Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

2/6 SWEETMEAT MAKING. OWEETMEAT making is an industry O which employs a far greater number of women and girls than men and boys, since with the exception of the management of the actual machinery and the cooking, the work is all light, merely demanding deft handling ; and its conditions are such that workers of ages varying from that of the just emancipated Board School girl to her grand- SUGAR-WAFER MAKING (MESSRS. CLARKE, NICKOLLS AND COOMBS). mother are equally welcome. It is a healthy occupation, and as the record of service is, as a rule, long, one is justified in concluding that the perpetual smell of hot sugar, chocolate, fruit-extracts, and peppermint is not injurious ; also that the constant eating of such dainties as fondants, burnt almonds, and the many varieties of “ lozenge ” is not detrimental to the health of the workers. That the fascination of sweet-eating is much more a matter of temperament than only dependent on the opportunity to succumb to it, is proved by the number of years which it holds some of these factory hands enthralled. In many cases they keep up an unending chumping, no sooner having got rid of one item than they start on the next—like constant smokers with their suc- cessive cigarettes. A wise manager does not forbid such toll being taken, for that so demonstrative an appetite will insist on being satisfied, with or without leave, is too patent a fact to need reflection. He is therefore only prohibitive in the matter of wholesale tax-levying for the benefit of the home circle. In dealing with such a varied manufacture as that described as “ Sweets,” one’s chief difficulty is in selection. Where to begin, when each department is so full of attraction ; when acid drops, almond hard-bake, nougat, “ bull’s-eyes,” liquorice, barley sugar, comfits, and lozenges all demand attention. To remark comprehensively that the beginning of every- thing in this connection is boiled sugar may perhaps provide a satis- factory starting point —although maybe of too obvious a nature to excuse its intrusion. Let us visit a large sweet factory, that of Messrs. Clarke, Nickoils and Coombs, and see for ourselves how these ever-popular articles are manufactured in their countless millions. Huge coppers line many of the rooms of the factory, whilst all the centre space is taken by long metal-topped tables, whereon the manipulation of the hot sugar takes place. All the family of transparent “ drops ”—acid, fruit, etc.—are made in the same way, the difference being merely a matter of flavouring. Sugar that has been boiled at a temperature of 320° is allowed to run from beneath an elevated copper on to a table, where after getting a little cool it is worked by hand into great flat cakes and kneaded, just like dough for bread ; then, when the final state of it is to be acid drops, a small quantity of