260,000 workpeople and 11,200 employers, belong, with a very few exception, to the small industry.
Then we have the factories dealing with the burnishing and enamelling of metals, which also belong chiefly to the small industry — the average being only twenty-eight workpeople per factory. But what is especially striking is the development of the small and very small industry in the fabrication of agricultural machinery (thirty-two workers per factory), of all sorts of tools (twenty-two on the average), needles and pins (forty-three), ironmongery, sanitary apparatus, and various instruments (twenty-five), even of boilers (forty-eight per factory), chains, cables, and anchors (in many districts this work, as also the making of nails, is made by hand by women).
Needless to say that the fabrication of furniture, which occupies nearly 64,000 operatives, belongs chiefly — more than three-fourths of it — to the small industry. The average for the 1,979 factories of this branch is only twenty-one workpeople, the workshops not being included in this number. The same is true of the factories for the curing