Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1877-02-07
A MODEL MANUFACTURER.
Tho Romance of Commerce as Shown in
7at Do the Career of Sir Titus Salt. i

Tho Romance of Commerce as Shown in
7.t DO tho Career of Sir Titus Salt.
ss From the London Telegraph. ,....s.,
With the death of Sir Titus Salt.
Baronet, ends q career which may not
inaptly be said to belong to the romance
of commerce; for the story of how the
owner of Saltaire made his fortune is
indeed singular. Many years ago there
were consigned to firm of merchants
in Liverpool several bales of some
strange hairy wool from Australia.
Nobody had ever seen the like of it be-
fore; nobody thought much of it; and
thus it lay slowed away in shed at the
docks as though it were so much lum-
Der. It happened one day that Mr..
Titus Salt, q small manufacture of
Yorkshire, was in Liverpool, and, wan
dering about the docks, he CHANGED to
come across this neglected consignment
OF seeming rubbish. He examined it.,
however, and asked if he might be al
lowed to take some of it away with him.
What he did with the sample he thus
procured need not be told. Suffice it
to say that he came back again, offered
to purchase the whole of the rubbish, !"
and became it's possessor for merely
nominal sum. This hairy wool, this
taash which no one would even
look at as marketable COM
modify, and of which Mr.. Titus Salt
secured, the monopoly, was alpaca.
Such was the way in which the fortunes
of the great manufacturer and million
aire, who died at his seat, Crownsnest,
near Halifax, recently, was founded.
For years Mr.. Salt and his family were
the sole makers of that useful material
which has grown to be something like a
rival to cotton; and on the strength of
the valuable patent they thus acquired
they built a factory which, with extern
sions, has become one of the largest in
England.
This huge hive of industry, conspicu-
Gus as it is to the eye Of the passing
traveller, is not, however, tbs most re
markable feature of Saltaire. Sur
rounding the vast factory is a large'vil
lage, or small town, containing many
thousand inhabitants, every one of
whom, of working age, is somehow en-
ployed at the big alpaca mill. Sir
Titus Salt was the sole landlord of this
busy community, and the manner in
which he discharged his responsibilities
as such is one of the most notable facts
of his times. At his own expense and
under his personal supervision he pre-
vided everything thatseemed necessary
for the moral and material well-being
of his little kingdom. He built for his
people baths and washhouses; schools
and places of recreation; he erected q
mechanics institute, the appointments
of which will compare with those of a
fashionable club, and he also caused to
be constructed chapel attached to the
Congregationalist body, of which all
that can be said in the way of objection
is that it is only too splendid. Saltaire,
in short, has been established On what
may be called basis of practical phil
anthropy, while a laudable attempt to
guard the morals of its inhabitants has
been made in the rigid exclusion from
the place of all public traffic in intoxi-
eating liquors. In these things Sir
Titus Salt both meant we'll and did
we'll. Personally he was an intelligent,
kind-hearted good man, a progressive
politician, q munifcent contributor TO
public charities, and Jealous contribu-
tor to public charities, and a Jealous
promoter of popular education. His
life has been useful in many ways. He
made his fortune by the introduction
of a beautiful and valuable commodity,
and he spent a large portion of it in
doing substantial good to those he at
once employed and served. In the his
tory of the manufacturing industry Of
England, few names will have 80 high
8 place of honor as that of Titus Salt.