on Saturday, to spend Sunday, and urged me to 

 accompany him; but I had other engagements. On 

 the Monday evening following I had a note from Mr. 

 Dickinson, inviting me to dine with him the next day, 

 saying his wife and son had come up to London with 

 him to stay over that day. 



This outline of the way my acquaintance with Mr. 

 Dickinson had been brought about, Mr. Donkin said 

 most satisfactorily accounted for the freedom with 

 which he had spoken of his machinery to me, knowing 

 what I did of the machine Greatrake had put in 

 operation for Gilpin. There was nothing further to 

 conceal. He then added that Greatrake leaving when 

 he did was a great loss to Dickinson; that he had been 

 his right-hand man in carrying his plans into success- 

 ful operation. It was true that the running two form- 

 ing cylinders at the same time in different grades of 

 paper pulp, making the fine, veneered plate paper, 

 had been perfected long after Mr. Greatrake had left, 

 but that being secured by patent, and a general de- 

 scription having been published in Newton's journal- 

 accounted for his freedom in speaking of it. 



After this, Mr. Donkin dropped back into a free and 

 familiar discussion of the state of mechanics and their 

 advance in England. Great and successful inventor 

 as he was, and one who had done so much in per- 

 fecting whatever passed through his hands, and who 

 was certainly the most progressive machinist I had 

 met in England, yet he seemed to labor under false 

 impressions, and not clearly to understand the con- 

 dition of things that led to such rapid advances in 

 mechanical pursuits in the United States. He made 

 notes of the wages we paid for skilled labor and such 

 cost of crude materials as I could give him. Then 

 he came back to the squirrel cage cylinder, and said 

 he could not see how we could afford them at the 

 price I had named. As I had myself made many of 

 them, I went fully into detail, and seemed to satisfy 

 him that the higher wages naturally led to mechanical 

 contrivances, and that, in the case of the cylinders, 

 they were of the simplest possible kind, and yet as 

 labor savers that portion of the cost was reduced 

 below the cheaper labor in England; that, in the crude 

 materials, the iron and bars, the saving was made in 

 proportioning the parts to the work they had to per- 

 form, the American cylinder not weighing over two- 

 thirds that of the English. 



Laying on his table I noticed what appeared to be 

 samples of pliers, nippers, and a few such like tools. 

 I picked up a pair of pliers, and remarked that it 



looked like an American tool — not so clumsy as those 

 I had seen in use in shops I had visited. 



"Strange," said he; "they are samples from Stubs, 

 of Sheffield, and they are sent as the American pat- 

 tern," and, he supposed, were being introduced 

 under that as a distinctive name. 



He seemed greatly surpised when I told him they 

 were fairly entitled to be called the American pattern; 

 that the brothers B. & E. Clark, of Philadelphia, 

 watchmakers, in addition to their watch and clock 

 repairing business, kept a supply store of watch and 

 clock makers' materials, including tools; and in my 

 earliest recollection they were the only parties in 

 Philadelphia that kept on sale Stubs steel files, etc. 

 They were fine workmen and ingenious men, who 

 either altered English tools or made those they used 

 of such form and proportions as they found best 

 adapted for the general work they had to do. Sam- 

 ples of these were sent to Sheffield to be duplicated, 

 and for a considerable time they were the only parties 

 who kept them for sale; but they had spread until 

 they became universally adopted. That in Birming- 

 ham, I had noticed the same thing taking place in 

 general hardware — the class being made for the 

 American market materially differing from that for 

 home consumption, being generally lighter and more 

 elegant in form. That I had learned that in every 

 case the change had been made to conform to patterns 

 or drawings sent from the United States. 



He spoke of the feverish state of excitement among 

 his best skilled labor, owing to the glowing accounts 

 they received from brother workmen who had 

 emigrated, and he asked me as to their real condition. 

 Men he said who, on the English plan of division of 

 labor, were only perfect on a single branch, he did 

 not believe it possible could find constant employ- 

 ment on that — in a comparatively new country. 



I told him that he must bear in mind that America's 

 start in mechanical art was at the point England had 

 reached and without her prejudices. That the men 

 who at home would resist the introduction of labor- 

 saving machinery were glad to accept such as they 

 found in America, as by it they were enabled to turn 

 their hands to general work as it offered. I reminded 

 him of the English prejudices that years before had 

 led to the riots that destroyed the nail-cutting ma- 

 chines that Samuel R. Wood, of Philadelphia, was 

 endeavoring to introduce in England. Wood was a 

 member of the Society of Friends and non-combative, 

 and he left England in disgust. 



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