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He then confined the grinding to saws and razors; and this enabled him to set up his own forge on the premises, and to employ a few file-cutters. It was all he could do at starting. Then came the important question, What would the Trades say?
He saw he must either cheat Dr. Amboyne, by shamming work, or else must leave Hillsborough. He had the honesty to go to the doctor and say that he had mastered the whole matter, and didn't see his way to take any more wages from a friend. "You mean you have mastered the broad facts." "I have, sir, and they are beyond belief; especially the file-cutters.
The father of all file-cutters objected to tyranny and innovation: Little maintained that Innovation was nearly always Improvement the world being silly and was manifestly improvement in the case under consideration. He said also he was merely doing what the Union itself ought to do: protecting the life of Union men who were too childish and wrong-headed to protect it themselves.
Little reasoned, and remonstrated, but with such very trifling success, that, at last, he had to put down the iron heel; he gave the file-cutters a printed card, with warning to leave on one side, and his reasons on the other. In twenty-four hours he received a polite remonstrance from the secretary of the File-Cutters' Union.
If so, and Dr. Amboyne is right about Life, Labor, and Capital, let the masters co-operate with the Legislature, and extinguish the handicraft. "For the file-cutters, the masters might 1st. Try a substitute for lead. It is all very well to say a file must rest on lead to be cut. Who has ever employed brains on that question? Who has tried iron, wood, and gutta-percha in layers?
"For instance, the master who should set a dry-grinder to a trough without a fan, or put his wet-grinders on a mud floor and no fire, or his file-cutters in a room without taps and basins, or who should be convicted of willfully buying a faulty grindstone, might be made subject to a severe penalty; and the municipal authorities invested with rights of inspection, and encouraged to report.
If files can only be cut on lead, the file-cutters might anoint the lead over night with a hard-drying ointment, soluble in turps, and this ointment might even be medicated with an antidote to the salt of lead. "7th. If files can only be cut on BARE lead, the men ought to cut their hair close, and wear a light cap at work.
"We prefer a short life and a merry one, Mr. Little," said the father of all file-cutters. "A life of disease is not a merry one: slow poisoning is not a pleasant way of living, but a miserable way of dying. None but the healthy are happy. Many a Croesus would give half his fortune for a poor man's stomach; yet you want your cutlers to be sick men all their days, and not gain a shilling by it.
"This poor lad says he has found a defective grindstone. It is impossible for me to test it while it is running. Will you let us into the works when the saw-grinders have left?" Bayne hem'd and haw'd a little, but consented. He would remain behind half an-hour to oblige Little. Henry gave the Anomaly his dinner, and then inspected the file-cutters in two great works.
Next day he went on the hills with Billy, and, instead of thinking for the benefit of his enemies, as agreed with Amboyne, he set himself to hate every body, especially Miss Carden's lover, and the Hillsborough Unions. The grinders and file-cutters might die like sheep. What did he care? As much as they cared for him. Dr. Amboyne was too good for this world, and should keep his money to himself.
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