and rosewood into thin
veneerings; to-day, the loss incurred by
this process Is ruinOus, because half of the
timber is lost in saw-dust By using
machine that ahaces of the slice, none of
the material is wasted, and the saving on
single log of rosewood Is said to amount
to not less in some cases than six hundred
dollars.
No person engaged in making jewelry
can thrive, unless he exercises the great
est 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 deposited; they must not be
allowed to wear pomatum or adorn their
flowing locks with bears grease, because
of trick they have of running their
suriferous fingers through their hair; and
the windows of the establishment must
be kept closed, as far as possible, to save
the precious dust floating in the air from
blowing away. A large manufacturer of
AttlebOrO jewelry once told the writer
that he probably lost more gold by the
wind than he put upon his stock. In
WEXFORD, r. l., the floor of a jewelry es-
toh oh foH and h,1r cd ~,
furnace for the sake Of collecting the
dust that had settled in the cracks.
1t is quite suggestive to glance at the
shoddy-mills, and study the varied con-
in the fields. 1t seems impossible that
such . heterogeneous mass of shreds,
patches, strings, rags, and wool-dust, can
ever be made to reappear in the form Of
anything like cloth. Strange grasses some
times get mixed with this compound, and
il it so happens that the seeds are not eX
terminated, funny results are likely to en-
sue. 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 pa
peri Near Bergen, in Europe, there is
church of the Corinthian order, and large
enough to accommodate a thousand per-
sons, constructed of papier-mache. If the
pulp Of which that edifice is built should
become vocal, what strange things it might
tell! II all the good and 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 worshipped in
that paper structure, 1 should imagine all
the while that 1 heard the rustling Of old
letters, written by hands that are now
spectral, and the rattling of silken ban
ners that once foated proudly on the
breeze, and the low signing Of mothers
over the frsyed garments that used to
clothe the little one who wears no mortal
vestment now. should fancy that saw
floating in the air ancient tones, modern
journals, weary biographies, loud-toned
orations, high-strung poems, cloudy phi
losophies, and rejected articles, all bring
ing up at last in the iron mill and ground
down together into q common pulp.
A somewhat weird affair, that paper
church near Bergen.-AppIetons' Journal.