152 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



and in its technical part it shows considerable progress ; * 

 while at Thiers, where the cheapest sorts of cutlery are 

 made, the division of labour, the cheapness of rent for 

 small workshops supplied with motive power from the 

 Durolle river, or from small gas motors, the aid of a 

 great variety of specially invented machine-tools, and the 

 existing combination of machine-work with hand-work 

 have resulted in such a perfection of the technical part 

 of the trade that it is considered doubtful whether the 

 factory system could further economise labour.! For 

 twelve miles round Thiers, in each direction, all the 

 streamlets are dotted with small workshops, in which 

 peasants, who continue to cultivate their fields, are at 

 work. 



Basket-making is again an important cottage industry 

 in several parts of France, namely in Aisne and in 

 Haute Marne. In this last department, at Villaines, 

 every one is a basket-maker, " and all the basket-makers 

 belong to a co-operative society," Ardouin Dumazet re- 

 marks. + " There are no employers ; all the produce is 

 brought once a fortnight to the co-operative stores and 

 there it is sold for the association. About 150 families 

 belong to it, and each owns a house and some vineyards." 

 At Fays-Billot, also in Haute Marne, 1500 basket- 

 makers also belong to an association ; while at Thie*- 

 rache, where several thousand men are engaged in the 

 same trade, no association has been formed, the earnings 

 being in consequence extremely low. 



Another very important centre of petty trades is 

 the French Jura, or the French part of the Jura Moun- 

 tains, where the watch trade has attained, as known, 

 a high development. When I visited these villages 



* Prof. Issaieff in the Russian Memoirs of the Petty Trades Commission 

 (Trudy Kustarnoi Kommissii), vol. v. 



f Knives are sold at from 6s. 4<i. to 8s. per gross, and razors at 35. 3d. 

 per gross " for export ". 



I Ardouin Dumazet, vol. i., p. 213 et seq. 



