DOLL MANUFACTURE. Let not any one suppose that the making of dolls is too trifling an employment to merit notice in a work devoted to industrial pursuits. It affords bread to numerous persons, and is subjected to as many divisions and subdivisions as other manufactures. A glass manufacturer of Bir mingham, some years ago, astonished a Com mittee of the House of Commons by stating that he had received, at one time, an order for 5001. worth of dolls' eyes ! There are two classes of dolls—wooden and sewed ; the former cheap, and the latter more expensive. The wooden dolls make but little approach to anatomical correctness ; whereas the sewed dolls are the results of more ambi tious skill. The wooden doll passes through few hands in the process of making ; but the sewed doll is the work of many distinct classes of artificers—such as the doll sewer and stuf fer, the dolls' head maker, the dolls' arm and leg maker, the dolls' wig maker, the dolls' eye maker, and the doll dresser.
In wooden dolls the body is turned in a lathe, thereby giving to the human bust a form which nature never gave—an equal rotundity on all sides. They are carved or cut by hand to impart certain improvements ; and the legs are made—with calves or without calves—ac cording to the price. A composition is laid on the face; and the painter's pencil is em ployed to supply lips, eyebrows, &c. Every doll, except in the humblest station of life,has ' jointed legs, which are fixed to the body by a kind of wooden hinge. Unless the doll have painted ringlets, real ringlets are purchased', from the dolls' wig maker. The arms are usually made of stuffed leather.
The sewed dolls go through a larger number of processes, and employ more persons. The maker cuts out the calibo which is to form the outer surface, and gives it together with saw dust or wool to the doll sewer and stuffier, by whom the structure of the doll is built up. The composition heads for these dolls are usually made of papier mache; but they have a superficial coating of wax; they are painted flesh colour, and then dipped into melted wax.
The mould for the papier mache is made from away model, and the substance itself is a kind of sugar paper, reduced to a pulp. Tne arms and legs, and the wig, are made by other per sons.
Dolls' eyes seem to form the most curious department of this curious manufacture. They are of two hinds, the cheap and the expensive. The more cheaply constructed eyes are simply small hollow glass beads or spheres, made of white enamel, and coloured either black or blue, but without any attempt at diverse co louring. The better kind of eyes, called by the makers natural eyes, are made in the same manner so far as concerns the glass or ena mel, but the iris is represented by a painted or stained ring.
In one of the interesting papers recently published in the Morning Chronicle, some cu rious statistical facts are given respecting the doll manufacture. The commonest wooden dolls were formerly sold at a penny each, but now (competition having affected dolls as well as more important commodities) command a price of only one farthing. Some of the sewed dolls are stuffed with sawdust and sewed for half a crown per gross. The commonest dolls' eyes sell from five to six shillings per twelve dozen pairs ; while the best or natural eyes obtain a price of fourpence per pair. Dolls' eyes are largely exported; in Spanish Ame rica black eyes only will find a sale, while in this country blue eyes are the favour ites.
Gutta percha is now employed as a material for some dolls ; and various costly novelties are from time to time introduced. The speak ing doll is an object of great admiration to doll buyers ; but the six guineas' price limits the sale to a small number. It was the invention of a London doll maker, who, after nine years of experimental trial and failure, succeeded in making his doll speak the two favourite nur sery words ' mama ' and 'papa.' One of these was sent to St. Petersburg ; it became injured on the way, and lost its speech, which no Russian doll-maker was found able to re store.