obligingly conducted me through his various workshops, and I discovered
that the perfection of the Sheffield manufacture arises from the
judicious division of labour. I saw knives, razors, &c. &c., produced in
a few minutes from the raw material. I saw dinner knives made from the
steel bar and all the process of hammering it into form, welding the
tang of the handle to the steel of the blade, hardening the metal by
cooling it in water and tempering it by de-carbonizing it in the fire
with a rapidity and facility that were astonishing.

"The number of hands through which a common table knife passes in its
formation is worthy of being known to all who use them. The bar steel is
heated in the forge by _the maker_, and he and _the striker_ reduce it
in a few minutes into the shape of a knife. He then heats a bar of iron
and welds it to the steel so as to form the tang of the blade which goes
into the handle. All this is done with the simplest tools and
contrivances. A few strokes of the hammer in connexion with some
trifling moulds and measures, attached to the anvil, perfect, in two or
three minutes the blade and its tang or shank. Two men, the maker and
striker, produce about nine blades in an hour, or seven dozen and a half
per day.

"The rough blade thus produced then passes through the hands of _the
filer_, who files the blade into form by means of a pattern in hard
steel. It then goes to the halters to be hafted in ivory, horn, &c. as
may be required; it next proceeds to the finisher, to Mr. Rodgers for
examination, and is then packed for sale or exportation. In this
progression every table-knife, pocket-knife, or pen-knife, passes step
by step, through no less than sixteen hands, involving in the language
of Mr. Rodgers, at least 144 separate stages of workmanship in the
production of a single pen-knife. The prices vary from 2_s_. 6_d_. per