The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-03-06

made files, He mentions one order, re-
Gently sent to this country, for 1000
dozen, whereas an order for 200 dozen
English files would be considered, or
| dinarily, as a large one. go into any
cutlery or hardware shop in Bradford"
said Mr.. Meeker, ''and ask for shears,
| and you will be handed pair bearing
! Il Newark or Trenton, n. j., imprint.
They are considered superior in every
| way, and one of the strange things
| about it is that they must be purchased
| through Sheffield, which is supposed to
| be the rival of American cutlery man
ufactures. These shears, a dealer said
to me- are superior to all others. be-
cause they are sweet cutters The
! shears used by tailors and cutters are
almost entirely of American make
Turbine water wheels and printing
| presses of American manufacture are
also sold in Bradford"
The export Of maChne-made boots
and shoes is rapidly growing, and has
! indeed already assumed large propor-
! tions. Within a few years past great i'm
| provements have been made in the
! shoemaiing machinery and in the pro-
duct, accompanied by an equally no
/ ticeable reduction in cost. Few per-
sons are aware of the present extent
! of this business, which has grown up
from very small beginnings. Statistics
! show that, in the census year OF lS9O,
no less than l79, 500, 900 pairs OF boots
and shoes were made in factories in this
country, by 19d, 600 operatives, an aver
age of nearly 1000 pairs per annum
for each employe, and an average OF
nearly three pairs of shoes for every
s,,l, pin nnll, nr n W
ing 233 hands (chiehy girls), turned out
21OO pairs of women's shoes a day.
The best qualities of machine-made
shoes are now fully equal to the best
hand made shoes, and are produced at
! one third the cost; this accounts for
their favorable reception in number
of new markets, in spite of former pref
udlCes and of occasional miSrepresen-
tations of rivals, who naturally fear
loss of business.
Seven thousand tons of steel rails,
besides enormous quantities of other
railroad material are now being made
in Pittsburg for Japan, and large or
ders have, it is said, been booked for
China. A complete locomotive man
ufacturing plant was recently shipped
from Philadelphia to Russia, and rail-
road machinery is now on its way from
this port to Australia. A multitude of
similar illustrations could be given, but
these will serve as straws to show the
direction in which the trade winds
are now blowing, and it only remains
for American enterprise to take ad-
vantage of the opportunities which IA
vorable circumstances offer to enter
upon a new era of industrial prosperity.
Tho nj in these tpnta =
tive experiments is to be found in the
wonderful advances which have been
made in labor saving machinery, super
vised by intelligent highly paid oper-
atives, whereby the productive capac-
ity of each employe is enormously in
creased and the cost per unit of prod
ust correspondingly reduced. The pos
sibilities of reduction in cost of manu-
facture of any given articles are not al
ways appreciated first by those who are
| most familiar with the routine meth.
DDS. New departures are apt to eman-
ate from those who approach the prob
lem from a new standpoint unbiased
by old traditions. A striking illustra-
ton Of rapid changes in methods, anC
concomitant great reduction in cost OF
| manufacture, is furnished in the recent
} history of the evolution of the mean
= descent electric lamp. In 1880, | visited
= Edison's laboratory at Menlo Park t
= inspect his new system of ncandeScen1
- electric lighting. l was then much i'm
= pressed with the novel methods of max
5 ing, in considerable numbers, the deli
! cate lamps and filaments and regard
= ed them as marvels of mechanical in
! genuity. I understood at that time
. that Mr. Edison had succeeded by HI!
: | his methods in reducing the cost o
5 | manufacture of the little lamps one
- | half e., from about So to 81 SO each
e Today lamps far superior to the earle
e forms made in 1886 are sold in larg,
n lots at less than 20 cents each. A single
q factory of the General Electric com
n pany turns out 100000 year, and tn
e output of all the factories combined Il
= about 20000,O00 lamps per year. 1t il
n interesting, in view of the present Low
e cost of the lamps, to know that tn
n carbon tilament is estimated to be
: weight for weight, the most valuab
s substance known. Filaments for tn
|, ordinary sixteen candle-power lamp
= are worth SO a thousand, and $4,000 ar
q required to weigh one pound. The fila
= ments in the tiny bulb lamps used 70
surgical and dental purposes are Yer,
: much smaller, and are three times NOR
a valuable, if estimated by weight, o
n more than 100000 per pound.
l. Formerly it was customary to esti
II mate approximately the cost of loco
e motive at $1,000 per ton weight. Thu
L. an engine weighing 10000 pounds woul
d cost about $4,000. Today, first-clas
If locomotive, weighing about 1900
it pounds, costs about $4,000, or less tha
ar 6A cents per pound, Labor-sav!ng ma
=" chinery and "Diece work" systems q
y, pay are largely accountable for thes
ii results. The Pennsylvania rairoa