The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1890-01-01
COLD.LEAF MAKING,
Two Women Teach 1t Free Daily in a New
York Basement.

Hundreds of people stop every day
to look down the steps leading into the
basement of one of the old buildings on
that part of Park row that used to be
Chatham square, says the New York
San. Behind closed doors at the foot
of the steps they see two women seated
facing each other at a small wooden
bench covered with white oil cloth.
One woman is blonde. plump, and
smiling; the other thin and melan-
choly. The top of the bench is made
of three boards, each about ten inches
wide, and the middle one is raised two
inches higher than the others, leaving
ing two cracks that wide, one facing
each woman. Beneath the table is a
huge wooden trough, so that what
ever falls through the cracks goes into
it. At the left of each woman is
thick pad about five inches square, ap--
parently of many pieces of kid laid to-
gether..
The woman raises one of the kid
pieces with her left hand and gleam
ing yellow surface lies exposed. With
pair of wooden tongs nine inches
long each foot about the size of a lead
pencil, in her right hand, the woman
makes dexterous jab at the yellow
surface and pulls it away, fluttering,
quivering sheet of gold. 1t seems to
be crumbling upinto all sorts of shapes,
but the woman blows on it and it set
ties down, outspread, fiat upon the
white oil-cloth before her. Its edges
on every side are irregular and ragged.
Her left hand has grasped an arrange
ment of two steel knives with rocker
Cd TO thor lal fn
other about four inches apart by rods.
She places this over the golden sheet,
so that the knives rest upon two of the
| irregular edges. A little rock and the
edges are cut straight, while the irreg-
ular bits trimmed off curl up and fut-
ter about, A dexterous Whit of the
woman's breath sends them kiting like
dead leaves through the crack in the
table. The knives meantime have
trimmed the other two edges, and as
the ragged bits from them, too, go
through the crack the square yellow
sheet is caught up in the wooden tongs
and whisked over to a book of blank
pink paper, each page just the size of a
| yellow square that lies before the wo-
man. 1t probably is inclined to be re-
bellious and double up or wrinkle, but
another breath from the woman's lips
spreads it out flat, and the pink page is
turned in an instant, concealing it from
view.
All this is done so quickly that the
throng at the top of the steps holds its
breath as the golden sheets whisk about
and the little ragged leaves flutter
through the crack in the table in a con-
tinual yellow shower. If the sheet
when spread upon the pink page, shows
flaw bit of leaf, picked up on the
end of little stick, is put over the
hole and patted dawn in an instant. Il
a sheet tears in being lifted out of the
! skins one of the ragged edges blowr
away is laid over it at the edge that i:
! torn off, and little rub with the END
of stick YIELDS the two pieces togeth
er; then breath blows the free edge
of the added piece off of the main sheet
and the whole is spread out fiat ant
fair as though it had never been mend
ed. When the little pink book is full
it is put away to be done up in delicate
wrappers and sold to sign painters anC
decorators who want gold leaf. Bacl
in the dark recesses of the basemen
men are beating out the thin sheets, 81
delicate that breath whisks them al
about, from Jumps of virgin gold. Th'
women work at the foot of the step
because the best light is there, and the.
need it most. The idea that he i
thus affording a good many peopl
daily free lessons on the gold beater'
art does not worry the owner of tn
shop.