The wages are low, three or four francs
a-day being the maximum, and as the cost of living is high here, it is
only by the conjoint labours of all the members of a household that it
can be kept together. Squalor and unthrift abound, and there are no
founders of _cites ouvrieres_ to make the workman's home what it should
be. He is badly housed as well as being badly paid, and no wonder that
the cafe and the cabaret are seized upon as the only recreations for
what leisure he gets. It is quite worth while--for those travellers who
ever stay a whole week anywhere--to stay a week here in order to see the
curious industries which feed the entire population of the town and
neighbouring villages, and are known all over the commercial world. The
chief objects of manufacture are spectacle-glasses, spits, clocks,
nails, electro-plate, drawn-wire, shop-plates in iron and enamel, files,
and dish-covers; but of these the three first are by far the most
important. Several hundred thousand spectacle glasses and clocks, and
sixty thousand spits, are fabricated here yearly, and all three branches
of industry afford curious matter for inquiry. Thus the first of
spectacle-making, or _lunetterie_, resolves itself into a scientific
study of noses! it will easily be seen that the manufacturer of
spectacles on a grand scale must take into account the physiognomies of
the different nations which import his wares.
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