From the tops of the furnaces

Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926 · 1916

"A subject like one seen from top of a skyscraper- only that is soundless, this is endless sound. From the skyscraper you look down on little dots of men; here on train and cranes. And as you look a charge is emptied into the furnace - and the whole place bursts into flames, trembles, roars, then sighs and dies away. Always down below the little figures wheel barrows and push carts. And one day as I talked to a foreman, a lady workman in pants, who must have been champion of her hockey club, came up, set down her barrow and said: Mr. Superintendent, a boy has been grossly rude to me. What shall I do?' 'Why, Laidee, 'it 'im over the 'ed with 'af a brick out cher barrer!' And she went her way." Joseph Pennell.