Various
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 683
TOY-LAND
In a romantic and beautiful district of the Southern Tyrol, at no great distance from the town of Botzen, stands the flourishing village of St Ulrich. It is indeed more a small town than a village, and extends itself widely along the right bank of one of those rushing streams that dash through nearly every valley, and are fed by the melting of the snow on the lofty mountain-ranges of the neighbourhood. It contains several good and comfortable inns; and boasts of two churches, one of which is old and small; the other new and large, and handsomely carved and decorated outside, while in the interior, besides some richly painted windows and a good altar-piece, there is a great variety of statues and small figures, all of wood, most of them very delicately carved, and many of them, as well as much of the internal ornamentation of the church, tastefully gilt and coloured. This wood-carving is indeed the staple manufacture of the place, and has raised it to its present condition of evident prosperity. There are no signs of poverty anywhere visible; the people look healthy, happy, well fed and well clad, and their houses roomy and clean. Let us see how this pleasant state of matters has been brought about.
Wood-carving is the chief occupation of many a mountain village both in the Tyrol and in Switzerland; but in no place has it been carried to greater perfection or been entered into more thoroughly by the inhabitants than at St Ulrich. One branch of it indeed, the manufacture of wooden toys, particularly dolls, may be considered almost a speciality of the district; for the little town of St Ulrich is the great storehouse from which the chief toy-traders of Europe, we might almost say of the world, draw those rich and inexhaustible supplies which brighten so many nurseries and gladden the hearts of so many little ones. The art is said to have been introduced into the valley about the beginning of the last century, since which time it has been the principal employment of the inhabitants, male and female, young and old alike; for ancient grandfathers and grandmothers may be seen steadily pursuing the vocation that has been theirs from their earliest years; and as soon as the little boys or girls can be safely trusted with knives, they begin their rude endeavours to carve the form of some animal or toy which is the peculiar line of their family. This is one of the odd things in connection with the trade, that, as a general rule, each family or group of families has its own special department, from which they do not deviate. Some carve, some paint, some gild; the painters often working only in one particular colour; while the carvers constantly stick to the manufacture of one or two, or at the most of half-a-dozen animals, of certain toys or certain portions of toys and dolls, and so on through all the endless ramifications of their Lilliputian industry.
It is a most curious sight to watch them at work. They use no models, and work entirely by rule of thumb; long practice having made them so perfect that they turn out the tiny articles without the slightest hesitation, every one as precisely alike as if they had been cast in a mould. In this way are manufactured the varied collection of animals found in a Noah's Ark. Some families will cut out lions, tigers, camels, and elephants; others, sheep, oxen, and deer; others, chiefly birds; while another group will produce the wonderfully dressed little men and women popularly supposed to represent Noah and his seven human companions. The colouring of these productions is quite another branch of the trade; and while the carving goes on at all times with unabated regularity, the painting of the various articles is only added as they are required; that is, when orders come from the toy-dealers; and this frequently varies according to circumstances; so that the colouring and gilding business is not on the whole so steady and profitable as the carving.
There are several shops and warehouses where the articles thus manufactured are sold; but there are two leading merchants who act as wholesale exporters, buying the carved work either from the people themselves, or from minor agents, who realise a small profit by acting as middlemen. Permission can readily be obtained to visit those establishments; and it is a curious and amusing sight to walk through their vast repositories, and inspect the extraordinary collection of dolls and toys gathered together under one roof. The dolls are in themselves a very wonderful exhibition. There are rooms upon rooms quite filled with them, of every size and style, small and large, painted and unpainted; their size varying from tiny atoms scarcely an inch long, to huge figures of nearly a yard in length, most of them jointed, and the greater part uncoloured, and just as they came from the hands of the carver. They are carefully sorted according to their various sizes; and great shelves and cases in every direction are crammed with them. Some sizes are more popular than others; a very favourite length being about two inches; of this size one of the great doll-merchants of St Ulrich buys thirty thousand every week during the whole year! The makers of this kind can turn out about twenty dozen a day, each skilful worker; the painting being quite an after concern, with which the carvers have nothing to do. Here also are bins filled with wooden animals, also of different sizes and different degrees of excellence; for while some are merely roughly shaped and the production often of very young children, others are carved with very great care and dexterity, and are faithful representations of the creatures they are intended to imitate. All the numerous toys with which we are familiar in the shops, or which we have played with in childhood, here first spring into being. Noah's Arks, empty and full; armies of wooden soldiers on horseback and on foot; farmyards of various dimensions, stored with every article needful for the juvenile agriculturist; dolls' furniture of every shape and pattern; sets of tea-cups and saucers, and all kinds of domestic utensils; little wooden horses, little wooden carts. In short it is toys, toys everywhere; and even with all our experience of the capacity of children for acquiring such possessions, it is really difficult to credit the fact that this enormous manufacture and unceasing distribution go on, like the poet's brook, 'for ever.'
Quitting the premises, the visitor is still pursued by the prevailing occupation. Carts are coming and going, all carrying the one universal load – toys; while at every cottage door are seated some of the inmates, busily engaged with their own special branch of the trade; mothers singing to the children on their knee while they yet deftly carve a cow or a goat; old men and women whittling away, the ground at their feet strewed with the chips and shavings; and quite little boys and girls gravely cutting the portions intrusted to them, and soon acquiring a skill which enables them to add materially to the family gains. The men are usually employed on carving of a higher class, chairs, boxes, brackets, or on the superior quality of toys; as well as on that special branch which has attained very great perfection in St Ulrich, the cutting out and ornamentation of crucifixes, figures of Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints, and of numerous other articles employed for the decoration of churches and sacred buildings.
As we have already said, it is an interesting sight to watch the people at their work. They are very willing to gratify the curiosity of visitors, and will readily communicate all the information in their power regarding their trade and its emoluments. The trees from which the different articles are made are a soft kind of pine, very easily cut and worked. They grow in abundance in the district, and are the main source of its prosperity. But with this prosperity the steady and industrious habits of the people themselves have also much to do. The youngest members of a family begin to work as soon as they are able to do so; and this regular occupation is continued through life till the trembling fingers can no longer hold the carving-tools.
As a rule the inhabitants of St Ulrich are simple and domestic in their tastes; they are fond of flowers, and their little gardens are carefully cultivated, and gay with bright colouring. As yet their isolated position, remote from the track of the ordinary tourist, has preserved them from many of the hurtful follies and vices too often found in more frequented districts, and but few of the villagers have ever passed beyond the bounds of their own secluded valley. And yet this little hamlet has a world-wide reputation. The toys of St Ulrich have delighted generations long passed away; they are to be found in palace, hall, and cottage; in the populous cities and quiet country homes of Europe, in far-distant nurseries of Asia and America; and in all probability they will continue to be poured forth in inexhaustible profusion when this and many a succeeding generation have gone from the whirl and bustle produced by the less innocent toys and amusements of maturity, to that silent land whose shadows are still deeper than those of the dark and majestic pine-trees that close in round the little valley of St Ulrich.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS
We have more than once mentioned the Australian 'gum-tree' – Eucalyptus – and the remarkable properties by which it checks malaria and the noxiousness of marshes. Dr Angus Smith, F.R.S., whose valuable paper on Peat-bogs we noticed a few months since, believes that the neighbourhood of Rome, the malarious, unhealthy Campagna, might be rendered habitable by large plantations of the eucalyptus. He has visited the locality, and saw an experiment on a small scale, about four miles from Rome, which appeared to be satisfactory. 'As one enters the garden,' he says, 'there is a peculiar odour perceptible: it is fragrant, pleasant, and resinous; some compare it to that from turpentine, some to the black currant; but every one attempts to give the name of some other odour as evidently mixed with this more prominent one… This experiment shews that men may live in health in one of the worst parts of the Campagna with proper precautions. Instead of a neglected country with scarcely a house, it might be a pleasant habitation, as it once was, for many thousands… We are informed that the tree itself with its exhalation is quite sufficient to render a district healthy; and it is perfectly certain that if the oil is efficacious, and the evidence gives faith, those who live near must be continually taking in doses which must soon equal in amount that usually given as a cure. They must in fact be living in a constant vapour of this healing oil.' More on this interesting subject may be found in the Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Manchester, vol. 15.
At the last annual meeting of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (Falmouth) there was, as usual, an interesting display of works of art and mechanical inventions, and prizes were offered which may, perhaps inspire further inventions. As examples we mention five hundred pounds for the best boring-machine applicable to Cornish mines: fifty pounds 'for the discovery of a new mineral in Cornwall or Devon likely to become commercially valuable;' and 'for a method, mechanical or chemical, of making marketable, with commercial advantage, ores or minerals produced in Cornwall or Devon, and hitherto regarded as worthless, or of little value.'
The so-called diamonds in the Diamond Rock Drill are in reality carbonite, a mineral found in Brazil. When first offered for sale, the price was fourpence a carat; now it is from fifteen to twenty shillings. These pieces of carbonite being firmly set in a 'crown,' form a drill which, when driven by steam, will pierce the very hardest of rocks. According to the nature of the rock, the progress will be from one inch to two and a half inches a minute, which in ten hours would amount to a considerable number of feet. The wear of the carbonite is so small that in boring quartz, which is not a soft rock, to a depth of thirty feet, not more than one sixty-fourth of an inch would be worn off. The dangerous reef in the estuary of the Tees is in course of removal by means of the diamond drill. Holes are bored; blasting charges are inserted; the rock is blown to pieces; two thousand tons a day are lifted by a dredger; and the total cost for all this is not more than four shillings a cubic yard.
Mr Handyside exhibited at the Cornish meeting above mentioned a locomotive which will ascend steep slopes of one foot in ten, or one in eight if required, and therefore may be turned to good use in a hill-country. The Brenner Railway, by which trains cross from Tyrol into Italy, has a rise of one foot in forty: on railway lines generally one foot in eighty may be taken as an available gradient: hence it will be understood that a locomotive able to run straight up hill without miles of zigzag will admit of much economy in railway construction. This new locomotive has, at its rear, a drum wound round with a chain, and is provided with self-acting grips, which descend at the proper moment, and biting the sides of the rails, after the manner of a vice, so fix the locomotive to the spot that it becomes a stationary engine. Some of the wagons are fitted with similar grips, to prevent the train from running back during the ascent. When preparing to mount a hill, the free end of the chain is made fast to the foremost wagon; the locomotive moves on the whole length of the chain and fixes itself; the drum begins to turn, and by winding up the chain, hauls the train up; and this process is repeated until the hill-top is reached.
Here then is a new appliance for the engineering profession. Its capabilities have been proved, as stated in the Report, at the new Avonmouth dock, where a Handyside locomotive has hauled the excavated material from the bottom of the basin, and deposited it wherever required for filling on the top.
Other advantages possessed by this locomotive are: that it can be used with rails much lighter, and consequently less costly than those in general use: that the drum and chain facilitate the passage of curves: that a train of coal-wagons may be close coupled as a passenger train; and that its break-power is complete, and being applied to the sides of the rails, does not injure the surface that bears the traffic.
We are informed that a steam tram car has been invented at St Louis, United States, which travels seven miles in fifteen minutes. The boiler, cylinder, coal-box, and water-barrel are ingeniously planned to occupy as little space as possible; and the inventor states that 'under ordinary circumstances the cost of fuel will not exceed three shillings a day.' For further particulars, inquirers must write to St Louis.
On looking at a map, one often feels a desire to tell off-hand the distance between two places. Among the instruments exhibited at Falmouth, Morris' Patent Chartometer, which may be carried in the pocket as easily as a watch, will enable any one to get the desired information. The 'works' of the chartometer are moved by a wheel projecting on one side. To measure any distance on a map, we are told it is only necessary to hold the instrument upright, and run the wheel along the line between two places, or the course of a river, or the sinuosities of a coast, and the indicating fly denotes the number of miles or parts of a mile. The distance is shewn at once, without the trouble of calculation, which is an important advantage. A Patent Measuring Instrument, by the same maker, is described as 'somewhat similar in character, being run along the surface to be measured. It measures up to one hundred feet; and is of the size of an ordinary watch.'
The practice of using leather belts for transmission of power in foundries and factories, which prevails largely in the United States, has been imitated in Lancashire and Yorkshire with satisfactory results. With belts there is less noise and less vibration than with iron shafting and bevelled wheels; the walls of the building are consequently not weakened by perpetual shaking, and diminution of roar and rattle cannot fail to be a benefit to all concerned. Nevertheless leather belts are costly articles, and if hemp could be substituted for leather there would be a saving of two-thirds of the cost. This has been proved in Dundee, where in one of the factories (Messrs A. & J. Nicholl's) rope-gearing is used for transmission of power to all parts of the building, and during an experience of five years, has given full satisfaction. The size of the ropes varies with the work required; the largest, in the instance here under notice, being six and a half inches circumference. The power is communicated directly from the fly-wheel, the rim of which, instead of cogs, is filled with circumferential V-shaped grooves. The 'life' of a rope is said to be from three to five years, though some ropes last much longer; which considering that they travel from three thousand to six thousand feet per minute, may be regarded as long enough.
The Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers contains a description of Frisbie's Mechanical Fire-feeder – a contrivance which economises fuel, increases heat, and saves trouble when applied to the fireplace of a steam-engine or furnace. Underneath the fireplace is a mechanism which carries a movable hopper; the hopper is filled with coal, and by the turning of a winch, is raised until the fresh coal is pressed against the bottom of the fire. The smoke, having to rise through an existing fire, is nearly all consumed; and the pressure from below breaks up the clinkers, and causes them to fall away to the circumference of the fireplace, from any part of which, as the bars are made to rotate, they can be easily removed. Among the advantages of this method are: that 'the fire is not reduced in intensity by the cold fuel damping the flame,' as is the case in fireplaces of the usual construction: that 'each successive charge of fuel lifts up and most effectually pokes the fire:' that 'the cooling of the furnace by the admission of a large volume of cold air when the fire-doors are opened for stoking, is avoided;' and that 'a smokeless flame is readily attainable with a thick fire, although using smaller fuel than can be employed in ordinary furnaces.' Accepting this information, it is not out of place to mention that the furnace by which steam is generated for driving the machinery by which this Journal and our other works are printed, is fed upon a somewhat similar principle. Small coal (dross) is placed in a hopper at the near end of the furnace, and rests upon and is gradually carried into the interior and on to the far end (where it is dropped as clinkers) by closely connected parallel bars which traverse the furnace from end to end and slowly revolve round a 'drum.' The strength of the fire is regulated by a door, which may be raised or lowered by a winch, to admit of a greater or less supply of fuel, as necessity may indicate. The result is that combustion begins at the near end of the furnace, the smoke is consumed before it can reach the flue, a steady fire is maintained without admitting an unnecessary amount of cold air or necessitating the constant attendance of a fireman, and the economical desideratum of a perfect smoke-consuming apparatus is achieved. The apparatus goes by the name of Jukes' Patent, and has been in constant use for over twenty years. In comparison with ordinary furnaces, a saving of seven per cent. of fuel is effected. Why this patent apparatus for prevention of smoke is not in universal use, we cannot explain.