with a little puff thrown in. Such are the contents of one of the "Crackers for Spinsters," those estimable single ladies also being allotted faded flowers, a night-cap, a wedding ring, and a bottle of hair dye. This pile of bracelets came from Bohemia, fans from Japan, toys from Christiania, with little wooden cups and saucers from the same place, scarf-pins from Saxony; the little miniature pipes, as played on by the accompanist to a Punch and Judy show, are made by Parisians; Jews' harps come from Germany, and tiny wooden barrels from America. The familiar flexible faces which can be squeezed and pulled into every conceivable shape are made in London. Hundreds of little glass bottles are here, supposed to be filled with a certain intoxicant known as gin. A young girl is filling them with the very reverse of anything intoxicating, although the label on the pottle says "A 1,000,000 over proof." Italy, Turkey, India, China, and South Africa contribute to the store. The sight would set a child pining with pardonable envy to play about this part of the factory.
"From all quarters of the globe."
To enumerate every item which finds its way inside the crackers would call for a catalogue the size of The Strand Magazine.
We are now on our way to the top of the building where the Christmas cracker is really made. First, there is the giving-out counter. Here come the girls and receive into their hands a certain quantity of what is wanted to make the particular part on which they are engaged. Every strip of paper is counted. Close by the giving-out counter a number of young women are fringing the edges of the paper to be rolled. This is done on a small machine capable of taking four thicknesses of ordinary paper and six of the brighter-looking gelatine. The material to be fringed is put against the teeth of the apparatus, the girl stamps it, and it is ready to give a neat and gay appearance to either end of the body of the cracker.
The main workroom presents a busy sight. It is nearing one o'clock, when the dinner bell will ring, and the hands are
