Varnishing and Sizing, where 16 girls are employed. The calendars, advertisements, and so on, to be varnished are placed in a pile on a table underneath the long webbing band, and a girl sits there and feeds. They are caught up and passed round rollers, and are sized or varnished as the case may be. Another girl stands facing the machine, seeing that they pass round all right. They are then carried over the top of the top roller along the webbing band, which stretches the full length of the room, till they come to the drum at the end, round which the band passes on its return journey. There girls take them off and place them in racks, the bottom one of which is on a small trolley. When a big pile of racks (about 5½ ft. high) is filled the girls wheel it off, lift up a door, and push it into a big cupboard which takes up all the middle of the room, and above which is a fan. There they are left to dry, and when dry the girls wheel them out again and take out the sheets.
There were two rooms in which this was being done, with about 8 girls in each. There was also a third room at the side, where they make up odds and ends, e.g., make up packets of "Happy Families," fold odd papers, eyelet a few things, and so on. There was only 1 girl in this; sometimes there are several. When a girl comes in first she does this work.
Card Mounting.—About 30 or 40 girls were employed at this. This consists in putting the advertisements, calendars, and so on, on to the big sheets of cardboard and finishing them off. There are various different processes. The board has to be cut, and this is done either by a man or a girl who feeds the rotary cutting machine. The sheet of card is "lined," i.e., the back pasted on, and edges pasted over if required. Then the picture (or calendar) that is to go on it is pasted down, the girls covering the backs of about four pictures (or calendars), and then pressing them down one after another. For some work eyelets are then punched, and in the best work the edges are bevelled by a little machine consisting of a wheel in a trough, along which the edge is pushed. In the case of a good deal of School Board work there is a narrow band of tin or brass at the top which finishes it off, and out of which comes a brass loop by which to hang it up. The men cut the brass into slips, and the girls work about five hand machines, the principle of which is that you put in your map (e.g.), put the tin or brass slip of metal in the right position, pull down a handle, lift it up, and the work comes out with the metal band pressed down on each side and the loop fixed in the middle. For other work, such as big maps, charts, diagrams, and so on, wooden rods are used as rollers, etc., and the work of fastening is done by girls.
Paper Colouring and Enamelling by Hand.—Only 12 women were engaged upon this work—a considerable decrease. The sheet of paper to be coloured is placed in front of the girl, who then wets it over with the colour (black when I saw it) by means of a brush like a whitewash brush (the manager said that they were whitewash brushes with the handles taken off), which she dips into a bowl. She then takes another round brush, about 10 ins. in diameter, and brushes over the whole surface, so that the colour lies quite evenly. The sheet of paper is then hung, as it were, on to a clothes line to dry. These lines stretch over the room.
Enamelling is done in identically the same way, only it is enamel, not colour, which is put on.
Enamelled paper is the very shiny coloured paper used for end pages of books, for covering confectionery and similar boxes, etc.
Marbling is never done by this firm. All the coloured paper is in plain colours, marbling being a quite different process.
Book-edge Gilding.—Only men are employed in this.
REGULARITY.—The card mounting department is specially busy before Christmas with calendars, almanacs, etc., but advertisement cards are turned out all the year.
Paper colouring comes in rushes, but is not a seasonal trade.