Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1886 — Page 5 Advertisements Column 3 [ADVERTISEMENT]

ADVERTISED LETTERS Letters addressed as below remain uncalled for in the Post Office at ReiissaUer, Jasper County. Indiana, ot Sb« 27tb jay of March 1886. Those not claimed within four weeks from the date below given will be sent to the Dead Letter Office. Wash* mrton. D. C James Griggs Mary Hornington, William Petit, Mamie Pillars, W. G. Porter, Mrs. Malissa Parels, M. M. Yeakle reasons caring ior any or tne letters In this list will please say they are advertised. HORACE E. JAMES, P. M. Rensselaer. Ind . April 2 1886

TIIE TOY-MAKERS. Life Among the Ingenious Artisans of the Thuringian Forest—The Way They Work and Live. A Heidelsberg correspondent of the Philadelphia Times writes: A half-day’s journey from Heidelberg brings the traveler into a region as full of quaint interest and strange sights as any in Germany, the land of toys, the Sonneberg district of the Thuringian forest. This world apart, in the universe of industry is known very well, indeed, to a •ertain class of Americans, the toy-im-porters, better than to the importers qf any other nation. The American purchasers are the only ones who come to the Thuringian forest to give orders on the spot, “compose” new dolls out of half a dozen different sorts, order tovs by the hundred gross, and vanish to return like the swallows at the end of a year. As long ago as 1876 we Americans bought in this small forest nest toys to the value of nearly half a million dollars, and in 1880 our purchases had increased to nearly a million dollars, and yet how few of us, when we buy a crying doll for a Christmas present, a wooly dog, a noddling donkey, a “farm yard,” or any of ihe thousand toys made of wood, papier macho, or wax, think of the strange, little world among the Thuringian hills whence our familiar objects come. Back at the beginning of the fourteenth century the little town of Sonneberg had won for itself municipal l-ights and sent large quantities of wooden wares to the Nurnberg jahrmarket, had a guild of its own before the close of the cehtury, and continued for more than four hundred years the gradual development of the toy-making branch which has made its productions known in all the civilized countries of the world from Russia, whither Sonneberg sends Easter emblems by the thousand gross, to California, where Sonneberg is represented upon every Christmas tree. With the opening of our own century came a new era for Sonneberg when a workingman adapted papier mache to the use of the toy trade. Until then it had been used in Paris for ornaments and in the monasteries for figures of the saints. Henceforward it was to take up its abode in the nursery and play-room. This invention revolutionized the trade of Sonneberg. Anyone could do the work required by the new material, whereas the use of the materials before employed had required skill, and, therefore an apprenticeship. By degrees the whole population, from the decrepit greatgrandfather to the tiny primary school child was pressed into the service, and to-day the only skilled workmen are those who turn or carve legs for toy animals or the heads of jump-ing-jacks, and the carpenters who build tiny wooden stables, theaters, kitchens, shops, etc., such as the children of our wealthier American families delight in. As years went by the factory system began to creep into Sonneberg as everywhere else. The first factory was met with a popular demonstration of so vigorous a character in the revolutionary year 1848 that the proprietor was obliged to abandon his enterprise, but presently the crying doll was introduced, and from that moment the battle against the factory system was lost. The crying doll became the staple production of Sonneberg, and its production employs almost as many workers as that of all other toys taken together. The toy business does not continue unbrokenly throughout the year. From the end of November to the beginning of March almost complete want of work prevails. These winter months are terrible. The poor little savings are gone soon after Christmas, and the family must starve along upon the potatoes that have been hoarded or fall into the clutches of the usurer. The first orders that have come in are from the American dealers, who send soon after Christmas, because the staple articles which they order, doll heads or little dolls and other such things, are cheapest then, and at the time of the Leipsic Easter fair the Yankee purchasers appear themselves. The season of wholesale export is from July 1 to Oct. 1,

At a paper mill in Lewiston, Me., the following letter, dated Brunswick, Nov. 11, 1866, recently was found: “Hiram, your actions at the husking bee last evening left me no longer doubtful as to what course I shall take, I thought I cared for you, but I was a fool, ana now am punished for my folly. Inclosed are the lock of hair, the picture and the ring you gave me. Perhaps the ring will iit somebody else’s finger just as well Jane.” Those who remember the manly form of E. E. Pillsbury, the handsome democratic lawyer and editor, says the Somersi ‘ (Mo.) Bepork.r, would be surprised i > see him to-day. ID’ once civet V;,nu and line carnage is now bent c.ad his iaeo is the picture of tlI-*; He is troubled with a comdiseases and his best friends t,v .. ... c. Inin to live long.