A VISIT TO THE BRITISH NEEDLE MILLS. 
515 
points are made before the piece o^ wire is divided in two. The point- 
ing immediately succeeds the rubbing, and consists in grinding down 
each end of the wire till it is perfectly sharp. The workman sits on a 
stool or " horse "' a few inches distant from the stone, and bends over it 
THE PROCESS OF "RUBBING." 
during his work. He takes fifty or a hundred wires in his hand at 
once, and holds them in a peculiar manner. He places the fingers and 
palm of one hand diagonally over those of the other, and grasps the 
wires between them, all the wires being parallel. The thumb of the 
left hand comes over the back of the fingers of the right, and the 
different knuckles and joints are so arranged, that every wire can be 
made to rotate on its own axis, by a slight movement of the hand, 
without any one wire being allowed to roll over the others. He grasp s 
them so that the end of the wires (one end of each) projects a small 
distance beyond the edge of the hand and fingers, and these ends he 
applies to the grindstone in the proper position for grinding them down 
to a point. It will easily be seen, that if the wires were held fixedly, 
