In one afternoon last summer I was taken to visit some men working in their own homes, all within a very short distance. Two were toy makers, two manufactured pipes, and another cages for parrots; one was a shoemaker, and the last was the most skilled handweaver in London. One toy maker was engaged upon wooden hoops with handles and beaded spokes, for South Africa. He also made wooden engines, finding all the materials, iron wheels included, and for these he was paid 22s. a gross. The selling price is sixpence each. In his workshop, too, were to be seen attractive little waggons with sacks in them; and horses of that archaic type which has a barrel body, straight legs, and harness of red and blue paper. The other toy maker was making little go-carts adapted to the use of good-sized dolls. All the material was found by the maker, and the price received by him varied from 3s. 3d. to 6s. 6d. a dozen, according to size. Here again iron wheels had to be provided. In both these cases the wife and some other member of the family helped. The pipes were roughly shaped by hand, then pressed in a mould, the seam scraped smooth, and the pipes stacked in great clay pans and fired in an oven. They are not made to order, but sold by the maker to private customers—generally publicans—at 2s. 6d. or 3s. a gross. The cage maker, a consumptive man, transforms bands of tin and thick wires into domed cages, with a speed and dexterity amazing to the beholder. I have mislaid my note of the prices paid for this skilful work, but I know that they were horribly low. The elderly shoemaker and his wife—interesting, intelligent people—were full of family cares and of curious industrial reminiscences. They are now on a dry bank, as it were, a foot or two above the deep waters of hopeless struggle, in which the Jarvises, their neighbours, were immersed. The weaver was a survivor from another period, and a child of another race. Face and name alike proclaim him a descendant of the Huguenots; and not only is he a weaver of silk, but also one of the very, very few hand weavers of velvet still left in our country. The coronation robe of King Edward—perhaps the finest velvet ever woven, was his handiwork. Moreover, a little remnant is still left of the old silk-weaving trade that came to Spitalfields and Bethnal Green when Louis XIV. was so ill advised as to revoke the Edict of Nantes. Instances of man and wife working at home together appear in the Report of the Factory Inspectors. “Husband and wife, with two children, occupy one room only. The wife weaves, while her husband is occupied in ‘finishing’ canvas boots in the same room.” “Husband, wife, and six children occupy the workroom (which contains two looms) and an attic.” “In the weaving room are three low beds _under_ the looms, in which three adults sleep. They cannot sit upright in bed, as they knock against and injure the warp.” (p. 322.)