Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1876 — Toy Making in Paris. [ARTICLE]

Toy Making in Paris.

In Paris there are about 5,000 workmen employedinthetexclusive trade of toy maiiuCaeture. The chief essential in this art is the procuring of the substances—the' raw material—to be used, for unless these can be obtained for next to nothing, the finished work would have to be sold 100 dear to allow of its success. The barrels of sham guns, so dear to the warlike male offspring of the modern Gaul, are wrought up out ot old sardine boxes. Dolls’ boots are made of the eoveringsdof discarded purses, and their dresses and trimmings of the old worn-but stage costumes of actf’esses, gathered from every theater, great or small. As for the wheels which support the thousands movable creations in which the infantine heart delights, they would, of course, even if constructed even by toy wheelwrights, be an import ant item of expense in the profession. Aj it is| they arc provided for by appropriating to this purpose the round pieces cut out from wood or metal jtUeu hol<-s are bored in it to allow the insertion of some other article. Such are the cruet-stands in use in France, in which each glass bottle is encased in a layer of wood, while in this country probably medicine boxes would afford a more common example of die sameTbing. f’or the little pewter instruments used in dolls’ houses, Such as plates, knives, spoons, bottles ..and fireirons, the toy-makers press into their service the metal belonging to old water-pipes and worn-out roofing, and the tilings collected in work-shops. But the most striking and horrible revelation remains yet unmade. Whence comes the lead of which those resolute? German and English soldiers are made who stand so bravely on their thin ledge of ground to be picked otf' by peas and marbles ■-* Let not any of the boys with tender susceptibilities or a tendency to melancholy be made aware of tile answer. They are forged out of the metal cut from ancient cofSns dug out of the old cemeteries at Nuremburg.— Bouton, Journal of Chemittfu. ... - » » A Paris woritan has perfected a new method of picking pockets. She enters the omnibus with a very pretty and beau-tifully-dressed baby, scats herself Close to the likeliest passengers, and works under cover of baby’s ample drapery* After succeeding, she pinches the baby, so that H cries fearfully, and leaves the omnibus suddenly to buy candy for y.