wine,
and spirit measures. Makers of bells (from bell-metal) sometimes
pretend (falsely) that they add a certain quantity of silver to the
alloy for rendering the bells more melodious of tone.
To
" tin " a Copper basin is quite an easy matter. Having made this
scrupulously clean, you heat it over a charcoal fire to beyond the
fusing point of iron ; molten tin is then poured into the basin ; a
little sal ammoniac is added (for removing the last unavoidable film of
oxide) ; and then the molten Tin is spread by a bunch of tow over the
inside surface of the basin, to the now purely metallic surface of
which the Tin film will adhere firmly. " Tinning " wrought Iron is
effected by its immersion in the molten metal, by which ordinary thin "
sheet Iron " becomes " sheet Tin."
"
The tinker," says a pleasant writer, " is the medicineman of pot and
kettle. Armed with a few soldering implements, and a small, smoky
stove, he drives briskly along the country lanes, or tarries awhile on
some grassy roadside spot, making a busy use of his hospital for
metallic ailments. His cart is an anomaly ; a survival from remote
centuries ; strangely shaped, and curiously ornamented with bright
brass-work. His own private JceJcaubi hangs pendulous from the crossed sticks of immemorial vagrant usage." Leland, in his English Gipsies, tells
of a cunning Bohemian who " bested " a lady by tinkering up an old
kettle she had rejected, and selling it back to her as new.
"
The tinkers are very good to their children and women-folk, and we
often noticed as we met them on their journeyings, how the men and boys
trudged after the carts, or herded the ponies, while the little girls
and women rode at ease in the body of the carts. The
