Morning journal and courier., 1884-08-30
TIN BOXES Bx THE MILLION.
A New Industry That Has Grown t.
 Astonishing Proportions.

From the New York Sum-
 \ One of the uptown Lexington avenue gro | cers is of an inquiring turn of mind. This \ led him to investigate the process of making E tin boxes, because very large part of what \ he has. to sell is put up in that kind of pack ! ages. To a customer who wanted box of
 ground pepper yesterday he said, as he passed { the little tin cylindrical box the counter: E ''You should see the process of making
 those boxes. There is big fve-story build ing down town where over four hundred peo- ' ple-men, women and boys-are engaged in \ making tin boxes. I hardly know which \ part of the process would interest you most The tin is imported in sheets packed flat in shallow box that holds one hundred and E twelve sheets. In making boxes like the | pepper box, which has colored design on t the outside, the first thing to do is to print the design on the sheet of tin. The design is painted by an artist on paper. This IS | then transferred to a hthographers stone, ' just as if paper instead of tin were to be \ printed Then the stone is put in a press, I which differs from the paper printing htho- \ graphic press in one feature. The impression I cylinder yields slightly when the impression \ is made because 8 box of tin will sometimes \ contain sheets of twenty different thickness es. As each sheet is printed it is showed into a tin rack that will hold half box. The rack when full is taken to the dry room. In ! that room the heat is great enough to roast a pig. The tin, when baked long enough to | dry it thoroughly, is brought out and each ! sheet vanished by hand. Then it is baked again. This firing process not only fixes the colors, but it brings them out.
 { Here the grocer took down box about 6x ! 4x3 inches in size. The top represented the ! conventional Santa Claus housetop with Iii oJo and min 6J1t ! side was scene from old mill pond, with flags and lilies and rumpled water and birds above that was beautiful
 ! ''This is a sample box for Christmas can \ dies The sheets of tin were run through the press half dozen times to work in the \ various colors. The ink-it is common lith \ ographic ink-worked up so that it gave the \ impress of hand painting. If the name of X the candy dealer did not appear you would \ like to take 1t home and put it on the dining \ room mantel.
 FFWhen the design which is intended to or | nament the box has been printed all over | enough sheets of tin to fill the order, and the ! sheets are dried, they are cut up by putting I them through pair of guillotine shears, or | they are split up by running them through I rapidly revolving cylinders that have knife edges at certain adjustable intervals. The ! one is used in small orders and the other in large.
 1.-The tops and bottoms are stamped out by plungers, but beyond that I could scarcely follow the process. One machine picked up the slips, bent the ends in opposite directions, hooked them together, stamped the seam down air tight, and threw the completed body into trough at the rate of fifty thousand day. A boy picked up the bodies, put the ends on, placed them in @ machine, gave each a whirl, after which each dropped out with the edges pinched together and doubled over, making an air-tight joint, while a groove had been turned into the end that doubled the strength of the box. The boy did this at the rate of about five thousand a day for ordinary pepper cans. Where the box was
 larger and square in shape another machine, invented by workman in the shop, pinched
 the edges between two square cams, making similar joint, to the delight of the behold CT and the profit of the workman and his employer. The division of labor is such that the greatest efficiency is obtained. Women
 do the vanishing because they can do it bet co1ors on the cans by means of paper stem cils where the order is small A boy punch es tops and bottoms out of sheets of tin, guiding the sheet by the eye so that the
 waste has only hairs breadth, although he cuts thousands in an hour. Everything works
 as smoothly in the shop as if greased and as
 vociferously as if it were boiler shop"
 The proprietor of the factory smiled when
 the grocer's words were repeated He said
 ''Tin box makers take a special pride in
 their fine work. It is safe to say that we are
 educating the taste of the masses of the peo-
 pie. Look at this.''
 He pointed to old tin tea chest, orna-
 mented with picture of Chinaman, whose
 long moustaches pointed towards two chests
 of tea, which he was carrying suspended from 8 wooden yoke across his neck and shoulders.
 'sDid you ever see Chinaman with a brig and moustache? That's the old style. Now we have flowers that stand out so that you can almost see the leaves shake and scenes from nature that are attractive to educated eyes. Ten cents worth of tin is ornamented until it is worth ten dollars, really worth it, and can only be sold at inc price becau SC we make many of the same kind We import all of our tin. We pay $1.10 a box duty There is no tin factory in America Sheet tin, you know, is thin sheet iron plated with tin. Two firms tried to make it at Pittsburg With duty of thirty-fve per cent. in their favor they made tin of inferior quality, and then charged more than we would have to pay for the foreign article laid down in this city. That duty is one of the eccentricities of our tariff which horizontal reduction does not reach. If there were no duty we could compete with pasteboard boxes for many pur- poses. So our industry is repressed by it's protection. Our pay roll shows that boys of \ fifteen make from six to eight dollars a week, \ and that in every department the pay is high I for the class employed. As 8 result of the I use of machines and well-paid labor, we are able to import tin, pay the tax and freight, | make the goods, pay freight on them back to England, and sell the boxes for less money | than the English box makers charge"
 'eHow cheap can you make boxes2'
 eWe can make plain pill boxes as low as $2 75 per thousand. Spice boxes cost about eight dollars thousand If you want some thing handsome we could make it for twenty or twenty-five dollars thousand Those 1 candy boxes in colors the grocer showed you were worth five hundred dollars 8 thousand. I In small lots, with eolors laid on by hand, the tea canisters are made at from three to ten dollars each when wanted"
 tHow much waste do you have in day?"
 'sAbout four tons."
 sfSell itg'
 Yes; at four dollars a ton"
 fFWhat is done with it2''
 ''The iron is made into window weights; the tin is used up in making chemicals. Other uses could be made of each" III
 ''How many boxes can you make in a day2'
 ssIf we hump ourselves turn out three hundred thousand of all sizes. Our regular days work is two hundred thou sand.
 tsWhewi Where do they all go toan i