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K. MAITRE AND HIS WORKSHOPS. 363
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
" If You Stop At Dijon, Be Sure And See ...
The work of his hands prospered , and he thought it would be a good idea to buy an edition of some standard religious booksueh
up , as are in universal use ; whether the ordinary prayer-book , a " _Parrozsmen" or a collection of rayershymnsor meditations . This
edition he , would bind according p to his , own taste , , and sell as his own . He did so , and his _experiments answered ; he then bought another and
another , until at length he had a printer whose establishment -was wholltaken in working for him . At the same time his
trade y in articles up made of ornamental leather increased ; and Monsieur Maitre w _£ nt on adding to the number of his workpeople , and
hiring additional workshops . After nearly thirty years of labour he found himself proprietor of an atelier which sent its goods to all
parts of France , which employed two hundred workpeople , and was uncomfortabllodged in eight different buildings belonging to
very different ownersnear y the railway station of Dijon . The workshops were located up , stairs and down , in sueh an irregular manner as to
render the due organization of the work a very difficult matter , and M . Antoine Maitrebeing what the business world calls " very
comfortable" determined , to build . He fixed , on a site outside the city walls , quite on the other side
of the town—the side on which the Swiss attacked Dijon in the dreadful siege of 1513—and there he erected the peaceful building
which stretches its broad front parallel with the road , and bears the date of 1858 . Here he employs 300 workpeople , of whom
100 are women ; here he spends all his time from morning till niht" doing the work of two men ; " and here he means to build
himself g , a large new dwelling-house , of which the foundations are already dug . The air of unsurpassed neatness visible in every
corner of the atelier is only matched by his own Dutch propriety of costume _; his burly person clothed in dark chocolate-colored cloth ,
his massive head and grey hair surmounted by a "black velvet cap . M . Maitre is in his person and in his character a sort of cross
between the modern manufacturer and the ancient _Tburgomaster . It is difficult to describe any industry , in writing , without being
intolerabl children twenty y dull . years I know ago to that read it a used certain to be " inrpossible Book of Trades to persuade / 7 even
though it was amply illustrated by prints , in which industrious apprentices were working as if their lives depended on the angle
of their elbows . I must , however , say a few words on the mechanical _processes of this atelieras the distribution and the wages
, of the workpeople are involved therein . Of course the establishment is based on the opinion entertained
by the proverbial shoemaker , namely , that there is nothing like leather . Vast quantities must yearly be stored in the great crypts
beneath the workshops . I saw the smooth sheepskin , the rough and more expensivepeau de chagrin taken from the goat ; and the
scented hide of the Hussian cow . All these are brought ready dyed to Monsieur _Maitre , and are of _espery hue—green , brown ,
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K. Maitre And His Workshops. 363
K . MAITRE AND HIS WORKSHOPS . 363
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1861, page 363, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081861/page/3/
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