Peter Kropotkin Archive
Written: 1898
Source: Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1898
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the varieties of small industries which are carried on at Paris; nor would such an enumeration be complete because every year new industries are brought into life. I therefore will mention only a few of the most important industries.
A great number of them are connected, of course, with ladies’ dress. The confections-that is, the making of various parts of ladies’ dress – occupy no less than 22,000 operatives at Paris, and their production attains £3,000,000 every year, while annual production is valued at £2,400,000. Linen, shoes, gloves, and so on, are as many important branches of the petty trades and the Paris domestic industries, while one-fourth part of the stays which are sewn in France (£500,000 out of £2,000,000) are made in Paris.
Engraving, book-binding, and all kinds of fancy stationery, as well as the manufacture of musical and mathematical instruments, are again as many branches in which the Paris workmen excel. Basket-making is another very important item, the finest sorts only being made in Paris, while the plainest sorts are made in the centers mentioned in the text (Haute Marne, Aisne, etc.). Brushes are also made in small workshops, the trade being valued at £800,000 both at Paris and in the neighboring department of Oise.
For furniture, there are at Paris as many as 4,340 workshops, in which three or four operatives per workshop are employed on the average. In the watch trade we find 2,000 workshops with only 6,000 operatives, and their production, about £1,000,000, reaches nevertheless nearly one-third part of the total watch production in France. The maroquinerie gives the very high figure of £500,000, although it employs only 1,000 persons, scattered in 280 workshops, this high figure itself testifying to the high artistic value of the Paris leather fancy goods. The jewelry, both for articles of luxury, and for all descriptions of cheap goods, is again one of the specialties of the Paris petty trades; and another well-known specialty is the fabrication of artificial flowers. Finally, we must mention the carriage and saddlery trades, which are carried in the small towns round Paris; the making of fine straw hats; glass cutting, and painting on glass and china; and numerous workshops for fancy buttons, attire in mother-of-pearl, and small goods in horn and bone.