Going over to the chemical works, we find again a great industry in
the fabrication of alkalies and of matches (only twenty-five works);
but, on the contrary, the fabrication of soap and candles, as well
as manures and all other sorts of chemical produce, which represents
nearly 2,000 factories, belongs almost entirely to the domain of
the small industry. The average is only twenty-nine workpeople per
factory. There are, of course, half a dozen of very large soap
works--one knows them only too well by their advertisements on the
cliffs and in the fields; but the low average of twenty-nine workmen
proves how many small factories must exist by the side of the soap
kings. The 2,500 works engaged in the fabrication of furniture, both
in wood and in iron, belong again chiefly to the small industry.
The small and very small factories swarm by the side of a few great
ones, to say nothing of the thousands of the still smaller workshops.
The great storehouses of our cities are for the most part mere
exhibitions of furniture made in very small factories and workshops.
In the fabrication of food produce we find several great sugar,
chocolate, and preserves works; but by their side we find also a very
great number of small establishments, which seem not to complain
of the proximity of the big ones, as they occupy nearly two-thirds
of the workers employed in this branch. I do not speak, of course,
of the village windmills, but one cannot fail to be struck by the
immense number of small breweries (2,076 breweries have on the
average only twenty-four workmen each) and of the establishments
engaged in the fabrication of aerated waters (they number 3,365, and
have on the average only eleven operatives per establishment).
In calico-printing we enter once more the domain of great factories;
but by their side we find a pretty large number of small ones;
so that the average for all this category is 144 workpeople per
factory. We find also fourteen great factories, having an average
of 394 workpeople each, for dyeing in Turkey red. But we find also
by their side more than 100,000 working-men employed in 2,725 small
establishments of this class--bleaching, dressing, packing, and
so on--and this gives us one more illustration of numerous small
industries growing round the main ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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