OLD INDUSTRIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 268, 12 November 1935, Page 13

OLD INDUSTRIES.

Perhaps the oldest industry is carried on in East Anglia. Long years ago the dwellers in the Stone and Neolithic Ages discovered that the ground in this district was full of flints, which they proceeded to unearth and fashion into polished tools and weapons. That was at least nine thousand years ago. Today the industry is still in existence, and it is believed that the East Anglian "flint-knappers" are the direct descendants of those old-time workers. In their work they use curiously shaped iron picks, closely resembling reindeer's horns, which were the tools used by the Stone Ago workers.

The flint is found in large blocks, which are left to dry and then broken into pieces eix inches square. These, in turn, are shaped with hammere and then trimmed. Few flint-knappers live to be old men, for the particles of the material that are thrown off enter the lungs and bring on consumption. In the days when the flint-gun flourished flints fetched 50/ per thousand, but now the same number can be bought for about 5/. Gunflints are still exported to Africa, China and South America, where flint-muskets are still in use. There is another industry which for years has supplied man with one of hie luxuries—hjs clay pipe. Half a century ago the making of clay pipes was the staple industry of St. Jude's, Bristol, but of the firms then engaged in the industry few, if any, have survived; but the work is still carried on in Dundee. It was from St. Jude's that traders got the pipes which they bartered with the natives of Africa in exchange for ivory, gold and other treasures. The popularity of the clay was destroyed during the Boer war, when the soldiers got accustomed to cigarettes. Once the industry dies it may never recover, for it calls for great skill and long training.