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132 head of high reputation for excellence. The Greeners also turn out sporting guns of great perfection. The wood stock-forms are brought mostly from countries where wood is more abundant and cheaper than in England. The walnut stocks are imported from Germany and Italy. During the Crimean war, a Birmingham contractor set up saw-mills at Turin, and has converted a whole forest, or nearly 100,000 walnut trees into stocks.

There are nearly 600 manufacturers in Birmingham engaged in different departments of the gun trade, which departments are eight in number, and some of these are again subdivided. There are about 10,000 men, women, and children employed in these different branches. Good workmen can earn, on an average, thirty shillings a-week. Gun-making by machinery, after the American process, has been introduced quite lately. In 1853, Mr. Whitworth and Mr. George Wallis, of Birmingham, were members of a commission sent to the United States to visit our private and national establishments. As the result of their report, the English Government resolved to erect a manufactory at Enfield, on the same system as that pursued at Springfield. A second commission was sent over, consisting of military officers, to purchase such machinery and models as were necessary for the Enfield factory. The most wonderful and