There are so many beautiful instances of the division of labor that the task of selecting is not easy. But let us take the cheapest article in the trade; namely, the side-combs, sold retail at 1d. per pair: in its progress from the hoof to the comb--finished, carded, and labelled "German shell"--it undergoes eleven distinct operations. This comb, which twenty years ago was sold to the trade at 3s. 6d. per dozen, can now be purchased in the same way for _two shillings and sixpence per gross!_ thus effecting a reduction in price of about 1600 per cent. As an illustration of the value of labor, we give the following comparative estimate of the produce of the three materials:----
1 cwt. shell, val. L.200, produces combs, val. 275, inc. 37-1/2 per cent. 1 ton horns, " 56, " " " 150, " 168 " " 1 ton hoofs, " 12, " " " 36, " 200 " "
Regarded in this aspect, in the relation of labor to material, we find that hoofs--intrinsically the least valuable of the materials--become, with the application of labor, the _most valuable_--that is, proportionably: and the converse is true in the case of tortoise-shell.
At the time of our visit there were employed 456 men and boys, and 164 women--in all, 620 persons--exactly four times the number employed in the comb-trade in all Scotland when the house commenced business.
Some four or five years ago, there came to reside in the neighborhood in which I then lived a family consisting of three persons--an old lady, a young man, and a child of some fourteen years. The cottage they took was divided by a little strip of woods from my own home; and I well remember how rejoiced I was on first seeing the blue smoke curling up from the high red chimneys, for the house had been a long time vacant, and the prospect of having near neighbors gave me delight. Perhaps, too, I was not the less pleased that they were new neighbors. We are likely to under-estimate persons and things we have continually about us; but let separation come, and we learn what they were to us. _Apropos_ of this--in the little grove I have spoken of I remember there was an oak tree, taller by a great deal than its fellows; and a thousand times I have felt as though its mates must be oppressed with a painful sense of degradation, and really wished the axe were laid at its root. At last, one day I heard the ringing strokes of that fatal instrument, and, on inquiry, was told that the woodman had received orders no longer to _spare that tree_. Eagerly I listened at first--every stroke was like the song of victory; then the gladness subsided, and I began to marvel how the woods would look with the monarch fallen; then I thought, the glory will have departed, and began to reflect on myself as having sealed its death warrant, so that when the crash, telling that the mighty was fallen, woke the sleeping echoes from the hills, I cannot tell how sad an echo it waked also in my heart. If I could see it standing once more, just once more! but I could not, and till this day I feel a twinge when I think of the tall oak.