﻿74 PICTORIAL MISCELLANY. 



make potteries in places like Staffordshire because clay is there. 

 But no reasons like these are given why the green little secluded 

 village of Redditch, away many miles from all factories and manu- 

 facturing towns, should make needles for all the ladies in the world. 

 But so it is. Away over by the Malvern hills, where no rail cars. 

 stage coaches or omnibuses ever go where nobody goes unless 

 they go on purpose - - is the village of Kedditch. On our way we see 

 women riding to and from Broomsgrove market (six miles distant) 

 on rough looking little horses, with panniers, on either side. Here, 

 too, we see white houses, striped with black lines to make them 

 prettier, while green fields, hills and hedges make the entry to the 

 village of Redditch appear vastly different from either English or 

 American manufacturing towns. 



A sudden turn in the road brings us at once to the village, whose 

 red brick houses form a striking contrast to the green fields around. 

 But to our readers a description of the place may be uninteresting. 

 We will try to give them some ideas of the manufacture itself. A 

 curious fact to the children will be this, that so many different work- 

 men should be employed in making so small a thing as a needle 

 and more curious still, that each department of the labor should be a 

 separate trade. But so it is. The man who anneals does not point ; 

 nor does the pointer make the eyes or polish the needle. Some- 

 work in factories, and some at their own houses ; but each follow:- 

 his own trade, and no man makes a whole needle. 



The number of needle-makers in Redditch is about three thou- 

 sand, and in the whole district, six or seven thousand. Many of 

 these are females. In the factories they have different rooms for 

 each part of the manufacture ; in some of the rooms only three or 

 four, in others a great many workmen are employed. A writer, who 

 has visited the British Needle Mills at Redditch, informs us that not 

 less than thirty different names are applied to the different processes 

 of needle-making. My young readers know that needles are made 

 of steel, but perhaps they do not know that needle-makers are not 

 wire-drawers. 



A coil of wire, when about to be operated on, is carried to the 

 " cutting shop," where it is cut into pieces equal to the length of two 

 of the needles about to be made. Fixed up against the wall of the 



