iness, but have
given it up, and the clock making of Connecticut is now mostly done in
five large factories in different parts of the State, about which I
shall speak hereafter.

CHAPTER VIII.

FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS IN CHEAP TIME-KEEPERS.
--THE PROCESS OF CLOCK MAKING.--

It would be no doubt interesting to a great many to know what
improvements have been made in manufacturing clocks during the past
twenty years. I recollect I paid for work on the O.G. case one dollar
and seventy-five cents; for the same work in 1855, I paid twenty cents,
and many other things in the same proportion. The last thing that I
invented, which has proved to be of great usefulness, was the one day
timepiece that can be sold for seventy-five cents, and a fair profit at
that. I remember well when I was about to give up the job, of asking the
man who made the cases for the factory what he would make this case for.
He said he could not do it for less than eight cents, I told him I knew
he could make them for five cents, and do well, but he honestly thought
he could not. He was to make two thousand per month--twenty-four
thousand a year. After getting the work well systematized, I told him if
he could not make them at that price, I would make it up to him at the
end of the year. When the time was up, he told me that it was the best
part of his job, and that he would make them the next year for four
cents; it will be well understood that this was for the work alone, the
stock being furnished.

When I got up this new time-keeper, as usual all the clock-makers were
down on me again; Jerome was going to ruin the business, and this cheap
thing would take the place of larger ones. I told them there were ten
thousand places where this cheap time-piece would be useful, and where a
costly striking one would never be used. There is a variety of places
where they are as useful as if they struck the hour, and there are now
more of the striking clocks wanted than there were when I got up this
one day time-piece. When I first began to make clocks, thousands would
say that they could not afford to have a clock in their house and they
must get along without, or with a watch. This cheap timepiece is worth
as much as a watch that would cost a hundred dollars, for all practical
purposes, as far as the time of day or night is concerned. Since I began
to make clocks, the price has gradually been going down. Suppose the
cheap time-keeper had been invented th