BY GEORGE COOPER.
Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky;
Hundreds of shells on the shore together;
Hundreds of birds that go singing by;
Hundreds of bees in the sunny weather.
Hundreds of dew-drops to greet the dawn;
Hundreds of lambs in the purple clover;
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn;
But only one mother the wide world over!
[TIN TOYS AND TEA SETS.]
BY WILLIAM H. RIDEING.
In Avenue D, some time ago, I saw a small boy wheeling a barrel along on its edge with so much difficulty that I wondered, what it contained, and looking inside, I saw that it was more than-half full of glistening scraps of metal. I asked him what they were for. "Oh, them's Dexters," he said, as if grieved at my ignorance; and he wheeled his barrel into a great brick factory, five or six stories high, piled about the door of which were large wooden cases addressed to Java, Brazil, Cape Town, and other distant points of the world.
It was in the latter part of April; and though the end of the year was so far off, these packages were being shipped for the Christmas trade in the far-away countries named upon them. They were all filled with toys, and on all the floors of the factory hundreds of busy hands were making playthings for children. That was what the small boy meant by Dexters. The scraps of tin in the barrel bore the convex impression of a horse upon them, and after being trimmed, put together, and painted, they would look not at all unlike the famous trotter by whose name they are known.
Dexters are the most popular of all tin toys, and at this factory in Avenue D they were being made by the thousand for the holiday trade of the coming winter. The spring and summer months are the busiest at the factory, which is quietest when the stores are doing their best trade, in November and December. The seasons with wholesalers and retailers are not at all alike; and when next Christmas the reader visits a toy-shop, he may remember that the goods he sees were principally made in May, June, and August.
The manufacture of tin toys is a new industry in America, and it is so successful that, besides supplying the domestic market, it sends large quantities of goods to all parts of the world, including England and France. When Santa Claus drops in on the children at the Cape of Good Hope, at Penang, at New Zealand, at Buenos Ayres, and at Callao, he will have articles from this factory in Avenue D, New York.
Perhaps some of our readers have advanced so far in the serious business of life that they have forgotten what tin toys are. They are made of tin, of course, but they comprise many different articles, and over a thousand different designs. They are mounted on platforms and wheels, or on wheels alone, and in some of them the revolution of the wheels sets the figures on the platform in motion. An elephant tirelessly somersaults on a trapeze, three dogs ascend and re-ascend a ladder, a little boy chops a tree, a tiger climbs a pole, a girl dances with a skipping-rope, and a circus rider leaps through a hoop. The trainer is larger than the elephant, the axe is larger than the boy, and the tiger balances upon its tail. But this is neither here nor there. As long as the toys are kept in motion, the figures repeat their feats; and if they are not quite life-like, they have the advantage of being unwearying in their exertions.