that, about the
year 1795, one man, named Dodge, prospered in Providence by making such
jewelry as the simple people of those simple old times would buy of the
passing pedler. His prosperity lured others into the business, until it
has grown to its present proportions, and supplies half the country with
the glittering trash which we all despise upon others and love upon
ourselves.

But there is something at Providence less to be expected even than
seventy-two manufactories of jewelry: it is the largest manufactory of
solid silver-ware in the world! In a city so elegant and refined as
Providence, where wealth is so real and stable, we should naturally
expect to find on the sideboards plenty of silver plate; but we were
unprepared to discover there three or four hundred skilful men making
silver-ware for the rest of mankind, and all in one establishment,--that
of the Gorham Manufacturing Company. This is not only the largest
concern of the kind in existence, but it is the most complete. Every
operation of the business, from the melting of the coin out of which the
ware is made, to the making of the packing-boxes in which it is conveyed
to New York, takes place in this one congregation of buildings. Nor do
we hesitate to say, after an attentive examination of the products of
European taste, that the articles bearing the stamp of this American
house are not equalled by those imported. There is a fine simplicity and
boldness of outline about the forms produced here, together with an
absence of useless and pointless ornament, which render them at once
more pleasing and more useful than any others we have seen.

It was while going over this interesting establishment, that the
raspberry-jam incident recurred to us. _This_ thing, however, is both
rich and rare; and yet the wonder remains how it got there. It got there
because, forty years ago, an honest man began there a business which has
grown steadily to this day. It got there just as all the rooted
businesses of New England got where we find them now. In the brief
history of this one enterprise we may read the history of the industry
of New England. Not the less, however, ought the detailed history to be
written; for it would be a book full of every kind of interest and
instruction.

It was an honest man, we repeat, who founded this establishment. We
believe there is no house of business of the first class in the world,
of thirty years' standing, the success of which is n