Mr. Whitworth invented the duplex lathe tool, but I observed that they never used it. I asked Mr. Widdowson why this was. “Because,” said he, “the duplex tool will not turn round.” After a while I found out why. When our engine was finished, Mr. Widdowson set it upon two lathe beds and ran it. Lucky that he did. The bottom of the engine bed was planed, and it could be leveled nicely on the flat surfaces of their lathe beds. The fly-wheel ran nearly a quarter of an inch out of truth. He set up some tool-boxes on one of the lathe beds, and turned the rim off in place, both sides and face being out. That, of course, made it run perfectly true. I asked the lathe hand how he could turn out such a job. He replied, “Come and see my lathe.” I found the spindle quite an eighth of an inch loose in the main bearing, the wear of twenty or thirty years. He told me all of the lathes in the works were in a similar condition. That explained many things. The mystery of those gear patterns was solved. Every spindle in the gear-cutting machine was wabbling loose in its holes. I can’t call them bearings. Now it appeared why they could not use the duplex tools. With a tool cutting on one side, they relied on the pressure of the cut to keep the lathe spindle in contact with the opposite side of its main bearing, and a poor reliance that was, but with a tool cutting on each side, fancy the situation. Then boring a true hole was obviously impossible. The workmen became indifferent; they had no reamers, relied entirely on grinding. I asked, Why do you not renew these worn-out bushings? but could never get an answer to the question. Some power evidently forbade it, and the fact is that no man about the place dared to think of such a thing as intimating to Mr. Whitworth that one of his lathe bearings required any fixing up, or that it was or could be anything short of perfect. He (Mr. Whitworth) had designed it as a perfect thing; ergo, it was perfect, and no man dared say otherwise. Our engine work was finally, as a last resort, done by Mr. Watts on new lathes, made for customers and used for a month or two before they were sent out. Not only in England, but on the Continent and in America, the Whitworth Works were regarded as the perfect machine-shop. I remember a visit I had at the Paris Exposition from Mr. Elwell, of the firm of Varrell, Elwell & Poulot, proprietors of the largest mechanical establishment in Paris. After expressing his unbounded admiration of the running of the engine, he said, “I warrant your fly-wheel runs true.” After observing it critically, he exclaimed, “Ah, they do those things at Whitworth’s!”