620 A VISIT TO THE BRITISH NEEDLE MILLS. 
Then ensues the tempering process. The needles are placed on an iron 
plate, heated from beneath and moved about with two little trowels un- 
til every needle has been gradually brought to a certain desired tempe* 
rature. 
We now leave the furnace-room and proceed to one of the upper 
rooms of the factory, where a multitude of minor operations are con- 
ducted. The needles have become slightly distorted in shape by the 
action of the heat in the processes just described, and to rectify this they 
undergo the operation of "hammer straightening." A number of females 
are seen seated at a long bench, each with a tiny hammer, giving a num- 
ber of light blows to the needles ; the needles being placed on a small 
steel block with a very smooth upper surface. This is rather a tedious 
part of the manufacture, the workwomen not being able to straighten 
more than five hundred needles in an hour, a degree of quickness much 
less than that which we have had hitherto to notice. 
We leave the tinkling hammers and follow the needles to the only 
part of the manufacture which involves apparatus other than of a small 
size. This is the "scouring" process. In one of the lower rooms of 
the factory are machines looking like mangles, or, perhaps more 
correctly, like marble-polishing machines, a square slab or rubber 
working to and fro on a long bench. The object of this process is to 
rub the needles one against another for a very long period, till the 
surfaces of all have become perfectly smooth, clean, and true. This is 
effected in a curious manner. A strip of thick canvas is laid open in a 
small hollow tray, and in this a heap of needles is laid, all the needles 
being parallel one with another, and with the length of the cloth. The 
needles are then, with soft soap, emery, and oil, tied up tightly in the 
canvas, the whole forming a compact roll about two feet long and three 
inches in thickness ; these are placed under the runners of the scouring 
machines, two rolls to each machine. A steam engine gives to the 
runners, by connected mechanism, a reciprocating or backward and 
forward motion, pressing heavily on the rolls of needles, and causing 
all the needles of each bundle to roll one over another. By this action 
an intense degree of friction is exerted among the needles, whereby 
each one is rubbed smooth by those which surround it. For eight 
hours uninterruptedly this rubbing or scouring is carried on, after 
which the needles are taken out, washed in suds, placed in new pieces 
of canvas, with a new portion of soap, emery, and oil, and subjected to 
another eight hours' friction. Again and again is this repeated, inso- 
much that for the best needles the process is performed five or six times 
over, each time during eight hours' continuance. This is one of the 
points in which the difference is shown between various qualities of 
needles, the length of the scouring being correspondent with the excel- 
lence of the production. 
Again we accompany the needles to another part of the factory, 
