They have their regular packers, who pique themselves on getting in a dozen of plates more than usual in an immense basket.
When they meet with a clay that differs in colour from that they have been using, they will apply themselves most readily to make up a batch of plates, basins, or tea-cups, well knowing the public are pleased with a new colour; and it is a curious fact that there are hundreds of varieties of tints produced from the different pits used by these Staffordshire manufactories. There are men whose business it is to glaze the articles, and others who pencil and put on the brown or white enamel with which the common yellow jug is streaked or ornamented. In the brown or yellow baking dishes used by the common people, the dabs of colour of brown and yellow are laid on by children, with sticks, in the quickest way imaginable. The profits of earthen-ware in general are very great, as indeed they ought to be, considering the brittleness of the article, and the number of accidents they are continually meeting with, as is demonstrated by their hedge-rows and roads.
An article that is sold for fourpence in London, costs but one penny at the manufactory.
HARD METAL SPOONS TO SELL OR CHANGE.
Plate XX.
William Conway, of Crab Tree Row, Bethnall Green, is the person from whom the following etching was made. He was born in 1752, in Worship Street, which spot was called Windmill Hill, and first started with or rather followed his father as an itinerant trader, forty-seven years ago. This man has walked on an average twenty-five miles a day six days in the week, never knew a day’s illness, nor has he once slept out of his own bed. His shoes are made from the upper leather of old boots, and a pair will last him six weeks. He has eleven walks, which he takes in turn, and these are all confined to the environs of London; no weather keeps him within, and he has been wet and dry three times in a day without taking the least cold.
His spoons are made of hard metal, which he sells, or exchanges for the old ones he had already sold; the bag in which he carries them is of the thickest leather, and he has never passed a day without taking some money. His eyes are generally directed to the ground, and the greatest treasure he ever found was a one pound note; when quarters of guineas were in currency, he once had the good fortune to pick up one of them.