The smiths’ foreman is the very personification of his class, and is a highly interesting study. He is of great stature — he is over six feet in height — with broad, square shoulders and large limbs; fleshy, but not corpulent. His forehead is wide and steep; he has bushy brows, iron grey hair and beard, and red cheeks. His eyes are frank and honest; his voice deep and gruff, but not unkind; and when he speaks to you he looks you full in the face. His whole figure is striking; he towers above the majority of his workmen. His weight, as he tells you himself, with a mixture of pride and modesty and the suspicion of a smile, is nineteen stone six. After this he hastens to inform you that he is not the heaviest at his house, for his good wife turns the scale at twenty-two stone. He has been once married and is the father of a large family — nineteen in all — twelve of whom are yet living. His age is well over sixty, and he will soon have to retire from the forge, though he is still hale and hearty, fond of a glass of good beer, and, as he frequently and forcibly tells you, he is “a great eater of beef.”
As for scholarship and culture, he makes no claim to either, for he never had the opportunity of much education, though he is a famous smith, and is gifted with the rare faculty of getting his men into a good humour and keeping them there. He is on good terms with all his staff; is jealous of their interests, open and honest in his dealings with them, and he has the satisfaction of being respected in return. He is one of the old school, of a type that is nearly extinct now; a bold defender of the rights of smiths, a hard and fast believer in the hand-made article. Naturally, for him, he is suspicious of all modern machinery that tends to do away with the trade of the smithy, and he swears by the most unbreakable oaths that whatever is done by the newer systems of forging and stamping he is able to equal it on the anvil, both as regards strength and cheapness. When the managers recently attempted to bring about sweeping reductions in the prices throughout the smithy he opposed them at every point, swore that he was master in his own shed, and that no one but he should be allowed to fix prices. “When I am gone you can do just whatever you like, but I’m going to have a say in things as long as I’m about here,” said he. On the managers insisting to cut the prices, he unceremoniously took off his coat, and, turning up his shirt-sleeves, presented the representative with a pair of tongs and a hammer and challenged him to have a trial at the game himself. “Here’s my fire, guvnor, and there’s yourn. Come on with you and let’s see what you can do, and if you can make it at your price I’ll give in to you, but you’ll never do it in the world.” Only one or two prices fell in the whole shed. The managers abstained from further interference and since that time the smiths have been but very little molested.
No one could walk through the forge and observe the splendid physique and bearing of the smiths, their skill and dexterity with the tools at the fires and anvil, without a feeling of pride and genuine admiration for them. They are a fine body of men, and their frankness and good-nature, their freedom from ostentation, and general straightforwardness impress one even more than do their physical qualities, and help to fix them more deeply and truly in his regard and esteem. They are not little and petty; they are not spiteful and malicious. They are not jealous of each other’s skill and position; they are no tale-bearers. They seldom quarrel about politics or religion, or hold any other controversy in the shed or out of it. Their attitude to each other is fair and unquestionable; they are natural and spontaneous, very free and generous. If proof is needed of this you have but to come into the smithy and see for yourselves. You will find it written in their faces in unmistakable characters. You will discover it in a greater degree if you converse with them. You will be completely satisfied as to their genuineness and quite convinced of the justice of these observations.
[CHAPTER VII]
FITTERS — THE STEAM-HAMMER SHOP — FORGEMEN — THEIR CHARACTERISTICS — BOILERMAKERS — THE FOUNDRY — THE BLAST FURNACE — MOULDERS
There are two large fitting sheds at the works — for engine- and carriage-fitting. They differ in several respects but are on the whole consimilar, both in the nature of the work done and in the composition and individuality of the staffs employed. The duties of the fitters are very well indicated by their denominative: they prepare and fit together all the machinery parts for the locomotives and carriages as well as the steam-brake details and other apparatus of a complicated nature. The sheds also serve as centres for supplying the other shops with their small staffs of fitters who superintend repairs to the local machinery, attend to the steam-hammers, fix new shafting, and so on.
The fitting sheds are large buildings and are packed with machinery of every conceivable shape and kind. Within them are lathes large and small, machines for slotting, shaping and drilling, drills for boring round and square holes, punches and shears, hydraulic tackle, and various other curious appliances almost incapable of description. There are hundreds of yards of steel shafting, pulleys and wheels innumerable, and miles of beltage. The space between the roof and the floor seems to be entirely occupied with swiftly-revolving wheels and belts. To view the interior is like peering into a dense forest where all is tangled and confused and everything is in a state of perpetual motion. At the same time there is a minimum of noise. Here are no steam-hammers beating on the stubborn masses of iron and steel and making the foundations of the earth tremble beneath you, no riveters’ hammers battering on the hollow plates of the frames and boilers, and no pneumatic tools ringing out sharply and driving one to distraction with the unspeakable din. The wheels revolve almost without sound; the shafting turns and spins silently. The lathes are nearly noiseless in operation, and the drills only creak a little now and then as a small portion of the detached metal becomes blocked underneath the tool and runs round with it. The greatest noise is made by those who are busily chipping at the benches; otherwise there is comparative quiet when we remember the tremendous din of the neighbouring workshops.
As there are no furnaces or forges in the fitting shed, and abundant ventilation, the air is cool and free from smoke and fume. The work is less laborious than is that of the smithy or frame shed, and the men are not required to perspire much. Both the fitters and the machinemen wear cloth suits, with a thin blue jacket or “slop” and overalls, and you rarely see them stripped or with their shirt-sleeves turned up. This is so much the rule that if they should be seen to take off their coats at a job in either of the outlying sheds the circumstance will be noted as of unusual occurrence by the rank and file. They will immediately raise a good-natured laugh and jokingly tell them to “put their jackets on if they don’t want to catch a cold.” One local fitter, by reason of his great fondness for carrying a drawing with him wherever he goes and the readiness and ease with which he has resort to it in order to explain away the most trivial detail, has earned for himself the title of “The Drawing King.” A second, as the result of his artificial activity with the callipers, is styled “Calliper King,” while a third, by his volubility, has secured the expressive nickname of “Fish-mouth.”
An amusing and true story is told of a chargeman of the fitting shed. He was lying seriously ill and believed himself to be at the point of death. While in that condition he was conscience-stricken at the thought that he had had one or two very good prices for work in the shed. He accordingly sent for his foreman to come and visit him. When he arrived the sick man unburdened his soul and begged him to cut the prices forthwith; he said he “could not die with it on his mind.” In due time the prices were cut. The old fellow’s period had not yet come, however. He got better and had the satisfaction of returning to the shed and working at the reduced rates, the laughing-stock of his companions.