The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1874-05-15
A DrOII Workman.


OF most others arts too
That skaters are not born but lpdde.
A DroII Workman.
There he is "a great rough man with
a big club, beating, pounding and
punching something up III dark cor
ner. You'd think he was crazy, or at
least very angry, till you knew he was
only earning his living, and that was his
droll way of doing it. And the thing
he is pounding is a big lump of gray
clay.
This isn't the only odd thing you
would see in that funny fifth story
When the first man has pounded the
wet lump of clay till he is satisfied, an
other man takes it on a bench, breaks
off two chunks about as big as apples,
and kneads them up, one III each hand,
MS though he was going to make clay
biscuits. Suddenly he seems to change
his mind, lays them on the bench, and
rolls them out like breakfast rolls.
You've probably-long time ago
made mud pies and puddings yourself,
but you never expected to see grown
up man make mud rolls, and worse still,
to know that he makes over six hun
.dreG day
Let's see what he does with them
He seems to be satisfied with the rolls
shape, and lays them down by long
row of similar rolls.
They're not for breakfast, though
they are to be baked and this isn't
house for crazy people, as you may sus-
pect, but a clay-pipe factory. Every
one of these clay rolls will be, when
few more hands have worked at it, a
common clay pipe such as you buy for
a penny to blow bubbles with.
/ know you are anxious to see how a
breakfast roll can get to be pipe, so
we'll see what they do next. The next
man takes up roll, sticks into one end
of it steel rod something like knit
ting-needle, and then goes on to draw
part of the soft clay out over the steel
rod. This is for the stem to the pipe,
and when the rod is drawn out it leaves
a hole through which you blow.
When the stem is long enough, the
next thing to do is to make the bowl.
To do that the chunk of clay, with the
stem on, is put into a sort of press and
a stamp brought down on it. In mo-
ment it is opened, and the lump of clay
has become shapely pipe bowl. 1t
has, however, two kinds OF seams down
it, because, of course, there must be a
little too much clay, in order to be sure
and have enough, and the little too
much is squeezed into the shape of two
seams.
The next one who works on it is a
woman, and she sits at a bench from
morning till night cutting off the rough
edges OF the soft pipes. First she takes
n sharp knife and cuts off the rough
pieces on the bowl then she smoothes
the stem and cuts the end off square
last, she pulls out the rod that makes
the hole, and blows down the stem to
see if the opening goes clear through
into the bowl.
From here it goes into the oven, and
a curious oven it Is, where your doll and
your dishes are baked. This one is
crammed and stuffed with nothing but
pipes. hundreds and thousands of them,
from the floor to the roof. You'd think,
to see them. that all the men in the
world were going to spend their lives in
smoking, and all the boys and girls in
blowing bubbles. But the bin full is
nothing to the heaps and piles and sacks
in the warehouse. If one factory
makes so many, who can guess how
many are made by all the factories in
the world
Besides, you must remember that not
all pipes are made of clay. Far from
it. There's the meerschaum, which some
men of scanty brains make the serious
business of their lives to color properly.
/ wonder if they'd take so much pains
if they knew what makes them color
at all. It's just because they're greasy.
/ must tell you about it. The meer-
schaum itself is sort of chalky sub.
stance found in Spain and other coun-
tries on the Mediterranean sea. In the
countries where it is found it is cut into
the rough shape of pipe, and sent to
be carefully carved. Some of them
have figures cut on them, and are really
beautiful before they are used. They
are of delicate cream-color, and the
word neerschaum is German, and
means " sea-foam.
To prepare them to "color," they are
soaked some hours in grease, and 1t :
because the grease absorbs the smoke
that they color at all.
The bits cut off the original blocks arc
powdered, boiled and nodded into
blocks, and then cut like the original.
They are just as good to use, / suppose
but smokers don't like them any better
than ladies like imitation lace.
Between two and three hundred thou
sand dollars worth of them are brought
to the United States every year.
Besides the clay and meerschaum
there are several other kinds of pipes
brier and cypress wood, porcelain and
copper, and L don't know how many
kinds.
The first kind OF pipe that / have
read of was made of a walnut.shell will
q straw to draw through.