3. How long trunk-making has been a separate trade, cannot be exactly ascertained. The trunk-makers in France were incorporated into a company, in 1596. In the United States, this branch of business is very commonly united with that of the saddler and harness-maker.
THE SOAP-BOILER, AND THE CANDLE-MAKER.
THE SOAP-BOILER.
1. The business of the soap-boiler consists in manufacturing soap, by the combination of certain oily and alkaline substances.
2. The earliest notice of this useful article occurs in the works of Pliny, in which it is stated, that soap was composed of tallow and ashes; that the mode of combining them was discovered by the Gauls; but that the German soap was the best.
3. For many ages before the invention of soap, saponaceous plants, and several kinds of earth, together with animal matters and the ley from ashes, were employed for the purpose of cleansing the skin, and articles of clothing. The idea of combining some of these substances, with the view of forming soap, probably originated in accident.