Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-08-17

,hNhpli7iihl'lil
n flint glass factory is n most enter
tanning medley of marvcls. As you
enter the great building that surrounds
the huge chimney the first impression is
that you are in "A human ant hill rumbling
with inordinate activity. Or perhaps
thc sensation is better described as a
plunge into "a purgatorial chamber of in
dustrious demons. In the center the
openings in the gigantic furnace dazzle
you like glaring eyes from a soul of fire;
bat the glow comes really from molten
glass IN the dozen monkey pots" about
tie blaze. Scores OF workers, boys,
youths and men, throng in restless con-
fusion. 1t looks rs if every one were
running about on some impish deed of
his Owl fancy. But stand still and watch
closely, and you will sec it is all IA great
system of human clockwork. each move
ment Citing nicely into the whole effect.
LII HE WAS PLAYING.
The men as the furnace, who seemed
at first to be devils thrusting pitchforks
into the blazing depths to toast their
victims, are only gathering metal on
their punties. When a sufficiently large
lump has been collected the man wan
ders off with it. You think he will GER
tainly burn some one with that burning
ball of fire, they are all bustling about
him SO necessarily. But follow him
carefully and you see him silently hand
the tube 10 an older man, who blows the
glass into a large globe and sits down to
play with it at a bench, which has a
horizontal bar on each side of him to
roll the tube on. Back and forth he
rolls it like Il toy, and the glass keeps
curiously changing its shape, He has
made a hole in the globe and enlarged it
into Il symmetrical opening, and now the
glass is cooled so that Ee can do nothing
more. VIII anybody in all that hurry
ing crowd help to help him? Instantly a
young man appears. and without a word
he holds up to the cool glass his long
tube with a disk of red hot glass on the
end, which fastens TO it. The nan ut
the bench scratches the globe, jars it,
| and it leaves his bar. OF the other man
runs with it to the "glory hole where
the broken end is quickly heated again
into softness. Then he hurries back with
it TO the bench man, who renews his
play. A couple of minutes more and
suddenly you perceive that he has made
a perfect lamp shade, which a stroke
detaches from the iron rod into n small
bed of sand. A small boy carries it off
on a stick TO the a|nnealing furnace, and
now the gatherer is IN hand again with
a fresh lump Of metal to begin The pro-
cess again.
Turn TO the next man sitting at his
work and you notice him finishing a
smaller charge into n lamp chimney,
shaping the top by a mold. Here is n
man amusing himself with "A small bunch
of soft glass on his rod. You are sure
he can have no serious purpose in turn
ing and bending it into those ridiculous
shapes. Quickly a boy scizcs it from
him and You II trace him. 1t has
gone over TO n fancy vase, where il was
needed To complete the So
each bench has its own little task of skill,
and keeps repeating it Owe and over.
and each boy Of the multitude (there are
two or more to every mani has his own
particular duties. He pops up always in
the nomeEt and place where he is needed.
WORKING ~ TEAMS.
All the workers are busy as their wits
can make them, for they work by the
piece, and the number of things made
determined their wages. They are grouped
into sets or ''shops" Of three or four, who
work together and share profits together
on Il well understood grade of division.
Generally tot constitute a shop, the
most skilful workman Uhe blower) at
the head, the gatherer Ca young fellow
next, and two boys, one handling molds
or tools, and the other carrying the prod
acts to the annealing oven. The only
way to learn the glass trade is through
long apprenticeship in these four stages.
And no apprentice j, permitted TO enter
the full privilege ana wages of a master
workman without the consent of the or
der. BY this severe means of apprentice
ship the glass workers keep the skill of
their trade in their own control, much
like the old Venetian artisans, and prac-
tically dictate their own prices to en-
ployers.
The best wages in the glass industry
are received by the window glass blow
ers, sometimes reaching S12 per day.
The master meters rank next, though
they seldom get more than half that
amount. From these earnings the prices
slope down to the small tending boys,
who are paid thirty cents for ten hours
work. The blowers occupation is labor
ious, but not unhealthful. He works
eight or ten hours at a stretch, finishing
one melt of glass. There are four or five
melts every week, each requiring six
teen hours to fuse, ten hours of blowing
and ten hours of flattening. The work
is always by the piece, and in teams or
in shops" each composed Of n mas
ter workman and several younger assist
ants.
There are in operation about 100 fur
naces, at which there are employed
about four thousand blowers, gatherers,
~fiatteners and cutters. They are bound
together by a union that dictates the
quantity each workman may make, the
number of apprentices that may be taken
generally not more than two to n fur
nace), that prohibits any foreign work
man from getting a place in the factories,
Al