The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-11-02
THE CITY OF BUTTONS.
The Pretty French Town Where White
China Buttons Are Made.

The Pretty French Town where white
China Buttons Arc Made.
Cor. Philadelphia Telegraph.
mot worth button,n is a remark in COM
mon use, but it can hardly be popular one in
the town of Brare. That bright, thriving little
city has been founded, more literally than
hguratively, on buttons. Briare supplies the
world with those white china buttons which
have so largely replaced the mother-of-pearl
ones for common use, as being more durable,
easier to fasten, and far easier to sew on. At
tached in graduated sizes to cards lined with
tin-foil, whose aspect is familiar to every seam
stress and housemother in the civilized world,
they have pervaded every part Of the globe. In
olden days Briare was shabby little riverside
village, frequented by the boatmen OF the neigh
boring canals Of Orleans and De Berri, and ow-
ing whatever prosperity it enjoyed to their pa
tronage. Now 1t is clean and cheerful and we'll
to-do, with wide, sunny boulevards, and groups
of work-peopls's houses on the slopes Of the ad-
iacent hills
1t is all owing to the button. 1t is for the
button that immense factories have been erected
with tall chimneys and gigantic ovens. 1t is
for the button that fifteen hundred work-people
fill the vast hive with the murmur and move
ment of incessant toll And, paradoxical as it
may seem to the uninitiated, it is for the button
that hundred COWS are lodged in the most
comfortable of STALLS are turned QUITO Craze on
the richest of pastures, and supply to the works
eight hundred quarts of milk per diem 1t is
the omnipresent button and not innumerable
babies or calves that absorbs this large amount
of Natures most delicious beverage.
The china button, in spite of its name, has
nothing of china about it. Neither faience nor
porcelain enter into its composition. 1t is made
altogether of pure porcelain enamel that hard
CLASSY substance that forms the coating Of the
best china. For the manufacture of buttons it
is produced by the vitrification of feldspar, a
stone that occurs in large quantities wherever
granite abounds. A great deal Of it is found in
France, but the best and purest feldspar is i'm
ported from Norway. When ground to an i'm
palpable powder it furnishes substance resem-
bling the finest argile or porcelain clay. But it
lacks the righteousness and the Elasticity of clay
and when mixed with water no amount Of pres
sure or manipulation by the most scientific ma
chinery can give it soldity and consistency. 1t
cracks and falls back to powder as soon as it be-
comes thoroughly dry.
For long time the inventor of the china but
ton, NJ. Bapterosses, found all his efforts batfled
and his work at standstill owing to this pecu-
larity. But he was resolved to discover a rem
edy. After long series of experiments he found
that by mixing the paste with milk instead of
with water the desired consistency and plastic
qualities were obtained Hence, therefore, the
unaccustomed adjuncts of stables and pastures
and cows that form an important element in the
great factories of Briare. These factories pro-
duce from three to four thousand pounds of but
tons daily. The 'carding," as it is called, of
these buttons forms an industry by itself. At
short distance from the town, in the country on
| both shores of the Loire, the whole population,
| except the worllingmen, sew buttons on cards
| for sale. Old men, delicate women, and little
| children occupy themselves with this light labor.
The shepherds work at it while keeping their
sheep, cripples and aged or infirm people find in
| it an occupation, and even tho busy farmers
wives and housemothers devote themselves to 1t
| in their leisure moments. 1t is work that is
very poorly paid, bringing in only a few cents
day, but 1t is light and easy, and can be executed
at odd minutes. So 1t has positively, in spite Of
| the small pay, spread comfort and prosperity
throughout the district.
| AS is usual with the homes of French factory
hands the little dwellings of the working people
| are models of neatness. At Briare the clothing
| and the households and tbefaces of the children
| alike shone with cleanness, as though the nature
! of the workers had become subdued to what
they worked in, and they were trying to emulate
the glistening white product of their factories In
| its lustrous purity. l have always been sur
prised at the difference in this respect between
the factory hands of Yorkshire and those of the
| Loret.
While the English of the upper classes pride
themselves on their Immaculate personal clean
illness, those of the working classes, not the
| deniZens of the cutters or the slums but the
| regular factory workers, are quite asignorant of
| the uses of soap and water as they are of the
history of the United States or the poetry of
| Goethe.