INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 265 



Shipbuilding and the manufacture of metallic 

 tubes evidently belong to the great industry 

 (averages, 243 and 156 persons per establish- 

 ment) ; and the same applies to the two great 

 metallurgical works of the State, which employ 

 between them 23,455 workmen. 



Going over to the chemical works, we find 

 again a great industry in the fabrication of 

 alkalies and of matches (only twenty-five works) ; 

 but, on the contrary, the fabrication of soap 

 and candles, as well as manures and all other 

 sorts of chemical produce, which represents 

 nearly 2,000 factories, belongs almost entirely 

 to the domain of the small industry. The 

 average is only twenty-nine workpeople per 

 factory. There are, of course, half a dozen of 

 very large soap works one knows them only 

 too well by their advertisements on the cliffs 

 and in the fields ; but the low average of 

 twenty-nine workmen proves how many small 

 factories must exist by the side of the soap 

 kings. The 2,500 works engaged in the fabri- 

 cation of furniture, both in wood and in 

 iron, belong again chiefly to the small industry. 

 The small and very small factories swarm by 

 the side of a few great ones, to say nothing 

 of the thousands of the still smaller work- 

 shops. The great storehouses of our cities 

 are for the most part mere exhibitions of fur- 



