June 1, 1889.] 



♦ KNOV/LEDGE ♦ 



IGl 



CANDLES. 



By W. Mattieu Wiliiams. 



N the " good old times," as some folks call them, 

 candles were made at home. In these good 

 times those parts ot England that were not 

 Viarren sandy heaths were well supplied with 

 Bwamps, in which rushes grew abundantly 

 and without artificial cultivation. These 

 rushes were gathered, soaked, and peeled by 

 children and old women, as Gilbert White tells us. He 

 also adds that " the careful wife of an industrious Hamp- 

 shire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing, for she saves 

 the skimmings of the bacon-pot for this use, and if the 

 grea.se abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate 

 to the bottom by setting the scummings in a warm oven." 

 He, however, omits to mention the water in which this 

 melted fat was made to float, and which took away the 

 precipitated salt by dissolving it. 



The rushes used for candle-making have an axis of pith, 

 which after peeling forms a very porous thin stick or rod, 

 just stifl' enough to be dipped in the bath of melted fat 

 without yielding. The first dip fills the pores, and on cool- 

 ing the rod becomes much stiffer. Then it is dipped again 

 and again ; at each dipping a fresh film of fat is picked up 

 until the required thickness is obtained, and thus the primi- 

 tive rushlight was made. Whether .such candles are still 

 extant I cannot tell, but I well remember them in common 

 use as night-lights when I had the mea.sles. They were sold 

 in London for this purpose, as they required no snutfing. 



The next stage was the substitution of cotton for the 

 rush to form the wick. This was accompanied by the in- 

 dustry of collecting " kitchen stuff"," .and mixing it with 

 slaughter-house refuse, which were melted down to form 

 the home supply of tallow. With the growth of bad habits 

 in respect to late hours, further supplies were demanded 

 and obtained from other countries — such, for example, as the 

 famous brand of P.Y.C. (Petersburg yellow candle) from 

 Russia. 



These innovations gradually superseded the domestic 

 manufacture and introduced an intermediate stage, viz., the 

 manufacture of candles by the retailers thereof. One of 

 these e.stablishments in the neighbourhood of Leicester 

 Square happened to fall under my own observation when a 

 schoolboy, and I will therefore describe the public exhi- 

 bition which affoi'ded much gratification and instruction to 

 self and schoolfellows. The manufacture both of " dips " 

 and " moulds " was conducted in the ba.sement, or kitchen 

 story of the tallow-chandler's shop, and all the mysteries 

 were visible through a grating opening into the street. 



The first stage of the dips was the preparation of the 

 wicks to make them hang perpendiculaily. This was done 

 by simply dipjiing the end of each into the melted tallow, 

 and thus forming a knob of tallow, which acted on the 

 cotton like the bob of a plummet. Some dozens of wicks 

 thus prepared were suspended in rows on an oblong frame. 

 A v.at just large enough to receive all these wicks was filled 

 with melted tallow. Into this the suspended wicks were 

 dipped three times, and thus received their first coating. 

 This frame was then suspended in its ])lace near the ceiling, 

 and another similarly prepared brought down and dipp?d, 

 then another, and so on, until the first was cool enough for 

 a second coating. This was repeated \intil the requisite 

 thickness was obtained. The suHiciency was tested by 

 weighing the frame and its contents. Careful adjustment 

 of the temperature of the melted tallow is necessary : if too 

 hot it would melt away some of that already deposited around 

 the wicks ; if not hot enough it would deposit a coating with 

 lumps or blobs. Winter was the busy dipping so;ison. 



The mould candles were made by pouring the melted 

 tallow into a siiallow trough, into the bottom of which were 

 fitted a number of pewter tubes with coniciil terminations, 

 and well polislied inside. Down the axis of each of these 

 tubes a wick was stretched, terminating in a knot that was 

 drawn up to the small bole at the conical end, through 

 which hole the wick had been threaded. The melted tallow, 

 of course, flowed down these tubes, and thus the candle was 

 cast or moulded. 



The dips were for common use, the mould candles for 

 drawing-rooms, fur Sundays and evening parties. In those 

 days ordinary people dined at dinner-time, and did not call 

 it lui;cheon. Very superfine people used wax candles at 

 3s. Qr!. per lb., or spermaceti candles at even higher prices, 

 and dined at tea-time (5 p.m., and even later). Dining at 

 supper-time was not yet invented, but the cost of winter 

 banquets and evening parties was greatly exaggerated by 

 the expense of lighting the salons of the luxurious, and 

 candles were charged among the items of hotel bills — a 

 practice that continued until recently on the Continent. 



The snuffing of the tallow candles was a troublesome 

 business ; snuffers and snuffer trays, now preserved in 

 antiquarian museums, were ordinary and necessary articles 

 of domestic furniture. The wax and spermaceti candles 

 consumed their own wicks, but those of the tallow candles 

 formed ugly carbonaceous lumps in the mid.-t of the hollow 

 flame, rendering it smoky and hideou.s, as well as dangerous, 

 owing to tli« liability of the red-hot carbonaceous excrescence 

 to fall. 



One of the first applications of scientific principles to 

 candle-making was the " patent metallic snuffle.ss wick." 

 The cotton of this was jilaited, and through it ran fine wires 

 of fu.sible metal. The plaiting was so devised that on 

 liberation of its end by the melting of the tallow the wick 

 split out into a sort of angular fork, each branch of which 

 carried its own metal filament. As the ends of these melted, 

 they weighed down their respective branches in such wise 

 that they each leaned over nearly horizontally, and thus pro- 

 jected to the outside of the flame before reaching its middle 

 height. 



As the flame of a candle is but a hollow shell, the interior 

 being filled with unburnt gas, and the inside even of the 

 shell of flame itself being ill-supplied with oxygen, the 

 cotton within cannot burn; but on coming through this 

 shell of flame to the outer air it burns readily, being there 

 highly heated and well supplied with oxygen. Thus the 

 cotton of the two outspreading and somewhat pendent 

 forks of the patent wick was reduced to impalpable ash, 

 and its metallic portion to a fine powder of oxide, which fell 

 away as practically invisible dust. Further improvements 

 in the twisting or plaiting of the wicks causing them to 

 droop over in untwisting rendered the metallic filament 

 unneces.sary. 



The next and most important step was founded on the 

 researches of Chevreul, to which 1 alluded when on the 

 subject of so,ap in the January number of Knowlkdoe. As 

 may be remembered, tallow is composed of fiitty acids united 

 with glycerine. This being known, a natui'al question 

 .arises, Are they both of equal value .as illuminating agents, 

 or, if not, which is the besti By simply casting a little of 

 each into a fire and oKserving the result, this question is 

 answered : the fatty acid burns brilliantly, while the 

 glycerine burns with difficulty, giving a dull huid tlame ; 

 it is, in fact, but barely comljustibleat all. Their respective 

 compositions explain this difference. 



The fatty acids, broadl)' speaking, are hydrocarbons, the 

 glycerine a carbohydrate — i.e., the first is composed of 

 hydrogen and carbon, the second of "water and carbon, or 

 the elements of water and carbon. In the first, the hydrogen 



