Page:The Conquest of Bread (1906).djvu/179

 metal, without crack or flaw, of the blooms, whatever be their thickness.

We expect an infernal grating, and we find machines which cut blocks of steel thirty feet long with no more noise than is needed to cut cheese. And when we expressed our admiration to the engineer who showed us round, he answered—

"It is a mere question of economy! This machine, that planes steel, has been in use for forty-two years. It would not have lasted ten years if its component parts, badly adjusted, lacking in cohesive strength, 'interfered' and creaked at each movement of the plane!

"And the blast-furnaces? It would be a waste to let heat escape instead of utilizing it. Why roast the founders, when heat lost by radiation represents tons of coal?

"The stampers that made buildings shake five leagues off were also waste! It is better to forge by pressure than by impact, and it costs less—there is less loss.

"In a factory, light, cleanliness, the space allotted to each bench, is but a simple question of economy. Work is better done when you can see and you have elbow-room. "It is true," he said, "we were very cramped before coming here. Land is so expensive in the vicinity of large towns—landlords are so grasping!" It is even so in mines. We know what mines are like nowadays from Zola's descriptions and