by a worker sculptor, he has invented and introduced in his workshop the most ingenious machine-tools. About 150 men work at this factory; but it is evident that half a dozen smaller workshops, scattered in the villages, would have answered equally well.
Going now over to a quite different region, the Nievre, in the centre of France, and Haute Marne, in the east — we find that both regions are great centres for a variety of small industries, some of which are maintained by associations of workers, while others have grown up in the shadow of factories. The small iron workshops which formerly covered the country have not disappeared: they have undergone a transformation; and now the country is covered with small workshops where agricultural machinery, chemical produce, and pottery are fabricated; “one ought to go as far as Guerigny and Fourchambault to find the great industry;” 157 while a number of small workshops for the fabrication of a variety of hardware flourish by the side of, and owing to the proximity of, the industrial centres.
Pottery makes the fortune of the valley of the Loire about Nevers. High-class art pottery is made in this town, while in the villages plain pottery is fabricated and exported by merchants who go about with their boats selling it. At Gien a large factory of china buttons (made out of felspar-powder cemented with milk) has lately been established, and employs 1,500 workmen, who produce from 3,500 to 4,500 lb. of buttons every day. And, as is often the case, part of the work is done in the villages. For many miles on both banks of the Loire, in all villages, old people, women and children sew the buttons to the cardboard pieces. Of course, that sort of work is wretchedly paid; but it is resorted to only because there is no other sort of industry in the neighbourhood to which the peasants could give their leisure time.
In the same region of the Haute Marne, especially in the neighbourhood of Nogent, we find cutlery as a by-occupation to agriculture, Landed property