138 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



a mechanical tradesman in a country town, by which my life 

 would almost certainly have been shortened and my mental 

 development stunted by the monotony of my occupation. If 

 I had completed the year with Mr. Matthews, I should have 

 been formally apprenticed to him ; and if he had gone into 

 the City business afterwards, I should either have been passed 

 over to his successor at Leighton, or my training would have 

 been completed in London. This latter, though perhaps 

 better financially, would have been far worse for me mentally 

 and physically, since this wholesale business was the most 

 monotonous and mechanical possible, as I learned some years 

 afterwards when I visited the London office. To my 

 surprise I then found that the business, which brought in a 

 clear profit of about ;£"i200 a year, had no factory, no 

 machinery, no sign of watchmaking except in a very small 

 room behind the office, where a single workman examined 

 and tested the various portions of the watches as they were 

 brought in by the outside piece-workers, the whole business 

 being thus carried on in two small rooms in Bunhill Row. 

 The movements of the watches dealt in were purchased in 

 Coventry, where the various kinds in general use were 

 designed, the separate parts cast, machine-cut, and filed to 

 their proper gauges, and put together. The mainsprings 

 and balance-springs, chains, hands, dials, and cases were 

 usually purchased separately ; and for each class of watch a 

 fitter was employed, whose business it was to put the parts 

 together, find out any small defects, and correct them by 

 hand, while any larger defect in any particular part was 

 sent back to the workman or manufacturer responsible for it. 

 The man at the office made a final examination of the com- 

 pleted watches, tested their performance, corrected any minute 

 defect that was discoverable, and finally, in consultation with 

 one of the firm, determined the grade or quality of the watch 

 and the consequent price. What I should have learnt there 

 would have been how to fit a watch together, how to test 

 it for definite defects, how to judge of the design and work- 

 manship, how to keep accounts, pay the workmen, and pro- 

 bably to act as a traveller for the firm. But even if my health 



