and bottles for wine or other liquors, was carried on. He states:--
"The gentlemen of the Great Glass-Houses work
only twelve hours, but that without resting, as in the little ones,
and always standing and naked. The work passes through three hands.
First, the gentlemen apprentices gather the glass and prepare the same.
It is then handed to the second gentlemen, who are more advanced in the
art. Then the master gentleman takes it, and makes it perfect by blowing
it. In the little glass-houses, where they make coach-glasses,
drinking-glasses, crystals, dishes, cups, bottles, and such like sort of
vessels, the gentlemen labor but six hours together, and then more come
and take their places, and after they have labored the same time they
give places to the first; and thus they work night and day, the same
workmen successively, as long as the furnace is in a good condition."
Every glass-maker will perceive, from the foregoing
description, that the same system prevails at the present time, as to the
division of labor and period of labor, so far at least as "blown articles"
are concerned. The names, too, then given to glass-makers' tools are
retained to the present day, and, with slight
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