The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-04-07
WHERE DOLLS ARE MADE
A Visit to a Famous Toy
Factory Near
Paris.
MANUFACTURING HEADS And BRAINS.
Ida McCabe Tells Little Girls All
About Their Precious Play
mates.

In the quaint old town of Montreuil,
outside the Notifications of Paris. is the
most famous doll factory of the world.
One hundred thousand dolls are manu-
featured there every year,
1t was a glorious day In autumn when
/ crossed the factory courtyard. 1anked
on either side by hundreds of small-paned
windows, through which l caught
glimpses of some five hundred men,
women and children bending over their
work.
The model of the famous Paris doll Is
always the human baby-the child from
one to four years old.
Her dollship's body is made of brown
paper. Sheet upon sheet, we'll moistened
with paste, is spread on u table at which
women aud children sit. Before each
worker is an iron mold, into which she
hammers wet. pasty paper, with a NAL
let. One mold represents the trunk OF
the body, others the legs: the arms, the
foot, the hand. All faithfully preserve
every curve and dimple OF the human
baby.
When the molds are flied they are
hung ND TO dry. The drying process
takes from eight to thirty days.
Much of the modelling d drying is
doue by women and children who live In
cottages outside the factory. With the
money thus earned they support families.
From the rafters of the humble cottages
the molds are hung to dry. When the
iron coats are shed as the chestnut sheds
its burr, they present a hard, brown,
shiny surface, not unlike That nut.
A coat of ficsh-tinted paint-the dolls
first layer of skiu-iS now put on. The
dried shapes are carried in great baskets
to the factory's paint shops. The odor of
turpentiue and sitting heat assails the
n~ostrils as we open the door of one of
these a~teliers. Dozens of pretty dark
eyes glance up from the tables. 1t is
curious to watch the dimple of a hand,
the nail OF a toe, grow under the quick,
sure brushes of these young peasant
girls.
Finished, the hands and feet are pivoted
on sticks and thrust into racks which
stand on the tables. before each worker,
until a little girl, scarcely larger than the
biggest doll. picks them up and running
nimbly up a ladder sticks them in the
perforated boards which form the walls
of the paint shop. A quaint picture they
makei hundreds of little pink. dimpled
hands in all attitudes of entreaty; hun
dreds of little feet restless to creep into
some child's heart; little dimpled stom-
achs and shapely legs-all standing out
from the white walls.
When each portion of the body has had
five coats of paint and varnish they are
carried to n great room whera men gray
and bent with age set the various parts
together on a fine elastic cord. This ID
the highest art in the dolls creation, for
mon the skillful adjustment of each part
depends the perfection of the whole.
Wooden sockets are then out in the
shoulders, elbows aud knees, and little
wires called "articulators" (tuIned by
Bows at a pedal r~lachine) are inserted.
and lul every limb moves, not unlike the
human body.
GIVING THEM SPEECH.
To make one talking doll requires the
Joint labor of thirty men. Germany was
the first country TO invent the talking
dolls. So great is the cost of their manu-
facture that COMPARATIVELY few are made.
In art, as in nature, it is easier to make
a doll baby say "mama" than papa"
My lady's head is made in another part
of The old town. AS we enter the factory
women and girls are filing face-molds
with a white liQuid which runs from q
tankard with faucets, like a soda foun-
tain. This liquid is of the same ingredi-
ents as the famous Sevres and Limoges
ware. When the contents of the mold
are dry they are emptied on trays and
before they have become hard the ears
are pierced to receive that relic of bar
barlsm-the earring.
The faces are then put in a huge oven,
where they bake from twenty-sight to
! thirty hours. Baskets upon baskets of
baked heads, VARYING IN size from two
inches to the face of a child of four years.
preserving Greek features and revealing
many human expressions, are piled on
every side. Children 50 young that
home and a doll would seem the place
and the occupation of their hours, are
met in the courtyard. running hither
aud thither with great trays of faces on
their heads,
Each worker has her special task.
After the first baking one lays on the
flesh tint, another blends in the rouge
on the cheek, paints an eyelash or eye
brow, or gives the vital touch to nostril
or eur, while an army Of children deposit
the huished faces on II curtaine ed shelf.
where they are left to dry before going to
the oven for another thirty hours bake.
MAKING BRAINS.
"What are you doiug?" we asked an
old man who sat at a log cabin window
chipping off spherical bits from a huge
layer OF cork.
"Makiug brains" was the reply. "Her
dollship's brains.'
The second baking prepares the heads
for the eyes. They are of glass and
enamel. Most delicate. most exacting
work. The eyes are made in Il cellar,
into which the sunlight rarely peeps. The
violet eyes require Uue WoSU skill. Inc
eyes made, they are carefully matched
and glued in the heads, which is then
fastened OH to the body. The cork
brains now round out the head and
the doll passes from the hands OF
her creators to the coiffure's boudoir.
where, from great boxes of hair, varying
in color from palest gold to raven black,
in texture from natures sheenv silk to
taxen tow, her crowning glory is chosen.
Not IL cry. not a word does dolly utter as
her locks are combed, twisted and tackled
to her brains with little brass nailsi
Hair dressed. her dimpled feet are
slipped into the daiuuiesE Louis XIV.
slippers of satin or leather, made by four
teen-vear-old children.
C%oiffured aud shod. her dollship now
puts on |: white chemise. Packed in Il
box, she is then sent for q nap to the
warehouses until summoned to the great
doll depots of Paris. from which she is
likely to Journey to the four ends OF the
earth. philadelphia Inquirer.
Dry Weather at Burlington.
Il