A NEW ZEALAND GIRL AT HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 1 July 1903, Page 74

A NEW ZEALAND GIRL AT HOME.

m.— DOULTON'S.

Until to-day "Doulton's" has be#n only a name to me: now I shall never hear it without conjuring up a great block of red brick buildings afc Vauxhall, across the Thames, and almost facing Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. I have just had the privilege of inspecting the show room and works — a privilege I value highly, partly, perhaps, because it ■is,ju»f», lightly accorded, but chiefly because of the pleasure I had in watching the actual fashioning of works of art from shapeless lumps of clay. No one is admitted' to the works who is likely to make use of trade secrets, and our host had to certify, before receiving permission for our visit, that wo were not in any way connected with any manufacture of pottery. In the show room of the main building we feasted our eyes on the choice and rich designs abounding there, from the great wall frescoes of painted tiles to the smallest vase with its perfection of decoration. One set of the wall frescoes portrayed incidents in the life of Sir Perciral ; a single one of touchstone glowed with rich colour, and another of the majestic figure of Moses, after Lord Leighton, was worthy of the master copied. Some of the plaques and vases in this room might well take a place beside the best examples of Royal Worcester and Crown Derby in our national museums. From this exhibition we passed to the works, and followed throughout the process of making the pottery of which we had just examined the finished products. For the first time I saw the potter's wheel at work — not, as in my ignorance I had pictured it, of the nature of a cart wheel, but simply a small circular table, made to revolve rapidly by machinery. It was here that we watched the work of a man who is regarded- by his employers as unique in creative power. Ha would throw on his table a shapeless lump of clay, and in one short minute fashion from it, with deft fingers, now^fig^King out the inside, and now tapering~ the^ clay towaids the mouth, a vase of perfect grace. In this room we watched the handles and l spouts being fitted to jugs and teapots ; for these articles come into life — as, indeed* they often leave it — without the- necessary adjuncts of spouts and handles. But the potter coon remedies this early defect by taking a strip of clay for the handle, roughening with a fork two places on the teapot for the ends of the handle, and! fastening them with a little moisture. And still before the work is ready for the, furnace the designing, colouring, and^ornamentation must be added. That ia,dpn!e, in separate rooms, where much of thjßiskille^: work is in the hands of women. W«'Wen£ ■ into various quiet little studios, and" foundeducated women employed there, some drawing designs of animals and flowers on the yet unbaked clay, some colouring the diesigns, and others at work painting the large tile frescoes. In one studio we found the frescoes which are being done for Sir Blundell Maple for the Children's Ward' of the new University College Hospital — paintings of Jack the Giant Killer, Mary, Mary, quite contrary, Red Riding Hood, and other children's subjects. I cannot think of anything more suitable for hospital walls than these tiles, so easily kept clean 6y simply 'rubbing with a damp cloth, and withal so beautiful to look at. It is a princely gift by the donor.

But the greatest event of our day x was a visit to the studio of the famous George Tinworth, reproductions of some of whose works are shown in the Art Gallery of the : Otago Museum. Mr Tinworth is best known for his panels of Scriptural subjects, and in his studio we saw numbers of these, among them a beautiful head of Christ; but that the sculptor is equally skilled int fighter subjects we saw from a quaint little piece called "Crossing the Channel." This depicted three unfortunate mice, looking aa miserable as the proverbial drowned rat, each holdingi a basin in hia paws in case of emergency ; while behind them stood the man at the wheel — a callous old frog with a gleam in his eye that showed little sympathy for suffering landsmen. We longed to see the famous sculptor himself, bub at the time of our visit he was away from the building, and we had' perforce to be content with seeing the work fresh from hia hands. "• In the modelling room our guide told us this interesting fact: No machinery haa yet been found strong enough to make ginger beer battles ! They have all to be moulded at the potteries in just the same way as the earthenware jars are made. So large are the furnaces where the pottery is baked that one of them takes two and a-half days to fill, burns for ten days, then requires one and a-half days to empty. The commoner ware is baked only once, and is glazed simply by throwing common salt on it while it is still hot; but finer ware, "biscuit," is baked twice. Our genial guide told me that at least 1000 people are employed in the works-. And one happy feature of that is that so many of the employees take a real pleasure in their work, especially those m the higher branches of modelling, designing, and colouring. Before we left we signed our names in tho Visitors' Book, and it added a little to the pleasure of the day to find that the first name inscribed in that book was "Albert Edward P."

Red light— Danger ! We'd better look out When w© see 6uoh an ominous '«ign ; That peril's ahead there isn't much doubfc. Perhaps it's a slip on the line. We feel just the same when we get a bad cough — Our safety we haste to- gp^ure By buying the stuff that will coon t-hdke it off : Some — Woods' Gkeat Peppebmixt Cuke.