Bozeman avant courier. [volume] (Bozeman, Mont.) 1872-1882, 1873-04-18
- "a NJ = ~
Lost Occupations.


Half century ago bellows making was a
thriving trade. Every house had its pair OF
bellows. and in every well furnished mansion
there was pair hung by the side of every
fireplace. Ipswich, in Massachusetts,, ac-
CURED notoriety all over New England tor
the elegant and substantial articles of the
kind it produced. But as stoves and CRATES
took the place Of open fire-places. and as
coal was substituted for wood, the demand
for bellows diminished, until the business as
separate trade auitedied out. s-AA@1
The same IS true Of aint-cutting. Flints
were once necessary not only for. firearms
but for tinder-boxes, and tinder-hox was as
necessary Tor every house as Il gridiron or a
skillet. Every one who looks back to child
hood of forty odd years ago must remember
the cold winter mornings when the persist
ent crack, crack OF the tiint against the steel
sent up from theikitchen an odor of igniting
finder ard sulphur which petyaded the
house. Lhaye no more idea what became of
the flint producers than OF the old man OF
sorrowful memo1ies who, three times week
called at our door with birthstone mat. hes
for sale at cent the half-dozen bunckes.
Both have as completely vanished from Eng
land and New. England as have the red
Indians and the Drlids.
Then, again, are gone the pin makers, who,
though they have been in their graves this
| quarter of century, still figure in lectures
and essays~to illustrate the advantages OF
divisional labor. Instead-ofa pin taking
dozen men or more to cut, grind, roint,
head, polish, and what not, as it used to do,
pins are now made by neat little machines
at the rate of three hundred minute, Of
which machines a single Child attends to
half a dozen. ~ Ssh 81 f, ia .,.
Nail making at the forge is another lost
industry. Time was, and that in this nine
teenth century, When every nail was made
on the anvil Now, from one hundred to
one thousand nails per minute are made BY
machines. The mailer who works at tile
forge has but a bad chance in competing with
such antagonists and he would have no
chance at all We're it not that his nails are
tenfoid tougher than the former. As it is,
| the Door men follow an all but hopeless voca-
| tiofl, ana are condemned to live In continual
hand-grips with poverty sa5ss
LII the days of Presidents Madison and
Monroe, and even later, straw-bonnet max
Ing was practiced in every middle-class house
where there were growing families, and
straW-plaiting formed the staple of domestic
leisure work. At my grandfather's, around
the huge kitchen fireplace, Cesar, born a
slave, who sat On an oak bench directly
under the gaping chimney, and we boys,
who crowded upon the settle, used to pass
Winters evenings splitting straws. while the
lassies were plaitings them. Then, bonnets
were bonnets, covering the head with mar
/ gin Of atfoot or two to spare. and presenting
q sort Of conical. shelEshaped recess, in
which dimpling smiles and witching curls
nestled IN comfort. The work has vanished.
and will lever reappear. unless the whlrligig
Of fashion should glide again into the for
saken ack.-Appteton's Journal. sss
Rhode Islanders are multitudinously sign
n Natl f.,. 49,