Siemens has rendered
signal service. This visit at Siemens Brothers & Co.'s works was of great
interest, and many valuable ideas were gained.
Several days were next spent in Birmingham, and at the centers of steel
making in northwest England. Birmingham is called the "Toy Shop of the
World" for there almost everything is manufactured from a cambric needle
to a cannon.
Colonel Harris and George Ingram studied the workings of the English
"Saturday half-holiday," which employees earn by working an extra
half-hour on the five previous days. A visit was made to the Tangye Bros.
Engine Works at Soho, near Birmingham, which absorbed the engine works of
Boulton and Watt. It was Boulton who said to Lord Palmerston visiting
Soho, "Sir, we have here for sale what subjects of his Majesty most
seek, viz., Power."
The Tangyes employ thousands of men, manufacturing engines and other
products. Steam engines of all sizes, in enormous quantities are stored,
ready at a moment's notice to be shipped broadcast. It was the invention
of the powerful Tangye jack-screw that finally enabled the famous
engineer Brunel to launch his "Great Eastern" steamship which he had
built on the Thames, and which had settled on her keel.
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