Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/234

 taste in the hardware line, Birmingham was rapidly increasing in riches and inhabitants when the pre- sent war threw a cloud over its prosperity, mined its market, and obliged a large proportion of its workmen to quit the silent manufactories, which no longer required their presence, for the profession of arms; fifteen thousand of them are supposed to have made this unhappy exchange of profession du- ring the long-protracted contest. The population of Birmingham at present is about seventy thousand. We visited its manufactories, which consist, ex- clusively of those mentioned above of fillagree, pins, buttons, whips, and paper-trays. The last be- longs to Mr. Clay, whose obliging civility enabled us to observe at our leisure the following process for preparing this elegant article of furniture: Large, strong, and thick cartridge paper is the material of which it is composed. Of this a wetted sheet is spread upon a flat and even board, the surface of which being pasted over, another sheet is laid upon it; being thus attached to each other, they are conveyed into an oven close adjoining, where they remain till they are dry, which strengthens their cohesion. In this manner, from twelve to eighteen sheets, (according to the required thick- ness) are pasted upon each other and dried. The pieces 'j re then taken out of the oven, suffered to

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