Evening star., 1900-08-18
CLOTHEsPIN FACTS.
4 Log Costing 81 Cuts Up Into
CIothespins Worth Nearly 800.

CIothespin. worth Nearly 800.
From the Chicago Tribune.
The longer you lif.' as philosophic
German once remarked. "the more you
fndt. by chlmineddy. oudt!"
For instance. there's the common. every
day clothespin, on which no man has ever
been able to improve, any more than he has
improved upon the wheelbarrow or the old
fashioned wooden rolling pin. Who would
imagine that there was anything about the
clothespin that was worth finding out? The
writer was passing a little grocery where
box Of clothespins was among the things
displayed outside.
How much for clotheSpfnS today?" he
asked Of the grocer.
-Four cents, was the reply.
-Four cents aptoce?
Apiece. Great hickory, mol -Four cents
q doZenr"
''Ah-h-h! Are you a good judge of clothes
pins?''
II should say so! I've made more than a
million of emf replied the storekeeper
I've followed the clothespin. sir. in all the
processes Of Its evolution, from the growing
tree to the polishing box Say exclaimed
the dealer. Ito look at that pin you'd
could make and sell twelve of them for a
cent and have profit of more than 80 per
cent at that. would you?
But he can do it He can whittle out
How? Easy enough All he's got to do is
to take his maple birch log and go to
work Say his log Is ten feet long and a
foot through. He won't have to pay more
than 81 for 1t. II he pays any more than
that he don't know his business. That log
will whittle up into 1900 clothesplns. 1t
will take the man two hours and a half to
chew that log up into clothespinS, which is
at the rate Of 4.SUo an hour. But when
they are all cut out they worth s.s64 tt
the maker He will work ten hours day
II he ia smart, and will get away with four
of these logs. It's easy figuring to find out
that he will then have on hand 5000
clothespins. worth 8s5-6O If they're worth
a cent.
'The lumber for those pins has cost only
SO. providing the man wasn't stuck In buy
ing It. Now, II that was all the expense,
a man with a clothespin factory would be
a blamed sight better off than IL ne owned
a coal mine. But those logs have to run
the gantlet of a good deal of machinery
before they are full-fedged clothespins. A
saw separates the log irto lengths of six
teen inches. another one saws these blocks
into boards three-quarters of an inch thick.
a third saw reduces the boards to strips
three-quarters of an inch square These
little strips are pushed TO big wheel.
which hurrieS them to a gang of other
saws. where they are chopped into clothes
pin lengths quicker than a sausage ma
chine can chop up pound of meat. These
lengths are carried by a swift-moving belt
TO a machine that grabs them and sets
thcIn IN n idtNe- Inc idtDe gives them
their shape in the twfnkllng Of an eye and
throws them to the man who feeds them to
still another saw. which moves backward
| and forward II 1t were madder than a
| snake. This saw chews out the slot that
the washerwoman is to shove down over
\ the clothes on the line one of these days.
and the clothespin Is ready all except kiln
drying and polishing. Kiln drying knocks
| the sap out of the wood and the polishing
/ Is done by letting the clothespins rub
against themselves in a revolving iron
! cylinder.
| ''All these processes cost money, and
| when the manufacturer comes to put Ut
his goods for sale he finds that his prof,
I on the 5000 pins. or a days hard work
| IL only about S1S3. ray the manufactures
| one cent a dozen. OF about 81 cents a thou.
sand and. really, 1 am compelled In these
| tight times to sell them for cents a
dozen. or So. 10 a thousand, which wouIdn',
| be bad IL sold thousand every hour
| or so. But. with care, u thousand clothes
pins will stay by me for a month or two
! and even have had them with me a whole
| year. Chinese cheap labor Is pelting the
| life out Of the clothespin trade. for Ling
| Sing and Wun Lung don't Use clothespfns
| IN their laundries. and they're washing
about all the clothes that are washed, Il
seems to me, nowadays"