CANTERBURY WORKS AND WORKERS.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7770, 26 January 1891, Page 6

CANTERBURY WORKS AND WORKERS.

VISIT TO A BISCUIT FACTORY. fBY OUB SPECIAL BKPORTKB.] Amongst the many articles which Chrietchurch produces to her benefit and her praise are biscuits and lollies, those manufactured by Aulsebrook and Co. being famoue throughout New Zealand. On Saturday I visited the factory, which is situated at the corner of St. Asaph and Montreal streets. Mr McDougal, who is managing the business, very kindly showed mc over the premises, and lifted the veil from one or two mysteries which puzzle a great many people even in this age of newspapers. We first went into the biscuit department, and saw flour and a few other simple things going into a machine called a mixer and coming out as a firm, stiff paste. This paste is put through rollers and flattened out into great smooth sheets, which go into another machine that stamps them into biscuits of all shapes and sizes, according to the quality required. On Saturday the machine was at work on •water biscuits, and it stamped them out at a rapid rate with great regularity. The biscuits as they were stamped dropped on to wire traye, which were immediately conveyed to the mouth of a great oven, and there placed on a slowly moving chain belt, which carried them into the oven and out at the other end where the wire trays were seized and their loads of biscuits shoe into wicker-work baskets, baked in their fifteen minutes' journey through Che oven crisp, brown and β-weefc smelling. The oven is 36 feet long and will contain a prodigious quantity of biscuits. The rate at which the articles to be cooked travel through it is regulated by pulleys of different sizes, and its temperature is regulated by a series of dampers. A curious little instrument shaped something like a steam gauge, bat called a pyro . eter, registers the temperature of the oven with great nicety, and the man in charge can tell at a glance whether his oven is too hot or too cold. Nearly any kind of biscuits can be treated in this oven, for it can deal tenderly with arrowroots and Oswegos and rapidly with cabin bread.

There are several other large ovens on the ground floor of the latest and best styles. The fuel used beneath them is coke, 'Which not only yields a steadier heat than coal but Is more economical. There is one oven used specially for Passover bread, and nothing else is ever baked in it. It is so arranged that the big thin cakes, which are eaten by the Jews in Passover Week, pass through it in half a minute—just the time needed to perfect them. In conjunction with the biscuit department is the machinery for mixing various cakes—Canterbury cakes, Oswego cakes, and many other well-known delicacies of the table. The materials of which they are made are carefully weighed and assorted, then put into machines which thoroughly mix them and send them out into moulds ready to be baked. Nearly everything is done by machinery, the vast quantities of articles treated could not be done by hand in anything like the time, nor could they be treated in such a regular, systematic, cleanly fashion. Biscuits are made, stamped and baked by it. Cakes are mixed, moulded and weighed by it; eggs are beaten by it, sugar crushed into powder and dressed through silks by it. It cuts up candied peel and it moulds lollies. Lollies are almost as important a branch of manufacture as the biscuits, and they have a branch all to themselves. In one part of the building are four furnaces, over which constantly stand four bright copper boilers in which sugar reduced to a liquid state by heat is kept simmering. A man is constantly watching these boilers, and when the liquid sugar is of the right consistency it & poured on to large cool plates, and there mixed with the essences and coloring matter which go to make the;different kinds of sweets which give childhood much of its bliss, and which even maturer a&e does not disdain. When one sees the manufacture of lollies carried on by Aulaebrook and Co., one loses all doubts as to the parity of the sweet things unfeeling doctors shake their heads at. French and German manufactures may be adulterated, but those who eat Aulsebrook's lollies eat nothing worse than the best refined sugar and the best of flavoring essences. The operation of making them is open to favored beholders. From the time the sugar goes into the boilers to the time it is poured on to the plates, colored, flavored and rolled through bright metal rollers thac stamp ifc into shape, there is nothing; hidden. The process is not a lone one. It only requires a few minutes to turn the liquid sugar into crystallised morsels, alluring both in color and flavor. The lollies lie in great heaps on the table. A single heap would make a schoolboy a king amongst his fellows fora whole week. Sometimes the heaps together would weigh a ton.

Even the lolly manufacture is divided Into several branches. Besides those made from boiled sugar there are those round:white and pink sweets known as comfits.' To all appearance the process they require is simplicity itself. There are two large bowl-shaped appliances set at an angle and slowly revolving. Into these a man pours a clear looking liquid which, by some invisible power, is changed into tiny round balls, comfits to aged smokers ana to disappointed youth. Another branch is the manufacture of peppermint and conversational lollies. There is no mystery about their production. The white flour sugar is placed in a machine which turns it into snowy paste. This paste Is rolled into sheets and passed into another machine, which stamps them Into shape a dozen at a time and a scamp every second. It also gives them their mottoes —those sweel little questions and remarks which have paved the way to happiness for more than one shy lover— "JQo you love mc," " You are a flirt," and even that important question " Will you marry meT In a room near the biscuits apartment two young fellows perform one of the ■wonders of the lolly trade. They make chocolate creams and almond comfits. Clever men have wondered how the cream got inside the chocolate, and how the almonds were put in the sugar. They need wonder no longer. The chocolate is put on the cream, and the sugar is put on the almoada. They are put on in a soft condition. On the second storey of the building are made those delightful mixtures which are known as jujubes, Tarkieh delight, fondants, and liqueurs. These delicate creations require extra care, and they are actually moulded in -cornflour. The room in which they are made was white with this impalpable powder, and the frames in which they are moulded seem polished like ivory. Near this room is the factory warehouse, where biscuits and lollies are packed in tins and boxes. Those that are made on the ground floor come up in an elevator, and the warehouse contains all the numerous productions of the factory. There they are wrapped In soft papers, labelled with artistic advertisements, and made ready for the market.

Although biscuits and lollies are rather luxuries than necessaries of life, the raw materialused in their manufacture reaches large dimensions. Nearly forty' tons of iSbur are used every month in the iactory. One ton of sugar is used every day, and about 100,000 dozens of eggs are used each season. Everyday 150163 of butter fa used, and in the preparation for Christmas delicacies ten tons of lemon peel was consumed. Even such small things as essences grow important, as veil they may, when some of them cost £8 per oz and others £1 per lb» Another industry carried on in the biscuit department is the manufacture of self-rising flour—that boon to campers out and to people away from bakeries: that power which enables young housewives to make light bread and scones that surpass those of the mother-in-law. The boxes and tins used fo? packing are also made by the firm, and considering that two or three gross otthese things are required per day this 1% no small item in the business. The freight on biscuits and lollies Is heavy. From Cbriatchurch to Lyttelton it is £1 per ton, and it Is cheaper to send these goods by steamer to Timaru than to send them by rail. In spits of this heavy freight, however, Messrs Aulsebrook are increasing .their outpa t, and are now giving employment to sixty hands, whilst they hive three travellers constantly engaged moving about the country, and resident agents both in Wellington and Auckland. It is evident, therefore, that they have managed to hit the public taste.