The rest of the Glazier’s tools are a square, and a straight edge rule for cutting against, a two-foot rule, and compasses for measuring; pincers for breaking off the edges of glass that have been partially cut through; and the diamond, which is used for cutting, and is his principal tool. This is made of a small unpolished diamond fixed in lead, and fastened to a handle of hard wood.
THE PLUMBER.
Casting Lead.
In trades connected with building, the work of the Plumber is of so much importance that it must come next to that of the Bricklayer, and the Carpenter. At one time the Plumber (who takes his name from the Latin word for lead[2]) was principally employed in making leaden roofs of churches or large public buildings and in forming casements for windows; window frames being then made of strips of lead soldered or riveted together and holding the little diamond-shaped panes of glass between their edges. In those days all the water used in the house was carried from the well or from the conduit in the main street, or was brought in casks set upon wheels from the nearest running stream: while rain-water for washing was collected in tubs or vats as it ran off the roofs. Not much more than a century ago the poets wrote of the misery of the streets of London on a wet night, when there were no waste pipes to carry off the rain from the overcharged gutters on the tiles, and nobody could venture out of doors without being half drowned by the sudden discharge of a shower bath from some overhanging gable. Then, as there was no proper system of pipes for carrying off the wet, there was very little drainage except by means of open gutters, and the bye-ways, as well as some of the principal thoroughfares and large houses, were extremely unhealthy.
[2] Plumbum.
We are not quite perfect even yet in these respects, and there are still neighbourhoods in London where a few Plumbers might be able to make vast improvements; but we are a great deal better off than our great grandfathers were. The Plumbers do not make quite so many leaden casements as they made in the olden time, but they are well employed in constructing roofs; carrying water into houses by means of leaden pipes; making cisterns to contain a good supply of it, and providing other pipes and gutters for conveying all the dirty water and drainage into the sewers that are under the roadway, where it runs quite away from the streets, and (in London at least) goes into the sea from near the mouth of the Thames at Erith.
