=268. Cutters or Grinders.= It requires strength, firmness of nerve, and cultivation of eye to grind glass. One man told me he spent seven years learning the business in England. In this country, apprentices seldom spend more than three or four years at it, but do not of course learn it so thoroughly. A glass cutter told me that two girls, daughters of his boss in Jersey City, made drops for chandeliers. They were ground on a lapidary's wheel. As drops are no longer fashionable, they are not made. They also cut stones for breastpins. Glass cutters in New York earn from $9 to $10 per week. Glass cutting could be done by women. No women in this country have yet engaged in it. It is not very neat work, as the wet sand will of course get over the clothes. The number of straps and wheels is very numerous, and if any women desire to engage in it, we would advise them to lay aside hoops and don the Bloomer costume. Grinding is tiresome to the lower limbs, which are kept in motion, like a person operating on a sewing machine. It requires taste and ingenuity, as the figures of an experienced workman must be made by the eye, no pattern being used. Apprentices usually receive $2 a week the first year, $3 the next, $4 the next, and so on. =269. Embossers.= In preparing gas and lamp globes to emboss, they are first covered with a dark-colored substance. Girls then trace figures on them with a chemical which corrodes the glass. The tracing is learned in a few hours, and could be done without much practice. At a glass factory, I saw a girl who received $2 a week for tracing. Those who have worked at it for some time become very expeditious, and do piece work. They receive fifty cents a dozen, and a fast hand can do two dozen a day. The operatives work nine hours.