More Than Half The Elaborate Processes Are 'lost Work' So Far As The
Quality Of The Stuff Goes; But The Markets Insist On A Good-Looking
Leaf, With Polish, Face And Curl To It, And In This, As In Other
Businesses, The Call Of The Markets Is The Law.
The factory floors are
made slippery with the tread of bare-footed coolies, who shout as the
tea whirls through its transformations.
The over-note to the clamour - an
uncanny thing too - is the soft rustle-down of the tea itself - stacked in
heaps, carried in baskets, dumped through chutes, rising and falling in
the long troughs where it is polished, and disappearing at last into the
heart of the firing-machine - always this insistent whisper of moving
dead leaves. Steam-sieves sift it into grades, with jarrings and
thumpings that make the floor quiver, and the thunder of steam-gear is
always at its heels; but it continues to mutter unabashed till it is
riddled down into the big, foil-lined boxes and lies at peace.
A few days ago the industry suffered a check which, lasting not more
than two minutes, lost several hundred pounds of hand-fired tea. It was
something after this way. Into the stillness of a hot, stuffy morning
came an unpleasant noise as of batteries of artillery charging up all
the roads together, and at least one bewildered sleeper waking saw his
empty boots where they 'sat and played toccatas stately at the
clavicord.' It was the washstand really but the effect was awful.
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