514 A VISIT TO THE BRITISH NEEDLE MILLS. 
a gauge, consisting of a small piece of steel, perforated at the edge 
with eighteen or twenty small slits, all of different sizes, and each 
having a particular number attached to it. By this gauge the diameter 
of every coil of wire is tested, and by the number every diameter of wire 
is known. 
A coil of wire when about to be operated upon, is carried to the 
" cutting shop," where it is cut into pieces equal to the length of two 
needles. Fixed up against the wall of the shop is a ponderous pair of 
shears, with the blades uppermost. The workman takes, probably, a 
hundred wires at once, grasps them between his hands, rests them 
against a gauge to determine the length to which they are to be cut, 
places them between the blades of the shears, and cuts them by pressing 
his body or thigh against one of the handles of the shears. The coil is 
thus reduced to twenty or thirty thousand pieces, each about three 
inches long, and as each piece had formed a portion of a curve two feet 
in diameter, it is easy to see that it must necessarily deviate somewhat 
from the straight line. This straightness must be rigourously given to 
the wire before the needle making is commenced, and the mode by 
which it is effected is one of the most remarkable in the whole manu- 
facture. Around the walls of the shop we see a number of iron rings 
hung up, each from three or four to six or seven inches diameter, and a 
quarter or half an inch in thickness. Two of these rings are placed 
upright on edges at a little distance apart, and within them are placed 
many thousands of wires, which are kept in a group by resting on the 
interior edges of the two rings. In this state they are placed on a shelf 
in a small furnace, and there kept till red hot. On being taken out at 
a glowing heat, they are placed on an iron plate, the wires being 
horizontal and the rings in which they are inserted being vertical. The 
process of " rubbing " (the technical name for the straightening to which 
we allude) then commences. The workman, as here represented, takes 
a long piece of iron, and inserting it between the two rings, rubs the 
wires backwards and forwards, causing each to roll over on its own axis, 
and also over and under those by which it is surrounded. The noise 
emitted by this process is just that of riling ; but no filing takes place, 
for the rubber is smooth, and the sound arises from the rolling of one 
wire against another. The rationale of the process is this : — the 
action of one wire on another brings them all to a perfectly straight 
orm, because any convexity or curvature in one wire would be pressed 
©ut by the close contact of the adjoining ones. The heating of the wires 
facilitates this process, and the workman knows by the change of sound 
when all the wires have been " rubbed " straight. 
Our needles have now assumed the form of perfectly straight pieces 
of wire, say a little more than three inches in length, blunt at both ends 
and dulled at the surface by exposure to the fire. Each of these pieces 
is to make two needles, the two ends constituting the points; and both 
