A Hertfordshire Valley. 17 



wire cage in an atmosphere of dreadful dust which might 

 represent the sweeping of all the London garrets. In 

 another room grimy girls were cutting up barge canvas, 

 potato sacks, tarpaulins, ropes, and other materials of the 

 marine store class. In another the " hands " were sorting 

 the rags soft pink rags for blotting-paper, and white rags 

 for white paper, blue and other colours being artificially 

 produced. Upstairs dressmakers' clippings and black odds 

 and ends of various materials were, after being boiled and 

 rinsed with lime-water, prepared for the soft whity-brown 

 paper in which madame's drapery purchases are wrapped. 

 Out of the stinking mass seething in the boiler would by- 

 and-by come the wholesome paper bags in which your 

 confectioner sends you your cracknels. Then came the 

 breaker-room, where, by an ingenious drum-washing ap- 

 paratus, rags were broken and cleansed. Next it was shown 

 how the rags were reduced to pulp, or as it is technically 

 termed, "half-stuff." 



By this time the choking dust and uncomfortable rags 

 had been left in the rear, the atmosphere was sweeter, and the 

 workpeople were much more wholesome in appearance. The 

 vats were full of yeasty-looking pulp, which, having passed 

 through a strainer, bore a resemblance to clean curds. The 

 pulp requires much refining before it leaves the vats, and 

 the material at each stage assumed a fairer quality, until it 

 descended to the machine-rooms, where what seemed to be 

 a number of printing presses were at work. Here the pulp 

 flowed in a smooth stream along a shoot, ran over several 

 miniature weirs, refining as it travelled, until it spread out 

 and became an almost impalpable sheet over a tightly 

 strained wire bed. Dryer and dryer it became, and at the 

 last weir the sheet went between two massive rollers of felt, 



c 



