ON THE MANUFACTURE OE MATCHES IN NEW YORK. 167 



slices the wood into thin pieces with great rapidity. The thin slips are 

 then gathered and put into packs, which are grooved by machinery, and 

 after being glued together by hand, are pasted over with paper. The covers 

 are made in the same way. 



The round wooden boxes are made by machinery, in Connecticut and 

 New Hampshire. The material is furnished by the pine saplings which 

 are the second growth of oak lands. A vast quantity of these saplings are 

 used for this purpose, and the country in some places for miles is entirely 

 cleared of them in this way. It is found that this material is not only 

 cheaper, but better than full grown timber. These boxes are sent to New 

 York in packing-cases containing thirty-six gross each. The covers a,nd 

 boxes are packed separately. 



The boxes are all labelled by women and girls. This is very rapidly 

 done ; a good practiced hand being able in a day to label about thirty-six 

 gross, besides putting the sand on the bottom of the boxes. The sand is 

 put on very quickly. The bottom of the box first receives a smearing of 

 glue, and is then dipped into a pile of sand, which of course adheres to the 

 box sufficiently to form a rough surface to produce the necessary friction 

 on the match. 



The manufacture of matches gives employment to a large number of 

 persons, principally children, who make from twenty-five to seventy-five 

 cents per day, working generally about ten hours. They work by the piece, 

 and, of course, the amount they receive depends upon their industry and 

 aptness for the business. The average amount received by all persons may 

 be pretty nearly arrived at, from the fact that Mr Charles Partridge, who 

 is, perhaps, more extensively engaged in the match business than anyone 

 in the United States, pays out to the hands employed in his factory, six 

 hundred dollars every Saturday night, on an average nearly five and a- 

 half dollars (23s.) to each person employed. 



Besides the persons who work regularly in the factories, there are a large 

 number of persons engaged in the manufacture of boxes and splints, who 

 perform their work at their own houses. These persons are all Germans, 

 who live in the suburbs of the city. The splints they make are the round 

 ones, which they manufacture principally out of old masts and other spars, 

 and such timber as they can buy cheaply or obtain in another way at less 

 cost ; but lumber merchants having yards up-town, know too well that a 

 good many feet of their lumber are burned in matches for which their 

 cash books show no account. These round splints are cut by those who 

 make them with an instrument shaped like a long stave plane, only the 

 knife, instead of being smooth like that used in the plane, is cut into a 

 number of very sharp small cylinders, across which the wood is forced, 

 and, instead of shavings, match-splints are the result. These splints, as 

 originally made, vary in length from twelve inches to three feet, according 

 to the length of clear stuff between the knots in the timber from which 

 they are cut. 



The amount of timber used in making matches is really enormous, 



