e was dismissed, and, repairs being made, the engine worked
satisfactorily at last. In Watt's life, we meet drunkenness often as a
curse of the time. We have the satisfaction of knowing that our day is
much freer from it. We have certainly advanced in the cure of this evil,
for our working-men may now be regarded as on the whole a steady sober
class, especially in America, where intemperance has not to be reckoned
with.

We see the difference between the reconstructed Kinneil engine where
Boulton's "mathematical instrument maker's" standard of workmanship was
possible "because his few trained men capable of such work were
employed." The Kinneil engine, complicated as it was in its parts, being
thus accurately reconstructed, did the work expected and more. The Bow
engines and some others of the later period, constructed by ordinary
workmen capable only of the "blacksmith's" standard of finish, proved
sources of infinite trouble.

Watt had several cases of this kind to engross his attention, all
traceable to the one root, lack of the skilled, sober workmen, and the
tools of precision which his complex (for his day, very complex) steam
engine required. The truth is that Watt's engine in one sense was born
before its time. Our class of instrument-making mechanics and several
new tools should have preceded it; then, the science of the invention
being sound, its construction would have been easy. The partners
continued working in the right direction and in the right way to create
these needful additions and were finally successful, but they found that
success brought another source of annoyance. Escaping Scylla they struck
Charybdis. So high did the reputation of their chief workmen rise, that
they were early sought after and tempted to leave their positions. Even
the two trained fitters sent to London to cure the Bow engine we have
just spoken of were offered strong inducements to take positions in
Russia. Watt writes Boulton, May 3, 1777, that he had just heard a great
secret to the effect that Carless and Webb were probably going beyond
sea, $5,000 per year having been offered for six years. They were
promptly ordered home to Soho and warrants obtained for those who had
attempted to induce them to abscond (strange laws these days!), "even
though Carless be a drunken and comparatively useless fellow." Consider
Watt's task, compelled to attempt the production of his new engines,
complicated beyond the highest existing stand