MR. HIGGINS' SOAP AND CANDLE FACTORY.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1740, 8 November 1862, Page 3

MR. HIGGINS' SOAP AND CANDLE FACTORY.

It is with pleasure that we have occasion to refer to the many new industries which are springing up in our midst. Our bye-strccts and our suburbs contain, unknown to most of us, the genus ot what may and will become important factories, while even now they supply the wants of our present more circumscribed community. We shall Lorn time to time visit and report for our readers’ information the rise and progress of one or other of these interesting proofs of our own commercial prosperity. In passing along Chapel-street, lately, we were attracted to the evident preparations for opening an extensive business of some kind upon the premises of Mr. Higgins, and have since visited and examined the plant which he has now at work in the manufacture of soap and candles. There were, at the time we were present, tw'o boilers, which would probably turn out eight tons, bubbling with liquid soap, which would shortly be ready for the coolers. The mass, when sufficiently boiled, is poured into wooden crates the width of a bar of soap, about five feet long and as many deep; these are formed of so many wooden layers or frames piled one upon the other and clinched together tightly with an iron screw. When the whole crate is cold, the screw is loosened, and the top frame, which is the depth of a bar of soap, is lifted off, and a flat slab of soap, five feet long by the usual three-inches deep, and of the width of the length of a bar, is cut oft’ from the top, and so on layer by layer. These slabs are then laid upon a table with as many interstices as there would be bars of soap in the slab, through which the slab is cut by wires into saleable bars, which are then stamped with the maker’s name, and piled up ready lor sale. We saw upon the premises a large quantity of firstrate soap ready for sale, and Mr. Higgins informed us that he could turn out as much as ten tons weekly. The fat is procured in Auckland, and thus a market is obtained for what otherwise would be thrown away and wasted.

The demand for this Auckland-manufactured soap is, we are told, considerable, the shopkeepers preform" its appearance and quality to that imported from Sydney, and as some £8 per ton will be saved in freight and duty, we have little doubt but that Mr. Higgins will be able to stand his ground against the Sydney market.

On the premises, there is also the candle manufactory from which Mr. Higgins has long carried on a snccessful trade, but the present is the first batch of soap which he has attempted, and which for appearance and quality, as we said before, is equal to any in the market.

Where the same article can be procured of native manufacture at the same price as that made elsewhere, and of equal quality, it will be clear to our Auckland citizens that it is to their interest as a community to encourage such an enterprise, the more especially one which renders of value a raw material such as tallow, the greater part of which, for want of a sale, would either never be collected or lie, as it has often done, wasting for years, because there was no call lor it for purposes of m anufacture.