were at work, and all
sorts of trades were represented. There were draughtsmen to make
designs, and, from these, detailed working drawings. Smiths to forge
all the wrought-iron-work, with hammermen as assistants. Pattern-makers
to make wooden patterns for castings. Moulders, including loam,
dry-sand and green-sand moulders and brass-founders. Dressers to dress
the rough edges off the castings when brought from the foundry. Turners
in iron and brass. Planers and nibblers, and slotters and drillers.
Joiners and sawyers, and coach-builders and painters. Fitters and
erecters, to do the rougher and heavier part of fitting the engines
together. Boiler-makers, including platers or fitters, caulkers and
riveters. Finishers to do the finer part of fitting--details and
polishing. In short almost every trade in the kingdom concentrated in
one grand whole and working harmoniously, like a vast complex machine,
towards one common end--the supply of railway rolling-stock, or "plant"
to the line.

All these were busy as bees, for they were engaged on the equitable
system of "piece-work,"--which means that each man or boy was paid for
each piece of work done, instead of being paid by time, which of course
induced each to work as hard as he could in order to make much as
possible--a system which suited both masters and men. Of course there
are some sorts of employment where it would be unjust to pay men by the
amount of work done--as, for instance, in some parts of tin-mines, where
a fathom of rock rich in tin is as difficult to excavate as a fathom of
rock which is poor in tin--but in work such as we are describing the
piece-work system suits best.

Like a wise general, Will Garvie began with the department in which the
less astonishing operations were being performed. This was the timber
and sawing department.

Here hard wood, in all sizes and forms, was being licked into shape by
machinery in a way and with an amount of facility that was eminently
calculated to astonish those whose ideas on such matters had been
founded on the observation of the laborious work of human carpenters.
The very first thing that struck Bob Marrot was that the tools were so
heavy, thick, and strong that the biggest carpenter he had ever seen
would not have been able to use them. Bob's idea of a saw had hitherto
been a long sheet of steel with small teeth, that could be easily bent
like a hoop--an implement that went slowly through a plank,