was the principal consumer of his paper, stating that 

 I was an American traveler curious to see the manu- 

 factories of the country, that I had seen their em- 

 bossing presses at work (I had been introduced to 

 both Dobbs and De la Rue by W. H. Burgess, then 

 the landscape painter to the king, and I found them 

 most courteous gentlemen who had freely shown me 

 their presses in operation) Mr. Donkin thought with 

 such a letter I would be treated with civility and 

 probably be shown through the mill. In that case 

 a mere passing glance would be sufficient to tell 

 whether the pulp dresser was an infringement on 

 Ibotson or not. If I would consent to go Mr. Donkin 

 would procure the letter from Mr. De la Rue; there 

 could be no harm in that, but I must consider the 

 matter. 



I accompanied Mr. Ibotson home, arriving there 

 after dark. During the evening, as the mill was 

 running day and night, he proposed going through 

 it to see some of his improvements. 



Half stock at that time was bleached by the direct 

 action of chlorine gas in chambers or chests in which 

 Mr. Ibotson had made some arrangements of the 

 slat shelves on which the half stock was placed to 

 facilitate the handling, and to keep it so separated 

 as to insure the equalization of the gas on all portions. 

 By his arrangement he had shortened [the] time re- 

 quired, saved gas and consequently expense. These 

 chambers were arranged on both sides of a railway 

 passage, and as we were walking through, he told 

 his manager to open the chamber that the gas had 

 been longest cut off from, to show the condition of the 

 stock and the inner construction of the chamber. 

 The manager pointed out a chamber, but at the same 

 time cautioned against opening it before morning, or 

 at any rate to give it two or three more hours; but 

 Mr. Ibotson raised the latch and as the sliding door 

 fell, the heavy gas-like water poured on us. I was 

 suffering the latter stage of full catarrh now known 

 as hay fever, and the effect of inhaling the 'chlorine 

 gas was so suffocating that it came near ending me. 

 I was carried into the open air and pretty roughly 

 handled to restore respiration. The dose was a 

 heavy one, and both Mr. Ibotson and the manager 

 suffered from it. The next morning the latter told 

 me he had walked his room all night sipping new 

 milk, his sovereign remedy. I then learned that to 

 prevent such accidents on opening the chests, in 

 cases that the gas had not been entirely expended or 

 neutralized in the bleaching process, a trough open- 

 ing into the outer air with gates or valves was provided 



for each chest, and these were usually opened some 

 time before dropping the doors to discharge the stock 

 from the chests. This unfortunately had not been 

 done, and we suffered in consequence. Mr. Ibotson 

 proposed connecting all these openings with a box 

 trough and exhaust pan; I suggested instead, carrying 

 the box trough at an acute angle into the water of 

 the tail race, with its lower end cut to the angle at 

 which it entered the water that I believed the suction 

 of the rushing water, aided by the strong affinity of 

 chlorine for the hydrogen of the water, would rapidly 

 exhaust any chamber opened to it. I had the satis- 

 faction long after of learning that this had been 

 successfully adopted. 



On returning to London I found the letter from Mr. 

 De la Rue, and I took the evening stage coach for 

 Maidstone, Kent. 



The following morning proving pleasant, I walked 

 out to the mill to deliver my letter and try my luck. 

 The external appearance of the mill was rather for- 

 bidding; the windows of the main mill were small and 

 high from the ground; the mill yard had one side pro- 

 tected by the mill, the other three by a high brick 

 wall. The only entrance to it was by a high arched 

 gateway, with a small door in one of the folds. The 

 entrance to the mill was through an entry passing the 

 office, with windows and glass doors so arranged that 

 no one could pass in or out without being seen. The 

 mill race flanked one side of the mill, passing the long 

 one-story building in the rear, which the steam from 

 its ventilators showed to be the machine room. This 

 moat-like mill race — small windows and high yard 

 wall — gave the appearance of a fortified place, or jail. 

 It was hard to realize it was a paper mill, so unlike 

 our light, airy mills. In front of the mill was hitched 

 a horse, attached to a rather dilapidated gig; in the 

 door-way stood a man who might be a stable boy 

 watching the horse, or a sentinel guarding the en- 

 trance. Of this man I inquired where I could find 

 the master. With his thumb over his shoulder he 

 pointed towards the office. In an outer one were two 

 clerks; one of them, in reply to a similar inquiry, 

 answered as the man at the door had, by a thumb 

 pointed to a kind of inner office or box. 



I began to feel as if I was in a deaf and dumb 

 asylum, but this feeling did not last long. The master 

 sat at a desk that appeared to be covered with a con- 

 fused mass of papers. He was a short, thick-set, shock- 

 headed man, with a face disproportionately large for 

 his head. As he turned from his desk, he evidently 

 took my dimensions from head to foot. There was 



128 



