Georgian jobs • Page 4
Children or women with small hands needed for the construction of chains for fusees in ships' clocks.
A fusee is a cone-shaped pulley with a spiral groove, used to maintain even travel in the timekeeping mechanism as the force of the mainspring lessens while it unwinds. Similar in design to modern bicycle chains, these minuscule chains have links that measure just millimetres across. The perfect fusee chain will allow a ship's clock to run with the greatest accuracy and ensure precise navigation.
Using all the hours of natural light available, you'll cut tiny link plates from sheet metal and rivet them together with the aid of tweezers and small files and hammers. The accuracy of the craftsmanship is paramount, and the slightest error will lead to a whipping.
Are you blessed with good balance and strong arms? If so, you're needed to work the new-fangled steam-driven thrashers, or threshing machines, designed by Scotsman Andrew Meikle (1719-1811).
When started up, the threshing machine rocks rhythmically and its crushing and cutting drums and disks clatter into action. As a thresher, you need to load 'stocks' (bundles) of wheat and barley into the top and let the mechanical wonder do its work. The drums and disks separate the grain from the stalks, pulverise the stems and rip the chaff from the grain.
You'll be supplied with pints of ale to keep you cool, but don't get too tipsy, as the slightest slip will see you macerated to death. Long hair, loose clothes and formal ties are certainly out of the question for safety reasons, and you'll need a good bath after a day's work, to clear the dust and itchy chaff that has become ingrained in your skin.
Are you a bored young bumpkin? This is your chance to see how exciting life on a farm can be, and you'll get the chance to drink some beer too.
Working close to the whipping belts of the steam-driven threshing machine (see above), you'll have to watch that your fingers, arms, hair, legs (take your pick) don't get tangled in the machinery, causing you to be mangled to a pulp. Downwind of the contraption, you will get a face full of all the dust and mess that flies through the air as the macerating monster gobbles up the crops.
Holding a hemp sack, you need to stand right in front of the chaff box and collect all of the itchy waste that comes flying out – not only chaff, but also shards of straw, insects, rats and mice. Once the bag is full, you sew it up and hoist the hefting great bundle on to a growing stack.
Hot, dusty and almost unending work, but you will be allowed to have a beer to whet your whistle.
If you fancy a walk in the countryside this could be just the ticket. Unfortunately you won't get any of the kudos for being an actual surveyor – no, that's left to the tweed-clad Mr Darcy type who's barking orders at you.
Your job has two parts. You will carry all the kit, which includes plane tables for drawing, a theodolite, tripod and staff, and a heavy bag containing the chain: a 22-yard (20-metre) long link chain consisting of 100 links. This is used for the second part of your job: measuring the landscape. It is dragged along the ground through hedges, gorse bushes, brambles and other varieties of virtually impenetrable undergrowth to follow the contours of the ground.
How does it get through impregnable thorny barriers? Well, that's down to you getting on your hands and knees and scrambling through. Your cries and curses will gain you no favour as your surveyor boss probably won't hear you anyway. He'll be directing you from a hilltop, probably on horseback wearing a pith helmet and drinking sherry.
The many thousands flocking to live in the city need water. And as we haven't got round to laying water mains yet, you can play the part of a human pipe.
Carrying a 66 lb (30-kilogram) barrel on your back, you need to deliver water to houses and apartments all over the city. This can include climbing many flights of stairs and a fair number of hills. Of course, the trip gets easier as the barrel empties, but to make any sort of living, every day you need to deliver approximately 36 barrels of water to a variety of addresses before you can give your spine a rest.
It's dreadfully uncomfortable on a hot day (you can't drink your own supply) and deadly in winter (what with slipping and sliding on the cobbles). But if you can muster the strength and stamina for the job, you'll be welcomed with open arms by your customers who are probably gasping for a cuppa as they await your arrival.
