168 THE METHOD OF HIRING SHOEING-SMITHS. 
profitableness to their employers. I am not about to complain of 
the rate of wages as paid to those who are active, clever, and 
steady,—such are valuable on any terms; but I will maintain, 
that we do not take the proper course to encourage good work¬ 
men, whom all masters will agree are a very scanty minority. 
Now, I consider that we are ourselves to blame in this; for so 
relax at present is the mode of hiring men, that any drunken va¬ 
gabond, however unpractised, equipped with a new apron and an 
old shooting-jacket, having impudence enough to call himself 
“ fireman,” may obtain employment, even in the best forges, 
without any inquiry as to the character he had left behind him at 
his last place. It may be weeks before a master finds out, in 
such a business as ours, that he is a shifting, careless, or ignorant 
hand, or has other faults which make him not do be depended 
on. If we then discharge him, he cares not; for by only going 
perhaps a few hundred yards distance, he may again get work ; of 
course demanding, in the same manner, high wages, because he 
says he can take either the foot or the fire, and has worked in 
good situations for improvement. 
If business is slack, and it should happen that he does not 
readily get a job, he draws an allowance from his club, and wan¬ 
ders from place to place, levying contributions of drink, &c. from 
the more industrious and steady men. In this manner they ac¬ 
quire such roving, irregular habits, that they become careless 
about pleasing their masters, or perfecting themselves as work¬ 
men ; but they increase mightily in conceit and impudence, by 
finding that high pretensions serve in the place of good character. 
They seldom get beyond mediocrity in their business, and set 
their faces against all improvement. In fact, it is too well known 
that they are very often the virtual masters in many forges; and 
if a master dismisses a bad set altogether, and puts himself to 
the inconvenience of introducing a fresh lot of men, he has no 
reason to expect, under the present system, that they may not 
turn 6ut as bad or worse than the former. In short, the men are 
combined, and their employers do not make the smallest ex¬ 
ertion in their own defence. 
The measure I am about to propose is nothing new or oppres¬ 
sive, or very troublesome ; for we always resort to it previous to 
hiring every other description of servant, even when they do not 
receive half the wages that Shoeing-smiths do. It is simply this, 
that no respectable practitioner should take a man into his ser¬ 
vice without minutely inquiring his character from the last place 
or places at which he worked; and also be ready, at all times, to 
give to our brethren an answer, fully and without reservation, to 
all proper questions. Why should we be particular in inquiring 
