Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1884 — The Knife-Grinder and His Work. [ARTICLE]

The Knife-Grinder and His Work.

The knife-grinder has, after all, a story to tell, and a very dismal one it is. He is environed by dangers, as completely as he is saturated with the wet “swarff ” (powdered stone) which dyes him a deep saffron color from head to toe. He sits over a tool which at any moment may send him through the roof with all the suddenness and velocity of dynamite, and he works in an attitude and (especially if he be a “dry” grinder) inhales a dust which he knows will shorten his life by ten, twenty, or oven thirty years, as constitution or fortune may serve him. The sharp crack of a breaking stone is an appalling sound to the occupants of a grind-ing-hull. A bang in the trough, a crash in the roof, a piteous moan, and all is over. If the victim be alive, he is hurried to the hospital; if dead, his crushed body is reverently carried away. No vigilance in the matter, no care ,in the workman, seems to be able to avert these periodical catastrophes. The insidious water-rot, the hidden flaw, and the unequal grain do their fatal work in spite of all precaution.— Illustrated Magazine