152 THE ARMS TRADE OF BELGIUM. 
or transhipment, Antwerp being deficient in trans-Atlantic steam com- 
munication. With the exception of France, Austria, and Prussia, most 
European as well as American Governments, buy more or less of their 
muskets at Liege. The best customers have been the United States and 
the United Kingdom. Their demand has now entirely ceased. Large 
orders are now on hand for Russia and Italy. 
The following distinct trades are employed in the manufacture of a 
musket. The barrel-maker, band-maker, percussioner (" system eur "), 
ramrod-maker, lock-maker, trigger-guard-maker, bayonet-maker, lock- 
ing-ring-maker (" embagleur "), screw-maker, stock-maker, setter-up, 
and nipple-maker. None of these use machinery properly so called. 
All but the first do their work at home by manual labour. The barrel- 
makers use small water-mills for the purposes of forging, grinding, and 
boring the barrels. This industry is carried on all over the arrondisse- 
ment wherever water-power is available, by a thriving class of artisans 
called "usiniers." They generally buy their own iron and sell the 
barrels to the " fabricants d'armes," thus often amassing good fortunes. 
A few " fabricants " of the highest standing buy their iron and have it 
forged themselves. Barrels ought to be made of tough charcoal iron, 
the best of which is supplied by the furnaces of Chimay, Couvin, 
Pieton-sur-Meuse, Bouillon, and Annevoye. It is sold in the form of 
short flat slabs. 
These slabs are hammered by water power into long flat quadrangular 
slabs or " skelps " called " lames a canon," about three feet long, thicker 
and wider at one end. The skelp-forger (" marteleur ") with two 
assistants can forge about eighty or ninety skelps in ten hours. The 
next operation, that of welding the barrel, is accomplished by hammer- 
ing the skelp on a grooved anvil, thus turning up the edges over a 
mandril and welding them together in lengths of two inches at a time, 
each length being exposed to three or four welding operations with 
alternating high and low heats. A good workman will weld three 
barrels in ten hours' labour. The lump or nipple-seat is next welded 
on. The price of a rough barrel in this state is about 5 francs. It then 
undergoes a series of operations called "usinage," (chiefly boring, 
grinding, and straightening), which, as practised in the Royal Factory, 
will be described below. Boring as now practised is assisted by the 
pressure of the workman's body. It is so severe a labour as often to 
induce deformity. Grinding is attended with some danger from the 
occasional rupture of the mill-stones. 
When the barrel comes from the " usine " it has to go to one man to 
be breeched, to another to be garnished, to a third to be percussioned, 
to a fourth to be drilled for the touch-hole, to a fifth to be rifled, to a 
sixth to be stocked, to a seventh to be polished and set up. The stocker 
and setter-up come to the counting-house with their wives and appren- 
tices to fetch their pieces of work, thus losing a day on the journey and 
at the tavern. Women are constantly seen in the streets of Liege carry- 
