9H THE TROPICAL 
The creamy sugar which we have seen boiled and 
manipulated for the next process is poured into 
moulds made of starch. "We find ourselves in the midst 
of stacks upon stacks of these square moulds, flanked 
by bench after bench of men and boy moulders. 
Wherever labour is divided by machinery or hand, 
one operation dependent upon another, there is no 
time for idleness. The machine, human or other- 
wise, must be kept going. Here moulds are filled and 
emptied with a steady and effective monotony. On 
one side the sugar cream is poured into the moulds 
from handy funnels; on the other, when solidified, 
resultant creams are collected for ultimate coating 
with chocolate. Leaving the moulding rooms we 
seem to drift to and fro into various other departments 
where thousands of trained dainty fingers are giving 
the finishing touches to fancy forms of creams and 
plain chocolates that gradually develop into all kinds 
of boxes, from the cheap popular little bonhon boxes 
to the handsome and artistically arrayed and decorated 
cabinet of mixed sweets fit for the notice of a 
Princess. 
And now once more in the fresh air we make the 
acquaintance of the engines and boilers all on the 
most perfect scale, even to the oldest mechanical 
servant of the firm, a great old beam engine of the 
melancholy mad-elephant kind described by Dickens. 
It has been in use over fifty years, and in its present 
site was erected the first engine that Boulton and 
Watt introduced to Bristol. The old-fashioned but 
powerful engine has been supplemented by many 
others. It takes eight powerful sets to drive the 
works in these days. They would be a surprise to 
the writer of a paragraph in the Uuiy and Koncich 
Post, of June 6, 1798, could he once more visit the 
glimpses of the moon. "Since the great improve- 
ment of the steam engine," he wrote on that particular 
date, " it is astonishing to what a variety of manu- 
factiu-es this useful machine has been applied ; yet it 
does not a little excite our surprise that one is used 
for the trifling object of grinding chocolate ; it is, 
however, a fact, or at least we are credibly informed, 
that Mr. Fry of Bristol, the maker of the famous 
Churchman's chocolate, has in his new manufactory 
one of these engines (improved by Mr. Jones, an 
ingenious millwright of that city) for the sole purpose 
of manufacturing chocolate and cocoa, Either the 
consumption of this little article must far exceed our 
ideas, or, which we think much more likely, a very 
large portion of what is drunk in this kingdom must 
be made by him." This is the very thought that 
occurs to us after walking for hours over only one 
of the four main factories that rise aloft tier upon 
tier, with their tall smokestack, giving employment to 
more than two thousand people. Fry's had been 
established some half a century when the NorKich 
paragi-aphist quipped about the "little article" of 
cocoa, and yet with four factories e.n bloc and several 
outsiders there is still room for competition in the 
supply of the United Kingdom, which in 1891 paid 
duty on 21,601,825 lb. 
The water supply for the eight sets of engines is 
obtained from the river Frome which runs under the 
factories a prisoner beneath stone arches, the old 
story of the bright and cheery brook arrested on its 
way through pleasant meadows for various industrial 
Eui-poses, dammed up to turn a mill, then released for a 
rief freedom to be the playmate of village children, 
to floating tiny boats and murmuring beneath ancient 
bridges, finally, to be caught and imprisoned under 
city roads and compelled to feed the boilers of hot and 
Rteaming-engine houses. If the Frome were sentient, 
the strong child of the Avon might be content to 
know that it was helping to produce the pretty boxes 
of chocolate creams that come to happy children at 
Christmas time, not to mention those canisters of 
cocoa extract that give wholesome drink to thousands 
of buHy pcoijle. " We shall want a larger supply than 
the Froujc can give us," remarks our guide, "when 
the new factory is finished," and he draws our atten- 
tion en pamnnt to a block of buildings in course of 
rrcction. Here wo have an opportunity of noting the 
principle upon whicli all tlic factories are constructed. 
Each floor is supported by iron pillars, with girders 
and cross girders, the spaces between the girders being 
AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1892. 
filled with slate pavements; where stone is used it is 
Cornish pranite. The completion of the new factory 
will increase the number of hands employed to 
between two and three thousand men, women and girls. 
It is a surprising story, the multifarious operations 
thatbelon - to the production of a cup of cocoa or a 
chocolate cream. 
Incidentally we ought to mention that traversing one 
of these factories and parts of the other four, making 
excursions over bridges from street to street, we have 
noted with pleasure evidences of the care both physi- 
cal and moral which the firm takes of its work- 
people, more particularly of the younger members of 
their staff. More than once we have passed through 
meal-rooms and school-rooms. The firm provides the 
means of cooking in the factories, and the great 
majority of the young people only leave the works to 
buy their daily food or to supplement the tea and 
dinner baskets with some trifles from the adjacent 
markets. In one of the main factories we came upon 
a large and handsome lecture room which is also once 
a week used as a night school, once for boys and 
once for girls, the firm providing them with teachers. 
Every morning at a quarter to nine, one of the 
seniors of the firm attends in the lecture room aijd 
reads a chapter in the Bible; and a hymn is also read. 
The hall is occasionally lent to them for meetings 
of their own, the employers and employed are evi- 
dently on the best and most friendly terms vi'ith 
each other. There are also sick clubs and other 
ort anizations of creat usefulness connected with the 
factories, and indeed the whole concern is conducted 
as if the persons engaged belong to a special com- 
munity outside and apart from the busy city to which 
it has given the name of " the cocoa metropolis." 
We have already seen how the growth of great 
industries has compelled manufacturers to extend their 
businesses in directions never contemplated at the 
outset. Fry's is a remarkable instance. Besides 
chocolate makers, they are engineers, boxmakers, 
carpenters, tinworkers, and are concerned in various 
other occupations. Beyond the factories we have 
described, we found ourselves driving in cabs andtramjo- 
ing through the ancient ways, visiting other concerns 
that belong to them and are an integral part of their 
main business. Our first visit was to Wapping, where 
they have a steam saw-mill with all kinds of imple- 
ments, circular, whip and other saws, planers, nailers, 
and what not on the newest principles. The nailing- 
machines are ingenious contrivances ; they work auto- 
matically, are fed with nails and supplied with boxes 
in sections which, passed from hand to hand, from 
machine to machine, are completed with remarkable 
rapidity. There is a new saw here, circular and 
pliable, which cuts two planks at one operation and 
does not need to be fed ; one man gives it occasional 
attention. Fenced off in the mill are several printing 
machines for labelling the box lids. How many 
separate packets these boxes are made to hold it 
would be drfficult to say, but the firm in its Wapping 
carpentry turn out some thousand dozens of thtm 
every week. After inspecting the mechanical work 
of the mill, we entered the store-rooms to find what 
almost seemed to be acres of boxes ready for use. 
From Wapping we drove to the county gaol. It 
is many years since the present writer visited this 
once formidable house of detention, the occasion 
being the arrest of Sir William Don, while that 
"tall monumental warning" of reckless expenditure 
(as he , called himself in one of his local speeches) 
was fulfilling an engagment at the Bristol Theatre 
in King Street. Those were the days before the 
abolition of arrest for debt, when the bailiff though 
shorn of much of his power was still a formidable 
officer. Sir William was a good deal put out when 
he was not allowed to finish the play in which he 
was acting ; but great sympathy was shown for him, 
and he found exceptional accommodation at the 
castle, where the Governor, Mr. Gardener, gave up 
to him one of his own private rooms and made his 
brief incarceration as pleasant to him as possible. 
This included a very agreeable luncheon the next 
day, at which I was a guest. Sir William related 
to UB some of his numerous adventures. One may 
be excused after all these years for feeling a curio 
