the pale, noiseless fire; the chlorate of potash the sharp cracking illumination. After this application of the more inflammable substance, the matches are separated, and dried in racks. Thoroughly dried, they are gathered up again into bundles of the same quantity; and are taken to the boys who cut them; for the reader will have observed that the bundles have been dipped at each end. There are few things more remarkable in manufactures than the extraordinary rapidity of this cutting process, and that which is connected with it. The boy stands before a bench, the bundle on his right hand, a pile of half opened empty boxes on his left, which have been manufactured at another division of this establishment. These boxes are formed of scale-board, that is, thin slices of wood, planed or scaled off a plank. The box itself is a marvel of neatness and cheapness. It consists of an inner box, without a top, in which the matches are placed, and of an outer case, open at each end, into which the first box slides. The matches, then, are to be cut, and the empty boxes filled, by one boy. A bundle is opened; he seizes a portion, knowing by long habit the required number with sufficient exactness; puts them rapidly into a sort of frame, knocks the ends evenly together, confines them with a strap which he tightens with his foot, and cuts them in two parts with a knife on a hinge, which he brings down with a strong leverage: the halves lie projecting over each end of the frame; he grasps the left portion and thrusts it into a half open box, which he instantly closes, and repeats the process with the matches on his right hand. This series of movements is performed with a rapidity almost unexampled; for in this way, two hundred thousand matches are cut, and two thousand boxes filled in a day, by one boy, at the wages of three half-pence per gross of boxes. Each dozen boxes is then papered up, and they are ready for the retailer. The number of boxes daily filled at this factory is from fifty to sixty gross. The _wholesale_ price per dozen boxes of the best matches, is FOURPENCE, of the second quality, THREEPENCE. There are about ten Lucifer Match manufactories in London. There are others in large provincial towns. The wholesale business is chiefly confined to the supply of the metropolis and immediate neighbourhood by the London makers; for the railroad carriers refuse to receive the article, which is considered dangerous in transit. But we must not therefore assume that the metropolitan population consume the metropolitan matches. Taking the population at upwards of two millions, and the inhabited houses at about three hundred thousand, let us endeavour to estimate the distribution of these little articles of domestic comfort.