On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

by Charles Babbage

2. The middle of the horn, after being flattened by heat, and having its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin layers, and forms a substitute for glass, in lanterns of the commonest kind.

3. The tip of the horn is used by the makers of knife handles, and of the tops of whips, and for other similar purposes.

4. The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in water. A large quantity of fat rises to the surface; this is put aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap.

5. The liquid itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased by cloth dressers for stiffening.

6. The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then sent to the mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for manure.

7. Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of the horn are applied, the clippings, which arise in comb making, are sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year after they are spread over the soil they have comparatively little effect, but during the next four or five their efficiency is considerable. The shavings which form the refuse of the lantern maker, are of a much thinner texture: some of them are cut into various figures and painted, and used as toys; for being hygrometric, they curl up when placed on the palm of a warm hand. But the greater part of these shavings also are sold for manure, and from their extremely thin and divided form, the full effect is produced upon the first crop.

271. Another event which has arisen, in one trade at least, from the employment of large capital, is, that a class of middlemen, formerly interposed between the maker and the merchant, now no longer exist. When calico was woven in the cottages of the workmen, there existed a class of persons who travelled about and purchased the pieces so made, in large numbers, for the purpose of selling them to the exporting merchant. But the middlemen were obliged to examine every piece, in order to know that it was perfect, and of full measure. The greater number of the workmen, it is true, might be depended upon, but the fraud of a few would render this examination indispensable: for any single cottager, though detected by one purchaser, might still hope that the fact would not become known to all the rest.

The value of character, though great in all circumstances of life, can never be so fully experienced by persons possessed of small capital, as by those employing much larger sums: whilst these larger sums of money for which the merchant deals, render his character for punctuality more studied and known by others. Thus it happens that high character supplies the place of an additional portion of capital; and the merchant, in dealing with the great manufacturer, is saved from the expense of verification, by knowing that the loss, or even the impeachment, of the manufacturer's character, would be attended with greater injury to himself than any profit upon a single transaction could compensate.

272. The amount of well-grounded confidence, which exists in the character of its merchants and manufacturers, is one of the many advantages that an old manufacturing country always possesses over its rivals. To such an extent is this confidence in character carried in England, that, at one of our largest towns, sales and purchases on a very extensive scale are made daily in the course of business without any of the parties ever exchanging a written document.

273. A breach of confidence of this kind, which might have been attended with very serious embarrassment, occurred in the recent expedition to the mouth of the Niger.