AMONG the many industries which have helped to bring South Wales to its present high position in the mercantile world, the tin plate trade should certainly have a place. It is not the most important of Welsh industries, but, from many points of view, it is the most interesting, at any rate of the industries on the coast of the Bristol Channel. It is in the various Welsh towns skirting the Great Western line after you cross the border that the industry reaches its real zenith of activity. Sporadic efforts have been and are being made on the other side of the Wye. But once on Welsh ground the tin plater feels at home. As far west as Carmarthen, upon which the memory of Dafydd ab Edmund still rests, at an interval of every few miles tin plate works are found. Without attempting anything more than an introduction,-to be followed by closer details of history and method,-we will content ourselves now with pointing out a few proofs that the various processes are as interesting even as the intricacies of the

four and twenty metres, which, it is fondly hoped, will hold sway over the poetical world till time be past.

When I was asked to write something about "The Tin Plater," I went to him, and he told me that there were thirty-two varieties of him, and that each variety had sub-divisions. The reader will, therefore, be kind enough to understand that this is not a scientific treatise.*

One fine morning in June, 1894, Mr. D. J. Davies and myself marched out to one of the most important works here, conquering and to conquer, as we fondly thought, the mysteries of this wonderful organization. We have not done so, but we gleaned a few facts which deserve the attention of all who care for the toilers of our country.

Imagine yourself in a town which, with its suburbs, numbers something over forty thousand inhabitants. There are plenty of

But I may state, by the way, that there is an excellent monograph that may safely be consulted. It is printed at the Guardian office, Llanelly. The author is J. L. Bowen, Esq., of that town.

race, and proudly reflect that the artisan of Llanelly is superior to the peasant of Gower. And does not the beauty of nature, surrounding the " din and smoke of this dim spot," whisper to us that Ruskin, like Homer, sometimes has a nap, and that after all it is possible that beauty and skill are one? Physically and literally, Llanelly is a living proof that mercantile and artistic power can co-exist and co-operate. We all live on the tin plater. Therefore come with us for an hour to the "works." Here we see the process from the beginning. We enter through the big doors and catch sight of a medley collection of steel scraps, pig iron, and "oddments" of every description. If you are English, you had better rely on the manager to explain to you. For we are nearly all Welsh here, and if you have a little of "the old language" about you, you will soon find this to be true. The begrimed, but honest, faces will brighten into what is more celestial than cleanliness at a word in Welsh.

We return, not to our "muttons" but to our "pigs." These remind us of Charles Lamb. They are roasted alive, iron ore of a rough kind being put in the furnace to bring the temperature up to the required melting point. The furnaces are heated by gas made on the premises. This is, if we may use the expression, gas in the rough. It is of no use for ordinary lighting purposes. Having enquired where the tin plater gets his coal, we are informed that it is from the Rhondda,—another home of music and merchandise, of art and hard work.

We are now told that we shall have to endure great heat in viewing the furnaces. Not very many years ago a popular preacher is reported to have caused a revival by informing the people that, if they were wicked, they would go to a place the warmth of which was so great that it would mean capital punishment to its habitual occupant if he were placed for a quarter of an hour in the hottest furnace in Llanelly. He would die of cold. This is doubtless mere report, for I, with an exiguous imagination, can conceive of no sea of fire like that which we view now. The gas plays over the molten metal and

make it bubble up like a veritable ocean of flame. of flame. If Mr. Davies includes an illustration of a furnace, it ought to be specially printed to illustrate the next edition of Paradise Lost.

There are four chambers. In the first, gas is passed over the metal. The second and third are air furnaces, and the fourth gas. The air, of course, is introduced to enable the gas to burn. The bubbles are caused by the carbon which is released by the action of the fire. When you look at this conflagration of the element, blue spectacles are necessary to protect the eyesight. Mae'r tân fel yr haul yn anterth ei nerth,"* remarked a furnace-man to me. He had seen it many times in many years, but familiarity had not bred contempt.

The next thing is to go and see the metal "tapped." In the dusky atmosphere of the shed, with the half clad and unrecognisable forms flitting round you, with the clang of many hammers and the whir of many wheels deafening your ears, you begin to feel heated and dazed. A strange longing presses upon your spirit. You begin to want to go home to the bosom of your family and rest awhile. Then, suddenly, the trap doors open, and the yellow steel, scintillating with silver light, leaps down to the receptacles that transfer it into the cases from which, when cooled, it emerges as " ingots." What an avalanche! It impressed me far more than the Niagara did. It represented nature conquered nature conquered by man, and the sentiment of the power of man is necessary to crown the sentiment of the power of nature.

Whenever you cut your can of tinned fruit, remember that some men in South Wales have faced a deluge of liquid steel and compelled it to go where it should, in optato alveo,—for you.

You can barely hear your guide explaining that the ingots go into another furnace to be reheated. They then come out hot,— which appears to be quite natural,—and are "put upon" by a seven-ton hammer, and flattened from their original size of ten inches to about four inches. Then the pitiless knife cuts them into lengths.

"The fire is like the sun in the might of its strength."

What strikes the nervous observer of all this is the ease with which the men use their tongs in dealing with these abused, flattened, decapitated, but still red-hot ingots. They pass them one to another as if they were playing tennis.

You ask about accidents. Very few occur. Some eighteen months ago a hammer-man was killed. The steel ingot slipped while under the hammer, and the weight drove the tongs into his side with a fatal result. Custom had made him careless, and though he was a good workman,

the machinery. Still this music brings bread and children's happy laughter, and man and wife's content to most of the houses. Whenever I go away, either on business or pleasure, my first anxiety, on my return, is to see if our chimneys show signs of life. If the stacks smoke, I know that the little children of Llanelly have their daily food.

We next come to the rolling. Our ingot goes between two two broad rollers, and emerges, like a hobbledehoy, much greater in length than in thickness. In short, it

he was looking round and talking to someone instead of keeping his eyes fixed on his own business.

In reference to the hammer, you will not fail to notice the action of the steam gauger. He regulates the force which is brought to bear on our poor ingot,-neè pig, and his work, for all the world, resembles that of an organ blower. You almost expect to hear a voluntary. But no; there is nought but the thud! thud! of the hammer, and the grind! grind of