472 Sham Employers. [August, 
to bring out good results, these are often refused by the 
tyrannical “ Sham,” who with an unblushing face in the 
commercial world boasts of the purity of his manufactures, 
and praises his chemist for the great ingenuity and skill he 
has displayed in the erection of most impossible plant ; at 
the same time the poor chemist is plodding away with his 
make-shift apparatus, and struggling hard with his impure 
reagents to get his results corredf, as his percentage is gene- 
rally high above the mark. Let us take a glimpse at his 
laboratory : — On first entrance the place appears to be a 
ricketty hovel of a few panels nailed together. Along these 
panels a few shelves are set, and placed on these shelves we 
see a series of straggling bottles, of divers sizes, containing 
the reagents already mentioned, which, when pure, are the 
analyst’s principal weapon. Near, a little dirty window, 
which it is impossible to see through ; but if it were possible 
the look-out would not charm your fancy, as a series of not 
over-firm pillars sustaining the vitriol chambers meet the 
view, and it is not at all pleasant to reflect that through the 
penuriousness of an employer a few score tons of vitriol and 
lead may at any time pay respects to your cranium, when 
the only solace awarded would be a word of posthumous 
pity from the local press. The balance before us when 
new might have weighed the tenth of a grain, but now in its 
old age persistently refuses to turn clearly with one grain. 
Our harassed chemist is sitting, trying to make a quick and 
accurate weighing of a soda-ash, the results of which must 
be forwarded to head-quarters in ten minutes, and must 
exactly agree with the report of another independent analyst 
whose laboratory contains every modern appliance, whose 
balance will turn to a nicety with the five-hundredth part of 
a grain, and whose standard solutions are made up with the 
purest acids, while our hard-working technical chemist is 
begrudged his pure reagents when they have to be bought, 
and his standard acid must be made up of the crude pyrites- 
produCt manufactured in the Works, and contaminated with 
iron and arsenic. His weighing is scarcely effected when a 
Mercury from the office enters, and states that the 
“ Guv’nor ’s in a fearful fury, and says that he ’s taking all 
day about that analysis.” Our analyst was perspiring before, 
but now his nervous excitement predominates, as he knows 
what his master is. He now proceeds to titrate, and, having 
finished doing so, takes his reading and calculates, and finds 
to his horror that he is 2 per cent too low. What is to be 
done ? There is no time for repetition. During his dilemma 
his employer enters, and uses language which dare not be 
