The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1872-03-01

starve yet little while.
Yours, GAGE FL. p.
From the Philadelphia Transcript
PENS AND PEN MAKERS
The death of the Birmingham mil
lionaire who made his stupendous
fortune by making pens of steel, sets
writers to thinking about that useful
and often abused little implement, the
source of sorrow to billions of school
boys, and cordially loathed by more
than half of those who are compelled
to use it, the pen.
In old times (any of the times be-
fore the sixth century, the article
most used in writing Hebrew, Chal-
dee, Greek, Arabic and latin, was a
reed split at the point in the manner
of the quill pen. This was the earli-
est known implement for writing
with fluid on parchment, papyrus, or
any OF their equivalents, and it was
the isvorite for many hundreds of
years. The Orientals stlll employ it
to some extent. A personal expert
ence has demonstrated that the reed
pen made of louisiana cane, though
a passable make shift for war time, is
not 90 well adapted to the living
English language as it seems to have
been to the defunct classic tongues.
The ancients, likewise, had their
stylus of steel and hardened brass,
used on tablets of wax or something
similar In eastern Asia the pre-
dominant writing-tool is brush of
fine, straight hair, or fur at the end
of q reed, like the brush OF painter
in water colors. With absorbent pa
per and the peculiar ink OF the East,
much fine chirograpby has been pro-
duced with the China brush-pen,
which the native scribe prefers to any
of our Western substitutes, mainly
because it has been in use some
thousands of years. A brief expert
ence will demonstrate TO the curious
American that the hair pen in his
fingers will only write slow coarse
hand, and ia only convene Mt to men
OF leisure where paper is cheap.
About A. d. 636, scribes began to
torture the harmless goose by pluck
ing out her choicest pinions, the dis
covery having been made that the
barrel Of a quill could be carved and
into o better because more flexible
pen. For eleven hundred and sixty
years all of that unlucky species of
tuneless birds continued to be the
victims of literary ambition, contrib
uting by their pain to the pleasure
of historians, poets, philosophers and
accountants. The quills of the duck
and crow were used for delicate man.
uscript. To avoid the annoyance of
making and mending pens it wss at
first attempted to arm the ribs of tue
quill pen with points of metal, iridium
and diamond. The same experiment
was tried with pens Of horn and tor
toise shell, by inserting diamonds in
the points. From these came pens of
gold with ruby points, which were
clsimed by the inventor to be as firm
as the swan quill and as free as the
crow quill.
An inventor named Wise began
about 1920 to initiate the quill pen
in steel, but the "scratchy'' articles,
though sold at two or three shillings
apiece, were but poor substitutes for
the quill. Joseph Gillot, stationer
and dealer in these perpetual pens''
of wire, invented the triple slit for
the steel pen aud introduced such
improvements in metal and machi-
merry that his pens became celebrated
throughout Europe and America.
He SO lessened the cost that the
price of one poor pen in 1921 would
buy in 1870 about nine hundred per-
feet pens.
His manufsctory at Birmingham
employed four hundred women and
one hundred men. A large portion
of the work is done by hand, but the
workmen acquire such dexterity that
man will slit in one day many
thousand of pens. The steel is made
at Sheffield, from the best Swedish
iron, and is received at the manufaC-
tory in sheets eight feet long and
three feet wide. These were rolled
thin and split into strips in width
equal to about twice the length OF pen
to be made. These strips are passed
through a machine which cuts out
the blank fist shape with extreme
1apidity. These blanks 60 through
many operations, such as Sitting the
sides, piercing, tempering, marking,
hardening in Oil, retemperlng, polish
ing in a revolving cylinder with sand
and emery, grinding the points, max
inc the central slit, which is the most
important operation of al, and finally
coloring aud vanishing. The sew
eral operations bring out the full
benefit of divided labor, each opera
tive performing but one. Such skill
is attained that glrl will cut IA, 900
blanks in one day, and man will
cut central slits in $4,000 per day.
The days work being done in ten
hours, he handles $500 pens each
hour, or forty-sevenpens each minute
Thus, with the number of hands men,
toned. the mandatory of Mr. Gil.
lott turned out the enormous quantity
of I5O,OO0,000 pens per annum, or
416, 900 per day.
Various improvements have been
attempted by other makers. Mr..
Perry cut holes IN the shoulders of
the pen in order to give it greater
elasticity without materially lessening
the necessary thickness of the plate.
He also adapted asliding band, which
being moved up or down increased or
diminished at will the elasticity Of
the points. Some of his pens were
likewise fitted with bands of gum
elastic, by means OF which he pro-
duced q pen obedient to the most
delicate pressure. All of his pens
were carefully made and elaborately
advertised in prose and verse, a puff
1--WE believe by Hood) being excll;
sively copied for its literary merit,
In this, however, the poet only fol-
lowed the example OF Byron, who
was undoubtedly paid for singing
about the incompatible oil'' Of
Mscassar.
Gowland's slip pen, 'lunar" pen,
/ voan, 81