de up to 200ft in one length,
without join of any sort, being a specialty highly appreciated by
surveyors and others.

_Saddlery_.--One of the oldest local trades, as Lelaud, in 1538, speaks
of "lorimers" as being numerous then. That there was an important
leather market is certain (Hutton thought it had existed for 700 years),
and we read of "leather sealers" among the local officers as well as of
a "Leather Hall," at the east end of New Street. The trade has more than
quadrupled during the last 25 years, about 3,000 hands being now engaged
therein, in addition to hundreds of machines.

_Screws_.--In olden days the threads of a screw had to be filed out by
hand, and the head struck up on the anvil. The next step was to turn
them in a lathe, but in 1849 a Gerimn clockmaker invented a machine by
which females could make them five times as fast as the most skilful
workman, and, as usual, the supply created a demand; the trade for a few
years received many additions, and the "screw girders," as the
hard-working lasses were called, were to be met with in many parts of
the town. 1852, 1,500 hands were employed, the output being from 20 to
25 tons per week, or 2,000,000 gross per year. Gradually, however, by
the introduction and patenting of many improvements in the machinery,
the girls were, in a great measure, dispensed with, and their employers
as well, Messrs. Nettlefold and Chamberlain having, in 1865, nearly the
whole trade in their hands, and sending out 150,000 gross of screws per
week. Nearly 2,000 people are employed at Nettlefold's, including women
and girls, who feed and attend the screw and nail-making machines.
Notwithstanding the really complicated workings of the machines, the
making of a screw seems to a casual visitor but a simple thing. From a
coil of wire a piece is cut of the right length by one machine, which
roughly forms a head and passes it on to another, in which the blank has
its head nicely shaped, shaved, and "nicked" by a revolving saw. It than
passes by an automatic feeder into the next machine where it is pointed
and "wormed," and sent to be shook clear of the "swaff" of shaving cut
out for the worm. Washing and polishing in revolving barrels precedes
the examination of every single screw, a machine placing them one by one
so that none can be missed sight of. Most of the 2,000 machines in use
are of American invention, but improved and extended, all machinery and
tools of every description bei