About the year 1825, some Boston people discovered that a tolerable silver spoon could be made much thinner than the custom of the trade had previously permitted, and that these thin spoons could be sold by pedlers very advantageously. The consequence of this discovery was, that silver spoons became an article of manufacture in Boston, whence pedlers conveyed them to the remotest nooks of New England. One day, in 1830, the question occurred to Jabez Gorham, Why not make spoons in Providence, and sell them to the pedlers who buy our jewelry? The next time he took his trunk of trinkets to Boston, he looked about him for a man who knew something of the art of spoon-making. One such he found, a young man just "out of his time," whom he took back with him to Providence, where he established him in an odd corner of his jewelry shop. In this small way, thirty-seven years ago, the business began which has grown to be the largest and most complete manufactory of silver-ware in the world. For the first ten years he made nothing but spoons, thimbles, and silver combs, with an occasional napkin-ring, if any one in Providence was bold enough to order one. Businesses grew very slowly in those days. It was thought a grand success when Jabez Gorham, after nearly twenty years' exertion, had fifteen men employed in making spoons, forks, thimbles, napkin-rings, children's mugs, and such small ware. Nor would Mr. Gorham, of his own motion, have ever carried the business much farther; certainly not to the point of producing articles that approach the rank of works of art. We have heard the old gentleman say, that he often stood at a store-window in Boston, wondering by what process certain operations were performed in silver, the results of which he saw before him in the form of pitchers and teapots.