CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
TOYS.
FROM DAWN TO SUNSET.
COD-FISHING IN ICELAND.
THE ADMIRAL'S SECOND WIFE.
ELECTRICITY AS A LIGHT-PRODUCER.
JAPANESE WRESTLERS.
SHAMROCK LEAVES.
CARRIER-PIGEONS.
| No. 721. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
TOYS.
Of British industries, not the least interestingto a large world of readers, great and small, willbe found the manufacture of toys. Mr Bartley,in treating this subject in Mr Stanford's usefulseries of Handbooks to British Manufactures,rightly assumes that objects which are so inseparablyconnected with the happiness of our early lifecannot be held unimportant; while we need butmention the name of Charles Dickens, in order tolend a charm to the avocations of a doll's dressmakerand a journeyman toy-maker. Althoughthe English productions are almost entirely confinedto a few special types of goods, which not onlyhold their own among foreign rivals, but are largelyexported to the continent, we find that in Londonalone there are, besides various importers of toys,eleven rocking-horse manufacturers, ten wholesaledealers, and one hundred and fifty-one retaildealers, not including the large tribe of smallretailers, who combine other occupations with thesale of toys. Though Germany, Switzerland, andFrance are the great storehouses of all toys ofwhich the material is soft wood, the toy manufactureof London forms a large and interestingindustry.
Penny wooden toys are turned out of a manufacturingestablishment which consists of a toy-maker,his wife, and family. When the father hasfinished his work on the lathe, the mother andchildren have each their particular share in gluing,pasting, and painting. The material for these articlesare scraps of timber bought out of builders' yards,the principal tools being the chisel and the lathe.Pewter toys are made in London in very largequantities. At one establishment a ton of metalis consumed each month in the production of Lilliputiantea, coffee, and dinner sets. English tastemay be gathered from the fact, that the numberof tea-sets made is nearly thirty times larger thaneither of the other two. Twenty-three separatearticles make up a set, and of these articles twomillions and a half are made yearly by one housealone. The metal is provided from miscellaneousgoods, such as old candlesticks, tea-pots, pots andpans, bought from 'marine' store-dealers by the