Newspaper Page Text
244
BURKE’S WEEKLY
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
MACON, GA, FEBRUARY 1, 1868.
Contents of No. 31.
Mother’s Darling—illustrated page 241
A True Lady 241
Poetry —Angel Footprints 242
Ellen Hunter: A Story of the War —Chapter IV
—original 242
Marooner’s Island ; by the ltov. F. It. Doubling.
Chapter XX—original 242—243
Editorial— Quarterly Parts; Scott’s Monthly
Magazine; Florilla and the Dove; The Nee
dle ; Frozen to Death 244
Something about Swallows—original—illustrated 245
The Joyous Laugh—original 245
The Boy’s Resolve 245
The True Guide 245
Poetry —Heedlessncss; or. The Conceited Little
Grasshopper 246
Florida and the Dove—original 246
Poetry— Morning Song 247
A Pleasure Party—original 247
Our Chimney Corner—illustrated 248
Postage on the “Weekly.”
The postage on the Weekly, when paid quarterly or
yearly, at the office of delivery, is five cents a quarter or
twenty cents a year.
Quarterly Parts.
SEVERAL subscribers have requested us
to send their papers once in three months,
in quarterly parts. We are anxious to
accommodate our patrons, but we cannot
undertake to do this. We will supply it
in weekly numbers or in monthly parts, as
subscribers may prefer, but we cannot send it
quarterly, as so few will want it in that form, we
shall not be able to keep such subscriptions in
mind. The back numbers for the first six months
will be furnished as heretofore, stitched in a hand
some cover, to subscribers who wish to begin with
the volume.
Scott’s Monthly Magazine.
and^ HB last issue of this favorite magazine—
jf--|fy| a double number for December and Jan
uary —has been on our table for some
time, but an earlier notice has been
(-0$ crowded out. This is one of the most
'A) successful efforts yet made to furnish a
first-class literary monthly to the Southern people,
and we are glad to know that the editor’s efforts
have been properly appreciated, and that his mag
acine has a large circulation. Terms, $4 per an
num, in advance. We will furnish it, with the
Weekly, one year for $5.
Florilla and the Dove.
The beautiful story in this number, entitled as
above, is from the pen of anew contributor, whose
writings will, we predict, be wonderfully popular
with our little readers. We hope to hear from
“Sister Paul” often. Her contributions will be
most welcome at all times.
I®“* When you send your own name, or any
other, be careful to give us the name of the post
office and State also. It is best to add the full
address at the bottom of your letter.
Remember that clubs need not all go to
the same post office, or to the same State. Get
them where you can.
BURKE’S WEEKLY.
The Needle.
AVE you ever imagined how many things
a are necessary to be done to a little bit of
/sSriF steel wire in order to make that simple
? little instrument, the needle, which is so
useful to your mothers and sisters? Aou
' will probably be surprised when we tell
you that every sewing needle, however small,
passes through the hands of one hundred and
twenty different persons before it is ready for sale.
In the manufacture of needles, the best steel
wire is used. This is brought in bundles to the
needle factory and carefully examined, by select
ing some of the wires from each bundle, the ends
of which are cut off, and after being heated “ red
hot,” they are hardened by being plunged into
cold water. The best pieces are then selected,
and the remainder either returned to the wire
drawer, or retained for other sizes of needles.
The wire now passes through a great many dif
ferent processes, a separate piece of machinery
being required for each, until the pieces are ready
for pointing. The workman takes fifty or sixty
of these pieces of wire between the thumb and
fore-finger of his right hand, and directs one end
of them to the grindstone, which is driven by wa
ter or steam power. By means of a bit of stout
leather, called a thumb-piece, he presses and turns
them about so as to make their points conical.
This operation is performed on a dry grind-stone,
because water would cause the needles to rust,
and the eyes and lungs of the workmen were for
merly very much injured by the fine steel dust
thrown off by the stone, but a machine has
now been invented which makes this process
much less dangerous than it was. The wires,
pointed at both ends, are then sent into an
other shop, where they are cut in two, each
piece forming two needles.. Another work
man then takes them and flattens their heads, by
using a small flat-faced hammer. They are then
heated, and after beiug allowed to cool slowly,
the eyes are first pierced and then trimmed. Both
of these latter operations are generally performed
by children, and it is said that a child can trim
4000 needles per hour. The next operator makes
the groove, which you see near the eye of the
needle, and rounds its head.
All of the needles thus made are thrown, with
out any sort of order, into a drawer or box, and
are now ready for tempering. After being tem
pered, the needles are polished, twenty or thirty
at a time, either by water or steam power. They
are then put into a large wooden cask, with a lot
of saw dust, and scoured, by turning the cask,
which works on a pivot, until the needles are quite
clean and clear in their eyes.
Two or three more processes are necessary be
fore the needles are ready for sorting, which is
done in a close, dry room. Here all the defective
needles are picked out, to be re-pointed or straight
ed, or else rejected entirely. They then receive
their final polish, and are put into papers ready
for sale.
When you consider the great number of pro
cesses to which each little needle is subjected, can
you wonder that so much time and labor are ne
cessary to make a man or woman of you, little
reader ?
There is another useful lesson to be learned
from this history of the needle. Although its con
struction requires one hundred and twenty differ
ent operations, they follow so rapidly one after
the other, that it takes but a short time to com
plete the whole process. Now, suppose a single
person should undertake to make a needle, with
out the aid of machinery, it would cost him a hun
dred times more labor and time than it, would be
worth. The lesson taught, therefore, is that to
divide labor is to shorten it: to multiply the num
ber of operations is to simplify them, and to con
fine our operations to one particular thing at, a
time is to insure perfection in that thing. In other
words, do one thing at a time, and learn to doit
well. A “Jack at all trades” is “good at none.”
♦♦♦—
Frozen to Death.
Chicago Tribune gives an account of
Hgyj the distressing death, from exposure to
cold, of a lad twelve years of age, named
€s*7? David Addison. On the 28th of Decem-
Vcq her, in company with his uncle, he had
e) been out shooting. About noon, follow
ing the advice of his companion, who saw a storm
coming on, he turned to go home. He immediate
ly started toward town at a rapid gallop, and was
never spoken to again. About 1 o’clock a terrific
snow storm set in. Before it had got so bewilder
ing as to be completely blinding, a boy like him
was seen riding with great rapidity along the bank
of a creek.
It was 5 o’clock before Mr. Addison, with whom
the boy was still supposed to be, returned home
from the woods. Such a search as the storm per
mitted was at once made, but all in vain. Days
passed away. A hundred people had been search
ing for the lost boy, but no trace of him was found.
The horse he rode was found in the hills twenty
miles to the southwest, four days after he was lost.
On Monday, the 9th ult., a Kaw Indian visited
a white settler on the Smoky Hill River, at a point
36 miles from the boy’s home, and told him that
a “dead white man was in the river.” He was a
petty chief, and with a number of his people ac
companied the white settlers to the spot. It was
only half a mile distant from the house.
The body was carefully examined to see if it had
any wounds; it had none. It was the body of the
boy, with light golden hair and broad forehead.
He lay on his face, his coat and overcoat still care
fully buttoned up, and his gloves still on his hands.
A revolver was buckled about his little person,
and two packages of matches carefully deposited
in separate pockets.
The child had ridden 35 to 40 miles through the
mountains that horrible night, his fiery horse fly
ing before the terrible storm. From all the evi
dence, he had reached the spot where lie was found
about 10 or 11 o’clock at night, before the snow
ceased. He rode into a bend between two farms,
and could have seen them had the snow, which
ceased before midnight, not filled the air with blus
tering drifts. In that one night the cold was so
intense as to freeze the river thick enough to beai
up a man. Crossing the last high ridge from the
head of Spring Creek, he must have been exhaust
ed and chilled. His feet and hands had not been
frozen, but exhausted nature fell before the teiii
ble exhaustion and exposure.
The country through which he must have pa>s
ed was the roughest and wildest in that section.
At times the snow was so dense that it was im
possible to see through it but a few feet. To hau
returned home he had probably to face the stoim
several miles, and it is believed that he urged bis
animal through the storm as long as possible. A 1
rived at the river, the horse had evidently ,g° ne
down the bank to the brink, and in stepping dowu
he fell from it on the gravel close to the watei.