RUBBER GOODS 87 



stockings, made of rubber thread, for bad legs, and 

 false teeth on a plate of vulcanite, which is chiefly 

 rubber. Travellers take rubber baths and rubber 

 cushions about with them. Golfers play with rubber 

 balls. Machinery would be at a standstill without 

 rubber belting. What an inconvenient world this 

 must have been to live in less than a hundred years 

 ago, when anything made of rubber was a novelty ! 

 And there is no telling how much more comfortable 

 and convenient rubber may make life in days not so 

 very long ahead. For it is a most active assistant of 

 progress, so much so that it is now helping man to fly. 



Knowing the form in which rubber goes into the 

 manufacturer's possession, and a few, at any rate, 

 of the many forms in which it next makes a public 

 appearance, we are naturally very anxious to learn 

 how such transformations take place. It is impossible 

 for me to take you over a rubber goods factory, much 

 as I should like to do so. All such establishments 

 keep very strictly to the rule of " No admittance except 

 on business." There are secrets to be hidden, not from 

 the public, but from a rival manufa^cturer. You must 

 quite understand that no offence is meant to you 

 personally when no exception can be made in anyone's 

 favour in case some rival's friend should slip through. 



You need not be very disappointed — enough is 

 known of the way rubber goods are made to satisfy 

 much of your curiosity. 



The manufacturer must always bear in mind that 

 he must fulfil two important conditions : first, his goods 

 must serve the purpose for which they are intended, 

 and next, the price which customers will pay has to be 

 taken into consideration, with the idea of producing 



