Tommy’s nose is properly wiped, or that his linen is duly cared for.
We have instanced the decoration of watches and of glass as mere instances in point. The delicate female hand, the most beautiful and pliant instrument in the world, once thoroughly educated, the whole world of design is opened to her, and the field of her labour is almost boundless. There is scarcely an article of home manufacture in which we have advanced much beyond the rude old Saxon style. Every article of household use, as far as design is concerned, has to be reformed, and will be, as our tastes advance. Why, then, should not the trained female artist hasten to share the work with her brother artist?
But why need we stop at the fine arts, when we look around for employment for intelligent female labour? We trust Clerkenwell will not demolish us, for alluding to watchmaking as an art that seems to demand the exercise of the female hand. “I cannot get on without the woman’s hand,” says John Bennett, in a letter to the “Times,” and he very justly points to the Swiss watch, which is now rapidly taking the place of the English second-class watch. He calculates that no less than 200,000 of these watches are imported or smuggled annually into England, whilst 187,000 is the whole produce of English watchmakers. In order to discover the reason of their very cheap and beautiful production of watches, he determined to go to Switzerland himself, and the reason was soon apparent. He found that no less than 20,000 women were employed in Neufchâtel alone in making the more delicate parts of the watch movement,—not cooped up in squalid courts as the men are in Clerkenwell, but in their own cottage homes on the slopes of the Jura, overlooking the beautiful Lake Leman.
The foundation of their art, it must be remembered, is their intellectual culture; every woman thus employed is well educated; if she were not, her fingers would lack that subtle intelligence so necessary to the calling of a watchmaker. The manner in which the labour is divided is also remarkable. Every workwoman and workman (for the labour of the former, instead of superseding employment, only calls it into more active existence for the production of the heavier work,) selecting exactly that portion of the watch-movement which he and she can do best. They have also a decimal standard gauge for all the different portions of the wheel-works; in this manner all the parts are interchangeable, just as those of the Enfield rifles are with us. Our great London watchmakers are too high and mighty to descend to this levelling process; consequently we hear of Frodsham’s size, Dent’s size, or Bennett’s size, but of no standard size that all watchmakers can work to. Moreover, among these rural districts, where one would think that manufactures were carried on in the most primitive manner, we find on the contrary, the greatest system possible prevailing in this particular trade. In consequence of every workman and workwoman being registered, together with the exact nature of the work they do, any of the wholesale manufacturers, by using the telegraph, can procure, within a few hours, the details of the watch-movement to any extent. The facilities in this metropolis, which is a kingdom within itself, for such an admirable division of labour and concentration at will of its products at the command of the watchmaker are very great; the labour also is but too plentiful were it only trained.
Mrs. Grundy would doubtless turn up her nose at intelligent and educated Englishwomen directing their attention to a mechanical trade, forgetting that shirtmaking also is a mechanical trade, and that the needle and thimble are as much tools as the fine implements used in watchmaking; nay, and much coarser tools, too. In Switzerland 20,000 women in this trade earn on an average fifteen shillings a-week, which goes as far in their country as double that sum would in London. Here, then, is another occupation that, to intelligent women, would prove a perfect mine of wealth, and most heartily we trust that Mr. Bennett will be successful in his attempts to open it to the intelligence of women. It is in vain that we sing the Song of the Shirt, and get up annual subscriptions for down-stricken sempstresses. It is in vain that we hold midnight tea-meetings to tempt Lorettes from their evil courses; as long as we shut young women out from honourable means of employment, so long will their labour be a drug in the market, and their degradation but too facile a matter to the tempter.
POSTSCRIPT.
On closing the first Volume of “Once a Week,” its Projectors distinctly pledged themselves, in consideration of its rising promise, to make the most of the opportunities for its further and complete development.
Not only is it their conviction, founded on a knowledge of their efforts, that they have already done this; but they have a surer proof that these efforts have been properly directed, in a circulation which is now steadily on the increase.
In the meantime, an unlooked-for opportunity has arisen in the promised remission of the Paper Duties, and the Projectors desire to convert this opportunity also to the advantage of their readers.
But, instead of waiting until these Duties shall be actually remitted, it is their intention to anticipate the probable reduction in the price of paper, and to extend their Miscellany by six pages of letter-press weekly, commencing from the 28th instant.
Exclusive of these six pages they will avail themselves of the same occasion to gratify the wish expressed by so many of their subscribers for a complete wrapper to each weekly number.
And they further hope so to use their extended space as to afford increased gratification to a widening circle of readers.