Nearly all the great variety of articles in an ironmonger's shop are made by machinery. Without machinery they could not be made at all, or they would be sold at a price which would prevent them being commonly used. Some of the finer articles, such as a Bramah lock, or a Chubb's lock, could not be made at all, unless machinery had been called in to produce that wonderful accuracy, through which no one of a hundred thousand locks and keys shall be exactly like another lock and key. With machinery, the manufacture of ironmongery employs large numbers of artisans who would be otherwise unemployed. There are hundreds of ingenious men at Birmingham who go into business with a capital acquired by their savings as workmen, for the purpose of manufacturing some one single article used in finishing a house, such as the knob of a lock. All the heavy work of their trade is done by machinery. The cheapness of the article creates workmen; and the savings of the workmen accumulate capital to be expended in larger works, and to employ more workmen.
The furniture of a house, some may say--the chairs, and tables, and bedsteads--is made nearly altogether by hand. True. But tools are machines; and further, we owe it to what men generally call machinery, that such furniture, even in the house of a very poor man, is more tasteful in its construction, and of finer material, than that possessed by a nobleman a hundred years ago. How is this? Machinery (that is ships) has brought us much finer woods than we grow ourselves; and other machinery (the sawing-mill) has taught us how to render that fine wood very cheap, by economising the use of it. At a veneering-mill, that is, a mill which cuts a mahogany log into thin plates, much more delicately and truly, and in infinitely less time, than they could be cut by the hand, two hundred and forty square feet of mahogany are cut by one circular saw in one hour. A veneer, or thin plate, is cut off a piece of mahogany, six feet six inches long, by twelve inches wide, in twenty-five seconds. What is the consequence of this? A mahogany table is made almost as cheap as a deal one; and thus the humblest family in England may have some article of mahogany, if it be only a tea-caddy. And let it not be said that deal furniture would afford as much happiness; for a desire for comfort, and even for some degree of elegance, gives a refinement to the character, and, in a certain degree, raises our self-respect. Diogenes, who is said to have lived in a tub, was a great philosopher; but it is not necessary to live in a tub to be wise and virtuous. Nor is that the likeliest plan for becoming so. The probability is, that a man will be more wise and virtuous in proportion as he strives to surround himself with the comforts and decent ornaments of his station.