“It’s like a lot of people as I knows of,” observed Mrs Marrot, “very busy about nothin’.”
“It’ll have somethin’ to do soon, mother,” said Bob, who was already beginning to think himself very knowing.
Bob was right. One of the oak-planks had been measured and marked for mortice-holes in various ways according to pattern, and was now handed over to the guardian of the machine, who, having had it placed on rollers, pushed it under the chisel and touched a handle. Down came the implement, and cut into the solid wood as if it had been mere putty. A dozen cuts or so in one direction, then round it went—for this chisel could be turned with its face in either direction without stopping it for the purpose—another dozen cuts were made, and an oblong hole of three or four inches long by two broad and three deep was made in the plank in a few seconds.
Even Mrs Marrot had sufficient knowledge of the arts to perceive that this operation would have cost a human carpenter a very much greater amount of time and labour, and that therefore there must have been a considerable saving of expense. Had she been aware of the fact that hundreds of such planks were cut, marked, morticed, and turned out of hands every week all the year round, and every year continuously, she would have had a still more exalted conception of the saving of time, labour, and expense thus effected.
The guardian of the chisel having in a few minutes cut the requisite half dozen or so of holes, guided the plank on rollers towards a pile, where it was laid, to be afterwards carried off to the carriage-builders, who would fit it as one side of a carriage-frame to its appropriate fellow-planks, which had all been prepared in the same way.
Not far from this machine the visitors were shown another, in which several circular saws of smaller dimensions than the first were at work in concert, and laid at different angles to each other, so that when a plank was given into their clutches it received cuts and slices in certain parts during its passage through the machine, and came out much modified and improved in form—all that the attendants had to do merely being to fit the planks in their places and guide them safely through the ordeal. Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame—full of gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one sweep, in a few minutes—work which would have drawn the sweat from the brows of two saw-pit men for several hours. One thing that attracted the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of hole-boring. Of course, in forming the massive frames of railway carriages, it becomes necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails or bolts. Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, “augers and drills gone mad!”—augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob put it, “like all possessed.” Some acting singly, others acting together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a moment’s notice. While Bob was gazing at one huge drill—probably an inch and a half broad, if not more—a man came up to it with a plank, on the surface of which were several dots at various distances. He put the plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill, and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before Bob had time to wink,—and Bob was a practised hand at winking. Several holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.
Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department—all more or less interesting and, to them, surprising—so that Mrs Marrot was induced at last to exclaim—
“W’y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin’ things at this rate there won’t be no use in a short time for ’uman ’ands at all. We’ll just ’ave to sit still an’ let machinery do our work for us, an’ all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment.”
“How can you say that, Missis,” said Will Garvie, “you bein’ old enough to remember the time w’en there wasn’t five joiners’ shops in Clatterby, with p’rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there’s hundreds of joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin’ all the year round?”
“That’s so, Willum,” assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.