The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-04-28
Biting or Nails.
BY OLIVE THoRNR.

Don't you think 1t must be curious
pair of jaws that can bite off a chunk of
cold iron as easy as you can bite stick
Of candy?
You can hardly believe it. Wait till
| tell you.
One of the most interesting places !
ever visited was a room filled with these
monsters with the sharp steel jaws,
called nail machines.
I'm the first place, the noise made by
several of these machines in one room
is something absolutely fearful. | want
ted to stuff my ears with cotton but |
thought that would not be very civil to
my guide, and after little | got used
to it, and soon found myself so much
interested that / really forgot the
noise.
Some machines nip off the tacks so
fast that stream of finished tacks runs
down a tin tube into a reserYoir-th0u-
sands in a minute.
Listen to the ticking of the clock,
and reflect that every time it ticks at
least twenty taclls are snapped off,
But must tell you how they do it.
First the iron bar, as it comes from
the iron works, is put between immense
rollers, which flatten it out as nicely as
cook can roll out pie.crust with roll
ing-pin. The bar of iron is thus made
into a sheet just thick enough for the
nails they want To make. 1t goes next
to the Sitting machine, which makes no
more fuss about Sitting it into the pro-
per widths for nails than our scissors
make about cutting paper.
1t is cut little longer than the nail
is to be, because the heads are 70 be
made.
When the strips of iron are all ready.
a man takes one, slips the edge into the
steel jaws ! told you of.
These Jaws are worked by steam
power, and instantly they bite off nail,
while a furious little hammer springs
out suddenly, and with one blow on the
end of the bit of iron hattens it, and
thus makes head.
If you want to know what blow that
must be, take piece Of iron and try 10
pound head on it yourself.
The instant the head is made the jaws
open, and the nail drops out finished.
OF course it's done much quicker than
| have been telling you, for a machine
can make brads (which | needn't tell
the boys are small nails without
heads at the rate of three thousand a
minute.
1t is said that figures won't lie. and
| hope they won't, but must admit it
is hard to believe that story.
After the tacks come out of the ma
chine they are " blued," as it is called.
1t is done by heating them in an oven
or an iron plate.
Then they 90 to the packing,room,
where one girl can weigh and put into
papers two thousand papers of tacks in
a day.
That's another tough story; but my
guide assured me it was true.
How many kinds of nails can you
name? You will probably be surprised
to hear that two hundred kinds of nails
are made in one factory-beginning
with spikes which weigh nearly half n
pound each, and ending with the tiniest
kinds Of tacks not quarter of an inch
long.
Men didn't always have machines to
make nails for them; and, OF course
they had to make them by hand. That
was no easy matter; and, in fact, they
couldn't make them of cold iron, but
had to heat every one.
In some parts of England they are
very slow to get machinery and the ig
norant people, thinking their trade is to
be spoiled, will break up and destroy
any machinery that is brought there.
So they work at Matchmaking, as their
grandiathers did.
Every man has little fOrge-such as
you have seen in blacksmith's shop,
| if you live in village-and a small an
VIII Every child is put to work to
make nails at eight or nine years of
age; because they earn so little that
! their bread Of course, those children
have no time to learn to read, and many
grown men and woman can neither
read nor write.
This is the way they make the nails {:
They buy iron rods ust the right size
for the nails they make; for one family
always make the same size Of nail. They
take one of these rods. heat it red hot
at the forge, lay it on the anvil, and cut
off the length of nail then, laying
away ike rest of the rod, they take the
piece they have cut off, pound it out to
a point at one end, and pound on head
at the other. a very slow operation,
you see, when you think of how the
machines snap off cold iron. A whole
family can scarce ever earn more
than five dollars a week at the work,
and part of that has to 60 for the coal
they use.
One of the nail factories in our coun.
try, that l have read about, uses one
hundred and fifty tons of iron in q
week; all of which is bitten up into
nails.-Independent.
A Clergyman Refunds Small Marriag,
Enn