Every one is acquainted with the travelling-tinkers who, at the present day, make their way down from the mountains of Auvergne, the Black Forest, the Alps, or the Cévennes, and are called _péirerous_ and _estama-brazaïres_ in the south of France, and _épingliers_ in other districts. These men are in the habit of working at separate jobs in the villages and even in the public places of the towns. Of course they travel with no more of the utensils of their craft than strict necessity requires; but, nevertheless, what they carry is sufficient for every purpose. A hollow made in the ground is the furnace in which they place the nozzle of their portable bellows, and they hammer the iron on a small anvil fixed in the earth. Aided by these merely rudimentary means they execute pieces of metal-work, the dimensions of which are really surprising. They make nails and tacks, and even worm screws, repair locks, clean clocks, make knives, mend skimmers, and restore umbrella-frames. They make bronze rings out of republican _décimes_, and sell these popular trinkets to the village beauties. Incomparable in their line of business, these men are unequalled in patching or re-tinning vessels made of tin and wrought or sheet-iron. The mending of crockeryware also forms one of their numerous vocations; and the repairing of a broken plate by means of an iron rivet is mere play-work for their dexterous fingers. But melting down and re-casting--these are the real triumphs of their art. The village housewife brings to them her worn-out pewter vessel, and soon sees it reappear as a new, brilliant, and polished utensil. Lamps, cans, covers, and tin-plates and dishes are thus made to reappear in all their primitive brightness. The fusion and casting of bronze does not perplex them any more than working in tin. They are in the habit of casting various utensils in brass or bronze, such as candlesticks, bells, brackets, &c. The crucible which they use in melting brass is nothing but a hole dug in the earth and filled up with burning charcoal, the fire being kept up with the help of their bellows, the nozzle of which is lengthened so as to open into the middle of the charcoal. On this furnace they place their portable crucible, which is a kind of earthen ladle provided with a handle. Their system of casting is simple in the extreme. The pressed sand, which serves them for a mould, is procured from the ditch at the side of the road. Into this mould they pour the alloy out of the very crucible in which it has been melted.