274 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



petty trades are as developed as they are in 

 Switzerland or in Germany. Sheffield is a well- 

 known example jp. point. The Sheffield cutlery 

 one of the glories of England is not made by 

 machinery : it is chiefly made by hand. There 

 are at Sheffield a number of firms which manu- 

 facture cutlery right through from the making of 

 steel to the finishing of tools, and employ wage- 

 workers ; and yet even these firms I am told 

 by Edward Carpenter, who kindly collected for 

 me information about the Sheffield trade let 

 out some part of their work to the " small 

 masters." But by far the greatest number of the 

 cutlers work in their homes with their relatives, 

 or in small workshops supplied with wheel-power, 

 which they rent for a few shillings a week. 

 Immense yards are covered with buildings, which 

 are subdivided into numbers of small workshops. 

 Some of these cover but a few square yards, and 

 there I saw smiths hammering, all the day long, 

 blades of knives on a small anvil, close by the 

 blaze of then: fires ; occasionally the smith may 

 have one helper, or two. In the upper storeys 

 scores of small workshops are supplied with 

 wheel-power, and in each of them, three, four, or 

 five workers and a " master " fabricate, with 

 the occasional aid of a few plain machines, every 

 description of tools : files, saws, blades of knives, 

 razors, and so on. Grinding and glazing are 



