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bark, then for six weeks in a stronger solution, the hides being moved every day or so; for six weeks longer in still stronger "lay-away" pits, and for an additional six weeks in the same pits filled with new bark, this latter operation being repeated three or four times. Excellent leather was the result, but it took up six or eight months' time.

Now the thickest hide can be tanned by chemicals in three hours. After tanning, the hide is thrown upon a moving feed table, which smooths and straightens it out and then passes it through a machine, pressing it evenly against a revolving cylinder spiraled with knife blades, and drops it out clean and without a cut or tear. A machine attended by only one man can press and scrape tanned hides at the rate of three hundred and fifty dozen a day.

The splitting machine is a wonderful new adjunct of the modern tannery. It can be adjusted to the thousandth part of an inch, and by means of a belt of thin steel, sharpening itself by touching an emery wheel as it whirls around, splits the hide with the deftness of magic into sheets as thin, when required, as tissue paper.

There is even a measuring and counting machine to relieve the tanner of the burden of mathematical computations. Formerly the proprietor of a tannery paid high wages to an expert to guess at the contents of his packages of hides when sold by measure. Now an unskilled workman hands the irregularly shaped pieces of leather to a little table-like machine which reckons with exactness the square contents in both the standard and metric systems.

It is noteworthy that few labor troubles have interfered with the boot and shoe industry in the United States during recent years. Such differences as have arisen have been uniformly settled between the employers and employees themselves, or by reference to state boards of

arbitration. This condition is a result of intelligent study of the industrial problem by the principal owners of boot and shoe factories throughout the country. In nearly every one of these factories there exists an agreement, signed by the company and by each employee, providing a method for the settlement of all disputes.

In the first place, any grievance of three or more employees is to be taken up by them with the head foreman of the department in which they work; if not satisfactorily adjusted there, it is brought before the superintendent; if still unsettled, it is referred to the manager of the company; and in case the company and its employees are unable thus to effect an agreement, both parties sign an application to the State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation, and the decision of the latter must be accepted as final and binding on both.

The factory buildings in which two and three thousand boot and shoe workers are employed are fitted with reading and writing rooms, gymnasiums where classes are regularly held, recreation rooms, and other aids to health and comfort. The entire architecture of these structures, too, is planned to afford perfectly ventilated and cheerful rooms.

The maximum yearly capacity at the present time of the combined shoe factories of the United States, on a basis of three hundred working days, is more than 450,000,000 pairs, and as this leaves a margin between possible output and home consumption of more than 130,000,000 pairs, an effort will soon be made to meet European liking for American shoes with shoes made in the United States.

THE AMERICAN WATCH INDUSTRY1

By C. MONTGOMERY M'GOVERN

HE story of watchmaking in the United States is a story of triumph for the spirit of Americanism. Less than forty years ago a watch in

dustry in America was a thing never dreamed of. England, Germany, and Switzerland had been making all the world's watches for centuries, since the first one was invented by Hele, and it had come to be the accepted belief that for any other country to try to compete with them would be an attempt so ridiculous as to make that country the laughingstock of the world. Two Americans had the bravery to enter the field, however, in 1850. The result is astonishing. To-day Americans are not only the greatest watchmakers in the world, but, in addition to that, they have practically no rivals worthy of the name.

Almost all of the first-class watches the world buys to-day are the product of American shops. Whenever a person wants a thoroughly reliable watch, whether in America, Russia, or Australia, he buys one with an American trademark. Why? Not necessarily because he has any particular fondness for the United States, but because any authority will tell him that, no matter what grade of watch he desires, he can not get a European watch of the same time-keeping quality for anything like the same amount that will purchase a timepiece made in the United States.

Foreign watch manufacturers can indeed make a watch 1 From "Everybody's Magazine," by courtesy of the Ridgway Company. Copyright, 1900.

that will keep as good time as the best ones manufactured in the United States; but what they can not do is to make that timepiece for so little money. And no matter how much money the foreigners spend, they can not make a watch that will keep better time than an American article which can be bought for comparatively little.

The cheapest American watch costs a single dollar. Yet you can buy a German watch that looks the same for half the price. There is a big difference between the two, however. The American article is guaranteed to keep good time, while the German product may go if the owner is lucky. No foreign watchmaker can turn out a watch that he will guarantee, if he has to sell it as low as one hundred cents, and that the European consumers realize this is proven by the fact that even in countries where fifty-cent watches are made, the public buys more of the American dollar watches than they do of the home product, which costs only half as much. Perhaps it is only justice to the foreign makers to add that they do not intend their cheap watches to be considered seriously, but more as toys.

An interesting incident, which illustrates the high reputation abroad of American watches, happened near London not long ago. At the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, there is a high tower upon which is mounted a long steel bar, up and down which slides a large ball that can be seen for miles around on a clear day. Usually this ball is kept at the top of the steel bar, but every day at one o'clock (to the fraction of an instant) this ball drops to the bottom of the bar, and in doing so not only announces to all who see it that it is one o'clock, but it also "breaks " an electrical circuit, which in turn sets the time for the whole United Kingdom.

For years this has been going on, presumably without the slightest error; but one day, when a Londoner named

Thomas Wheate saw the ball dropping just eighteen seconds too soon (by his American watch), he was so convinced that it was the Observatory and not his watch that was at fault, that he told his friends that the Royal Astronomer had for once set the nation's time incorrectly.

As might be imagined, they one and all broke out in a roar of laughter at the absurdity of an ordinary American watch being a better timekeeper than the great clocks at the National Observatory. But this did not cause Mr. Wheate to be shaken in his faith in his American watch, so he sat down and wrote a note to the Royal Astronomer, relating the incident and asking if he were not right. To his gratification, a few days later, he received a reply from that high official in which he stated that the American watch was indeed correct, that by a curious accident the time ball had dropped just eighteen seconds ahead of time. Both the letters are now cherished objects in the office of an American watch factory to-day.

But let us find out the secret of how Americans have become the greatest watchmakers in the world. Up to 1850 every watch in existence had been made by hand. This in itself made a watch very costly, yet it had the further financial drawback that, all the pieces being made by hand, if one of the pieces - let us say a cogwheelin a finished watch should be damaged, the owner of the watch would have to pay a jeweler a big price in order to have him make a new wheel. In addition, the owner had a long wait.

In those days a certain part of one watch would not fit into the same part of another watch, even when the two watches were made by the same maker and were theoretically exactly alike. This was on account of the fact that, no matter how skillful a human hand may be,

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