r, and fancied in
their sable moments that the steel pen would sooner or later be
superseded. They are not now so dismayed as they were, and I hardly
think they need be. The electric light has not put out gas; in spite of
railway engines I still see a few horses about sometimes; and even motor
cars and the like will not at present run locomotive engines off the
line. I, therefore, think that makers of fine points, broad points,
medium points, &c., may rest securely in their pens, notwithstanding a
Yost of typewriters, Remington, or what not.

Few people outside our own borders quite realise, perhaps, what a large
and important industry the jewellery trade is in Birmingham. Yet one
quarter of the city--the Hockley district--is chiefly devoted to what
cynical people call the production of baubles. If anyone doubts the
extent to which the jewellery trade is carried on, and the number of
hands engaged in it, let him station himself somewhere Hockley way at
the hour of one o'clock in the day, and he will see for himself.

No sooner has the welcome sound of the tocsin been heard--almost indeed
before it has time to sound--hundreds, aye thousands of men emerge from
their workshops, and for a time quite throng streets that just before
the magic hour of one p.m. were comparatively quiet and empty.

Curiously enough these working jewellers seem to come from hidden and
obscure regions, and appear in the open from their industrial cells
through many small doors and entries, rather than through large gateways
which are opened at certain regulation hours.

The jewellery trade is not carried out in large factories with tall,
towering stacks, powerful steam engines, &c. Machinery may be used in
certain branches of the trade for all I know, but, speaking generally,
working jewellers sit at their bench, play their blow-pipe, and with
delicate appliances and deft hands put together the precious articles of
fancy they make.

Handsome lockets are not turned in a lathe. Diamond and ruby rings are
not productions that are run through a machine and sold by the gross,
"subject." Nor are jewelled pendants made in presses, nor beautiful
bracelets banged into shape by the mechanical thump of a stamping
machine. The consequence is that jewellery work of the finest fashion
is made in small establishments, but as I have said there are so many of
these that the "turn-out" in the way of "hands" is a formidable element
in our local population.

I