Cost of Material and Workmen’s Prices for making Double and Single Guns, with “Twopenny” or “Wednesbury Skelp Iron” Twist Barrels.
| DOUBLE GUNS. | |||
| s. | d. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Double barrels, twist, patent breeched | 12 | 0 | |
| Pair of locks | 2 | 0 | |
| Wood for stock | 0 | 6 | |
| Set of cast furniture | 0 | 5 | |
| Stocking | 2 | 0 | |
| Screwing together | 3 | 0 | |
| Percussioning | 2 | 0 | |
| Polishing and engraving | 1 | 0 | |
| Varnishing (including painting) | 0 | 6 | |
| Browning | 0 | 6 | |
| Finishing | 3 | 0 | |
| Ramrod, tip, and worm | 0 | 6 | |
| Small work, nails, escutcheons, wood, screws, &c. | 1 | 0 | |
| £1 | 8 | 5 | |
| SINGLE GUNS. | |||
| s. | d. | ||
| Single barrel, twist, &c. | 5 | 9 | |
| Lock | 1 | 0 | |
| Wood for stock | 0 | 6 | |
| Set of cast furniture | 4 | 0 | |
| Stocking | 1 | 0 | |
| Screwing together | 2 | 0 | |
| Percussioning | 1 | 0 | |
| Polishing and engraving | 0 | 8 | |
| Stock varnishing and painting | 0 | 4 | |
| Barrel browning | 0 | 4 | |
| Finishing | 2 | 0 | |
| Ramrod, tip, and worm | 0 | 6 | |
| Small work, &c. | 0 | 8 | |
| 16 | 1 | ||
Common iron barrels plated with this iron can be furnished by barrel-makers, double for eight shillings per pair, single for four shillings each; which deducted from each, gives double complete, 1l. 4s. 8d., and single 14s. 4d. each; and for these we have known the factor charge the ironmonger, double: 3l. 10s. each, and 1l. 15s. single; so it is strictly an imposition on both sides, one charging 5l., and the other 3l.
Now for the next: bad as is the preceding, this is infinitely worse; the former costs two-pence per pound, the present varies from one penny to one penny farthing per pound. “Sham damn iron” is similar in nature to brass; a metal with fibres certainly, but they are like the fibres of willow compared to oak: it is an iron soft and spongy, capable of being condensed to an immense degree. All slave gun-barrels are made of it. Mungo Park detailed some of the lamentable atrocities committed by these guns bursting. The many thousands of mutilated wretches who have lived to curse the cupidity of their fellow-men, form not a bright side in the picture of human nature; but were you to bawl into the ears of those employed in the construction, all these and a thousand more such direful effects of their handiwork, you would not abate one in the number of these man-traps.
Cost of Guns made of Sham Damn Iron.
| DOUBLE GUNS. | ||
| s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|
| Double barrels, plain iron, with side huts, per pair | 7 | 0 |
| Locks | 1 | 6 |
| Wood for stock | 0 | 6 |
| Stocking | 1 | 2 |
| Furniture | 0 | 5 |
| Screwing together | 2 | 0 |
| Percussioning | 1 | 4 |
| Polishing and engraving | 0 | 9 |
| Varnishing and painting stock | 0 | 4 |
| Painting twist barrels | 0 | 4 |
| Rod, tip, worm | 0 | 4 |
| Small work | 0 | 7 |
| Total | 16 | 0 |
| SINGLE GUNS. | ||
| s. | d. | |
| Single barrel, ribbed and breeched | 3 | 8 |
| Lock | 0 | 9 |
| Wood for stock | 0 | 6 |
| Stocking | 0 | 8 |
| Furniture | 0 | 4 |
| Screwing together | 1 | 4 |
| Percussioning | 0 | 9 |
| Polishing and engraving | 0 | 6 |
| Varnishing and painting stock | 0 | 4 |
| Painting twisted barrel | 0 | 3 |
| Rod, tip, worm | 0 | 4 |
| Small work | 0 | 4 |
| Total | 10 | 9 |
The above guns are sold to the factor, at 20l. and 12l. the score respectively. The Jews sometimes get even them at that, or a lower price, as money happens to be plentiful or scarce. There is a description of tradesmen in this town of hardware, whose establishments bear the euphonious titles of the “slaughter shop” and “blood house;” and in these emporiums of the productions of the needy; may be obtained gunnery of all kinds, as well as all other material, the productions of Birmingham. If the article costs little manufacturing, it costs these men still less. The slaughter-master is a cormorant, who swallows the substance of the weak, and once past his awful jaws he cannot be made to disgorge. Here itinerant hardwaremen find an abundant supply: he has always a stock. The wants of the poor are always pressing, and the gun-making portions of the inhabitants of Birmingham are not over provident, seldom caring for what to-morrow may bring forth. The painted pair of shams is faintly portrayed in the opposite engraving ([Plate 4]); and the uninitiated may be able to detect what I have endeavoured to acquaint them with.
PLATE. IV.