How Christmas Toys Are Made.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3406, 23 December 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

How Christmas Toys Are Made.

As Santa Claus must keep pace with the fashion if he is to retain his hold on the affections of the young folk, 'he must, as a matter of course, employ some thousands of hands making perfect toys to stock his sack with acceptable gifts; and it will surprise many to know that a vast number of these are made in Englend.lt takes dozens of busy workers to make rocking-horses, and the trade admits that in no counv in the world are they made so well as in England. The bodies are built up of a number of sections of wood glued together and hollow in the centre, as this makes a lighter body for the toy animal, although quite as strong as the solid wood. This is then shaped by expert workmen.with chisel and drawing-knife into a perfect form of a horse. The head is carved out of a piece of wood by a man who has spent a lifetime in this work alone, and who is capable of reproducing the points and shapes of the head of a horse so perfectly that it will secure the approval of a veterinary surgeon. When the head and legs have been fitted into the bodv and the whole glass-papered and smoothed, the rocking-horses in all sizes, from about a couple of feet high to the size of a Shetland pony, are handed 1 over to the painters, who give them their first, coat of - “filling,” a white., paint preparation which gives additional smoothness to th© toys. From hand to hand they are passed on, receiving further coats of paint, being harnessed and -mounted on their rockers, and eventually going forth to the waiting youngsters throughout the world. .Strangely enough, there is a deal of misconception iii the public mind' about the making of toys. Nearly everyone who picks np a box of metal soldiers would venture the opinion that they were made in Germany. Quite-, wrong, I can assure you; for Santa 1 Claus has .- a factory in London, where toy metal soldiers grow at a rate which would turn Mr. Haldane, green with envy.. Not only are practically all the metal soldiers for this market made in England, but millions of fighting men all truly garbed in the uniform of French, German, and other Continental armies, are exported and sold to the children of the country they represent. British thoroughness tells here again, for do not think that the miniature armies are thrown together haphazard, or that they are cast from crude designs. One of the heads of one firm is an artist and modeller, and the model for every kind of soldier is made .by him with as much care as if the tiny object were to find a place in the art gallery; from these models moulds are made, and the creation from the brain of the artist is duplicated in countless thousands. Aifter being cast, the toys are handed over to girl workers, who paint on the various colors with a rai/idiiy and apparent carelessness which make one quite prepared to-find splashes of color anywhere hut in the proper •daces; 'but, quickly though they are handled the girls are so expert that each of the necessary colors, which are put on separately, and each one allowed to dry before another is worked, come-S’ exactly in its proper place. Ancl it is well to be able to add that "the British workshops where these toys are made are increasing in size every year.—From an illustrated article in the Christmas Double Number of the “Pall Mall Magazine.”