FACTORIES, RoYAL, are the establishments through which all the small arms of every description are supplied to the regular army, the militia, yeomanry, and volunteers. The headquarters are at Enfield,where there is a vast and at Birmingham there is a considerable establishment for viewing the arms supplied by eon• tractors. For many years there had been a small ordnance factory at Enfield lock, where a few thousand muskets were laboriously forged by hand each year; but when the sudden introduction of the rifle, and the demands of the Russian war, called fora supply of arms, which the trade of all Europe and America was unable to meet, govern ment determined to erect machinery for the fabrication of arms For this purpose the factory at Enfield -was entirely remodeled; machinery of great power and delicacy was adopted; and now, when in full work the factory can turn out daily 1000 complete and proved rifles, besides a corresponding complement of oilier small-arms.• At the same time the accuracy- of workmanship is so great that a hundred rifles might be taken entirely to pieces, the several portions thrown promiscuously together, and a hundred complete rides could be forthwith re-formed without any difficulty from the same pieces.
Much of the merit of this great establishment was due to maj.gen. Manky Dixon of the royal artillery, who long superintended the factory after it was remodeled. The success of the factory has reduced in a remarkable degree the cost of rifles, and has brought down correspondingly the price charged by the trade for the larg,e quantities still intrusted to it. The successive adoption of the Snider and Martini rifles has been the means of producing a great change in the plant at Enfield.
The cost of the factories when in full operation is of course considerable. In the year 1874, when the army was being armed with the Martini rifle, the charge was .12172,837; in 1878, ..-C153,073.