=286. Whalebone Workers.= The natural color of whalebone is nearly the same as gray limestone rock. The black ones we buy are colored. Whalebone is exported from New York. About four hundred American vessels are employed in whaling, and about ten thousand men. Enough whalebone can be prepared in one factory to supply the whole United States, I was told by one of the proprietors of a whalebone factory. He paid a boy $2 a week for tying up whalebone for parasols and umbrellas (which work could be done by a girl). Small holes are punched by machinery in the ends of bones to be used for stays. A woman runs a thread through, and ties them in bunches. She is paid one cent a bunch, and, as she ties up five hundred or six hundred a week, earns $5 or $6. At another factory, I was told they employ girls and women in tying up some whalebones and stringing others. They sit while at work, and are paid by the week, working ten hours a day. They keep their hands all the year, but are most busy in the fall. Tying up whalebones looks simple, but it requires practice to become expert, and requires discrimination to select the indifferent from the salable. The woman we saw earns $4.50, but she has been at it several years, and is very expert. Women seldom earn more than $3. Girls might polish the bones--a something I saw a boy doing. BRUSH MANUFACTURERS. =287. Brush Manufacturers.= Women have from the earliest period been employed in making brushes. In France, women are employed in preparing bristles for brushes, bleaching, washing, straightening, and assorting them. If they are so employed in this country it is at Lansingburg, N. Y. Indeed the finer bristles are all imported. The process of preparing bristles is simple, merely washing them and placing them in a preparation of sulphur to bleach them. "The great art in making brushes for artists is so to arrange the hairs that their ends may be made to converge to a fine point when moistened and drawn between the lips; and it is said that females are more successful than men in preparing the small and delicate pencils." In shaving brushes the bristles must be so arranged as to form a cone. This requires skill, and commands handsome wages. A large number of bristles are imported from Germany, Russia, and a considerable quantity from France; yet the United States furnish some. We think the owners of pork houses, and farmers in the Southern and Western States, would find the saving of bristles to justify the trouble of doing so, as they bring a good price. In this country, the process in making finer brushes, called drawing, is mostly done by women. The heavier kind of brushes is seldom made by women. Persons working in horn, wood, whalebone, ivory, gutta percha, pearl, &c., prepare the handles. Few if any brush makers have them prepared in their own establishments. I called on a brush maker whose manufactory is in Boston. The clerk says they never have any difficulty in getting plenty of good hands.