Knight's cyclopædia of the industry of all nations, 1851 / [edited by George Dodd].
- Date:
- [1851]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Knight's cyclopædia of the industry of all nations, 1851 / [edited by George Dodd]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
944/1000
![TROMBONE. TEUCK 8YSTEM, 1716 ore only used to rae^s oharcoal. Where char- eoal is not to be had, oamel's dung is used as fuel. Metals do not appear to be found; but salt is collected at a few places. In Tripoli, the chief town and port, the trade is carried on in small vessels, seldom larger than brigs, none of which are now . owned in the country. It has no dkect trade with England, but an indirect one through Malta. Moi-seille, Leghorn, and the com- mercial towns of the Adriatic and the Levant, lilcewise trade with Tripoli. The trade of Tripoli must greatly depend upon the com- munication with the interior; and it profits once or twice a year from the passage of the pilgrims from Western Barbary on their way to Mecca. Formerly these caravans, com- posed partly of penitents and partly of traders, started from Eez, and passing through Tlem- Bon, Algiers, and Tunis, increasing as they went, on arriving under the walls of Tripoli, amounted sometimes to 8000 persons, and half as many camels and horses, with their goods and merchandise, returning by the same route. But the pilgrims now take a different route; and the caravans which stop at Tripoli in the present day seldom amount to more than a few hundred persons and animals. The cafilas or small caravans from Fezzan and Ghadamis are now the principal medium of inland trade. These people exchange their merchandise for that of Europe, and pay the balance in gold- dust. TROMBO'NE, the same instrument as the Sacbut, is a deep-toned trumpet, composed of sliding tubes, by means of which every sound in the diatonic and ehromatic scales, being within its compass, is obtained in perfect tune. The trombone is of three kinds—the alto, the tenor, and the base, and these, in orchestral musij3, are generally used together, forming a complete harmony in themselves, The scale of the Alto-Trombone is from c, thfl second space in the base, to o, an octave above the treble clef; that of the Tenor-Trom- bone is from B, the second line in the base, to A, the second space in the treble ; and that of the Base-Trombone is from e, an octave below the second space in the base, to g, the second line in the treble. . TROY WEIGHT, The troy pound is the legal standard, though only actually used in weighing precious metals and stones, and apo- thecai-ies' drugs. There is no doubt that it Wfls originally the pound of silver, the pound sterling, and there is evidence that this pound was sometimes described as divided into twenty parts palled sterling shilUngs. Tiie pound troy is. now divided, for gold and silver, into twelve ounces, each ounce into twenty penny- weights, and each pennyweight into twenty- four grains. But for medicines, it is divided into twelve ounces, each ounce into eight drams or drachms, each drachm into three scruples, and each scruple into twenty grains. A cubic foot of water weighs 75.7374 pounds troy. [Apothecabies Weight; Avoibdupois Weight.] TRUCK SYSTEM, This system has much influence on the relation between employers and workmen, in the manufacturing districts. The term truck, which means exchange or barter, is now used to signify the payment of wages of labom- in goods, and not in money. By the truck-system is meant this mode of paying wages, together with all its tendencies and results. The Truck Act is an act passed in 1831, which, repealing aU. the previous acts passed for the same purpose, made stricter provisions for the prevention of payment of wages in truck in the departments of industry therein enumerated. The wages of agricul- tural labourers and domestic servants are ex- empted from the operation of the act. The evidence pubhshed in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on this subject, in 1842, shows that, notwithstanding the Truck Act, the truck-system is still in extensive operation in mills, factories, iron- works, colheries, and stone-quarries in the kingdom, and abundantly illustrates the evil tendencies of the system. The chief part of the evil of what is called the truck-system is incidental, and not essen- tial to the payment of wages in tinick, and arises out of the power of the master over the workman, which enables the master to use this mode of paying wages to defraud and oppress the workman. A master may pay the wages of his workmen wholly or in part in truck, in articles of food, clothing, &c., either by agreement or with only the understood con- sent of his workmen ; and if he supply these articles at pdices no higher than those at which they are to be procured elsewhere, and study to meet the various wants of the worlonen and their families, the utmost harm that can result is the loss to tlie workmen of the moral and ecpnoniical lessons which the disbunsement by themselves of weekly money-wages is fitted to supply, and the interference with the business and profits of neighbom-ing retail shopkeepers; and there will always in such cases be some advantage to set against these, so for as they go, evil results. Wliere the truck-system' acts beneficially, it ia o^ving entirely to the justice and benevolence of the individual truck- raastens. On the character of the master everything depends. In the hands of masters of opposite chsj-acter, and under circum-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21495348_0944.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
