Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1888 — TRADE AND LABOR. [ARTICLE]

TRADE AND LABOR.

Philadelphia Recotd. • The largest glass tumbler ever made —9 inches high and 6 inches across the top—was made at Rochester, Pa. It bolds eighty ounces. The construction of railroad through tho mining regions of the far West has led to the projection of quite a number of new mining companies. During the past year textile producing capacity in / the South has been doubled, and the value of products has increased in like proportion. For every SIOO worth of business transacted in twenty-nihe cities last year for the week ended on Friday ' SB9 worth was transacted last week. One Hundred thousand acres of valuable coal land in West Virginia have been purchased by Eastern capitalists for immediate development. Hard timber, splint, cannel and bituminous coal are abundant.

Many country boot and shoe factories are far behind on orders, and the tendency is to keep them bury and let the big town factories, with their labor organizations, run slack. A Oailowhill street firm has just put in operation the largest riveting machine made in this country. It can rivet boiler shells made from plates up to ninety-Mx inches in width. Tne people of Atlanta have secured an abundant supply of filter* d water, over 4 000,000 gallons per day. by the use of twelve filters ten feet high and thirteen feet in diameter. A large lathe has just been turned; out from the Pennsylvania foundry that will turn a piece sixteen feet long between the centres. Never before was as much heavy machinery made as at this time. The Massachusetis labor commissioners are watching the employment of child labor with extreme care. The public school system has suffered by factory industry, and it is now proposed t > correct this evil. Wonderful progress is being made by the manufacturers of textile machinery, in the New England States particularly, and the predictions have been made by good judges of machinery tnat some of it will soon be wanted abroad. Several syndicates are now laying their plans in Eastern cities to stimulate immigration of a most desirable kind, none being wanted but those having money to buy and pay for land, and who will live on it until it shall be productive.

The American, tanners are approaching mote closely every year the quality of French goods, and it is only a question ot time when French importations will be largely reduced. A good many tanners are working in thia direction. Steel tanks have been made and filled at natural gas wells and transported to the shops of railroad companies, where, by the use of regulators for reducing pressure, they have been economically used for steam, light and heating purposes. The pressure at the wells is 450 pounds to the square inch. Tbe pressure for economic consumption is an ounce and a half. The experiment has been so successful that a large number of steel tanks have been ordered. One railroad company has been so well pleased with its experimen’s that it will at once put into practical use the heating and lighting of its cars and the firing of itg locom n Ives with natural gas.