The St. Johns herald., 1894-04-19
BOXES FOR EEEIS SYTHING.
Tho Great Number CT Uses to
 Which Cardboard Is Put
Some Interesting Information Regard ing. the Beginning and Growth Of an Important In-
 dDstry.

.veniences the paper box holds front place. Half a century ago the dry goods dealer would present an empty box to the little daughter of his regu- lar customer as mark of special favor. Boxes were then used only by the wholesale houses to send out their goods in, and the retailer kept them to show his wares in. Now the customer insists upon his purchase being placed in a neat box. Not only is this so in the dry goods business, but in every other business. The oyster fry in a box as a peacemaker was a popular joke half dozen years ago; now they put ice-cream in boxes, and all sorts of things. Candy used to be sold in pa per bags; the smallest purchase has to be put in box. The saucy confection- CT might hand a paper bag to a woman who had made a small purchase, but never to man. The man is probably more particular about his parcel than a woman. He hates to be seen carry ing parcels. anyway, and those he does carry must be thoroughly well dis guised. If he buys bottle of whisky he must have it in box. so that his friends may mistake it for pair of shoes.
 It is not surprising, therefore, says the New York Advertiser, that paper box making should have grown into an important industry. In thiscity alone no less than five thousand girls are employed in it. 1t is a comparatively clean, healthy business, is regular and is well paid, the wages averaging be- tween seven and ten dollars week. There are in this city seventy-five firms engaged in the business, but three fourths of it is done by ten large firms,
 whose individual output will run from one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars year. As the average cost of paper box is five cents, you can form some idea from this of the enormous number that are used. One candy maker alone during the month of December last used ten thousand dollars worth of boxes.
 Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago are also prominent in this industry, and the worl1men and girls employed by the firms of those cities cannot be much less than twenty thousand.
 The first paper box maker was George ". Plunnly, who started in the business at Philadelphia in 1846. He and his partner cut out the boxes, their only tools being straight edge, com passes, shoe knife and scissors. They employed five girls to paste, and for six or seven years had monopoly of the business. Then Charles " Jencl1s started in the business in Providence, and introduced rough scoring ma chine to cut partly through the carc- board where it is folded to make the box. At that time it was a struggle to obtain proper materials. There were few paper mills in the country and the straw board used was very poor stuff, not two sheets coming out of the mill of the same size. It was made by hand of straw, meadow hay, refuse straw from stables, dried in the open air on the ground, and consequently was often filled with sand, which made it interesting for the cutters The best quality of mill board was all iIn- ported.
 In those early days the young wom- en in the paper box factories made boxes as their mothers made pies, ''one at time and that one we'll" A girl who could make pies quickly and we'll could make boxes in Q similar style. The operations were somewhat simi- lar. There was the same manner. of cutting out material, the same caress- ing way of batting down and smooth ing out the box coverings as the pie crust and the same way of trimming off surplus material Now everything is done by machinery in paper box making, and the girls have nothing to do but feed the material to the ma chimes.
 George 4. Diekerman, of Boston, started in the business in 1863 in Bos- ton, and about 1810 Q Frenchman named Rouyon introduced the business in this city. The old-fashioned way of scoring the pasteboard with a rule and cobbler's knife continued until 1871, when the first machine was intro duced. This was the invention of Mr. Bigelow, of New Haven. This scoring machine was such a success that a ulluDSk LII A4AAAiS SH1et4fSs IL o4A years after man named Marshall, of Bos- ton. made a lighter and easier running machine, and in 1881 John T. Robinson x Go. invented the present scoring ma chine. The trouble with the former machines was in the time it took to ad- just the knives to new size or pattern of box: in the Robinson scorer there are two sets of knives, so that one can be adjusted while the other is being used.
 Nowadays the whole of the material is made in this country, and it is sat- isfaction to know that the scoring ma- chimes and the box making machines are all the result of Yankee ingenuity Paper boxes are used all over the world now, and all the world has to | get it's machines from this country. In | France paper boxes are still made by hand by many firms, but the machines l have been introduced there and it will | I. Il