exclusively of the wages of
labour. Plane is the wood in common use, and the cost of the wood in
an ordinary sized box does not exceed 1d.; the paints and varnish are
rated at 2d.; and though something is lost by selecting timber of
the finest colour, the whole expense of the raw material falls
considerably short of 1/2 per cent. on the return it yields!

Snuff-box, like pin making, admits of subdivision of labour; and
in all workshops of any size three classes of persons are
employed--painters, polishers, and joiners. At the period alluded to,
an industrious joiner earned from 30s. to 40s. weekly, a painter from
45s. to 3_l._, and a polisher considerably less than either. When
Mr. Crawford first commenced business he obtained almost any price
he chose to ask; and many instances occurred, in which ordinary sized
snuff-boxes sold at 2_l._ 12s. 6d., and ladies' work-boxes at 25_l_.
But as the trade increased, it became necessary to employ apprentices,
who first became journeymen and then masters; and such have been the
effects of improvement and competition, that articles such as are
specified above, may now be obtained at the respective prices of _six_
and _twenty-five shillings_. While the joiner's part of the art has
remained pretty stationary, that of the painter has been gradually
improving. By means of the _Pentagraph_, which is much employed, the
largest engravings are reduced to the size most convenient for the
workman, without injuring the prints in the slightest degree; and
hence a snuff-box manufacturer, like a Dunfermline weaver, can work to
order by exhibiting on wood his employer's coat of arms, or in short,
any object he may fancy within the range of the pictorial art. Some of
the painters display considerable talent, and as often as they choose
to put forth their strength, produce box-lids, which are really worthy
of being preserved as pictures. At first, nearly the whole subjects
chosen as ornaments, were taken from Burns's poems; and there can be
no doubt, that the "Cotter's Saturday Night," "Tam O'Shanter," "Willie
brewed a peck o' maut," &c. &c., have penetrated in this form into
every quarter of the habitable globe. Now, however, the artists of
Cumnock take a wider range; the studios of Wilkie, and other artists,
have been laid under contribution; landscapes are as often met with as
figures; and there is scarcely a celebrated scene in the country that
is not pictured forth more or less perfectly on th