THE ARMS TRADE OF BELGIUM. 153 
ing bundles of gun-barrels on their heads. The guns come back to the 
manufacturer after six or seven months. The setter-up brings twenty 
or twenty-five at a time. Another loss of two or three days occurs in 
examining these arms. Two or three guns will be rejected, and this loss 
will fall on the workman, who is probably in debt, having been so long 
without receiving any wages. The wages of several months' labour are 
paid to him at once, exposing him to temptation and robbery. It is not 
surprising if these two classes live in a state of chronic pauperism. 
They are generally ill-lodged, ill-provided with tools, stinted of air and 
space. It is common to see a stocker or a setter-up obliged to work and 
sleep in the same room, surrounded with a family, and perhaps 100 
guns. 
The only hands employed on the gunmakers' premises are a few 
lock-filers, to assist the comptroller in inspecting the guns when they 
come from the stocker, and to put the locks into working order. This 
class of men are called " rhabilleurs," or " platineurs de recette." The 
lock-filers are generally a superior class, each master having often a work- 
shop in the country and a number of journeymen. It is a trade somewhat 
trying to the chest. In case of an excessive demand, over- work often in- 
duces consumption, from the pressure of the centre-bit on the chest. The 
gun furniture is all made likewise in little forges round the town. Of 
course, in cases of pressure, the gunmaker has to send repeatedly to get 
in all these pieces. A gun has to go in and out of the maker's premises 
about two hundred times before it is finished, and to pass through twenty 
different hands. Such a system must be often productive of incon- 
venience and of heterogeneous styles of workmanship. 
Liege possesses five factories, properly so called, for the manufacture 
of arms, — viz., the Royal Cannon Foundry, the Royal Gun Factory, the 
Barrel Works of Val-Benoit, the Musket Factory of Messrs. Falisse and 
Trapman, the Eevolver Factory of M. Francotte. Val-Benoit is the 
only mill in Belgium where barrels are rolled by machinery. It was 
first established by the Cockerill Company, but was closed in 1835. 
The great difficulty was to obtain a good coke iron for barrels, such as 
till lately Mr. Marshall, of Wednesbury, alone produced. This was at 
last achieved by the celebrated Iron Works of Seraing. Their barrel 
iron is described by some as superior even to charcoal iron. Thanks to 
this result, Val-Benoit was again opened, and is now organised so as to 
turn out about 400 barrels per day. They are made from slabs ten or 
twelve inches long. These are first bent in their whole length by means of 
grooved bending-rolls until they assume the form of short rough tubes* 
called there "carottes," their opposite edges being brought to meet without 
overlapping. They are then laid on the hearth of a reverberating 
furnace, brought to a full welding heat, and then repeatedly passed 
between grooved rollers of gradually decreasing grooves. The barrels 
of Val-Benoit are not considered to be quite equal to hand-forged 
barrels ; but in seasons of pressure they are employed promiscuously 
