USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 90
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FIVE YEARS LATER.
In 1840, the manufactures of Cincinnati in wood, wholly or principally, occupied the energies of two hun- dred and twenty-seven establishments, with one thousand five hundred and fifty seven hands, and gave a product for the year of $2,222,857 value. In iron, wholly or or chiefly, there were one hundred and nine factories, with one thousand two hundred and fifty hands, and a product of $1,728,549; in other metals, sixty-one work- shops, four hundred and sixty-one hands, $658,040; leather, entirely or partly, two hundred and twelve work- shops, eight hundred and eighty-eight hands, $1,068,700; hair, bristles, and the like, twenty-four workshops, one hundred and ninety-eight hands, $366,400; cotton, wool, linen, and hemp, thirty-six workshops, three hundred and fifty-nine hands, $411, 190; drugs, paints, chemicals, etc., eighteen workshops, one hundred and fourteen hands, $458,250; earth, fifty-one workshops, three hundred and one hands, $238,300; paper, forty-seven workshops, five hundred and twelve hands, $669,600; food, one hundred and seventy-five workshops, one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven hands, $5,269,627; science and the fine arts, fifty-nine workshops, one hundred and thir- ty-nine hands, $179,100; buildings, three hundred and thirty-two workshops, one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight hands, $953,267; miscellaneous, two hundred and fifty-nine workshops, one thousand seven hundred and thirty-three hands, $3,208,790. The total number of manufacturing operatives was ten thousand six hun- dred and forty-seven, with a product for the year of
331
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
$17,432,670. The capital invested in local manufactures was $14,541,842.
The next year Mr. Cist, from whose Cincinnati in 1841 we derive these statistics, wrote that manufacturing was "decidedly our heaviest interest, in a pecuniary and political sense, and inferior to few others in a moral one. Most of the machinery was then moved by water-power derived from the canal or by hand-power, notwithstand- ing the comparatively large number of steam engines above noted. About two persons were employed in mauufacturing for every one operative in Pittsburgh. The iron foundries had become a very heavy industry, and there were eight brass and bell foundries-the Cin- cinnati bells having already acquired a high reputation. Four establishments were making mathematical and phil- osophical instruments. Remarkable success had been achieved in making and selling stoves and hollow ware.
EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY.
Three years subsequently, in the compilation of his Cincinnati Miscellany, Mr. Cist inserted an editorial note which has especial value at this day, as illustrating the rise-or rather early progress-of one of the most inter- esting and important industries of the Queen City:
WINTER'S CHEMICAL DIORAMA .- Our townsman, R. Winter, has re- turned from the east with his chemical pictures, which he has been ex- hibiting for the last thirteen months in Boston, New York, and Balti- more, with distinguished success. He is now among his early friends, who feel proud that the defiance to produce such pictures as Daguerre's, which was publicly made by Maffel and Lonati, who exhibited them here, was taken up and successfully accomplished by a Cincinnati ar- tist. Nothing can be more perfect than the agency of light and shade, to give life and vraisemblance to these pictures. They are four in num- ber. The Milan Cathedral at Midnight Mass, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, Belshazzar's Feast, and the Destruction of Babylon. These are all fine, each having its appropriate excellencies; but the rich, yet harmonious coloring in the two last has an incompar- able effect, which must strike every observer. But the pen cannot ade- quately describe the triumphs of the pencil: the eye alone must be the judge.
ABOUT EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE,
Cincinnati was visited by the renowned philosopher edi- tor, Mr. Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune, who carried the observing eye and thoughtful mind whitherso- ever he went, especially where industries or agriculture was to be observed. In one of his remarkable letters of that time he wrote of this city :
It requires no keenness of observation to perceive that Cincinnati is destined to become the focus and mart for the grandest circle of manu- facturing thrift on this continent. Her delightful climate; her unequal- led and ever-increasing facilities for cheap and rapid commercial inter- course with all parts of the country and the world; her enterprising and energctic population; her own elastic and exulting growth, are all ele- ments which predict and insure her clectric progress to giant greatness. I doubt if there is another spot on the earth where food, fuel, cotton' timber, iron, can all be concentrated so cheaply-that is, at so moder- ate a cost of human labor in producing and bringing them together- as herc. Such fatness of soil, such a wealth of mineral treasure-coal iron, salt, and the finest clays for all purposes of usc-and all cropping out from the steep, facile banks of placid though not sluggish navigable rivers. How many Californias could equal, in permanent worth. this Valley of the Ohio?
Manufacturing in Cincinnati had increased one hun- dred and eighty per cent. in the ten years 1840-50. In tne former year 8,040 employes were engaged, producing in one year $16,366,443; in 1850, 28,527 persons were employed, with a product of $46,789,279.
At this time the largest chair factory in the world, that of C. D. Johnston, was located in this city, on the south side of Second, between John and Smith streets.
The vinegar business had increased from a product of less than a thousand barrels in 1837, to $168,750 worth from twenty-six factories, employing fifty-nine hands, be- sides some establishments that were making vinegar in connection with other business.
The whiskey product in and near Cincinnati now ag- gregated 1, 145 barrels per day, or $2,857,900 worth dur- ing the year.
The wine industry in 1851 was employing about five hundred persons and producing $150,000 a year. Nearly a thousand acres about the city were already in grapes, of which Nicholas Longworth alone had one hundred and fifteen, with a wine-cellar forty-four by one hundred and thirty-five feet in dimensions, four and a half stories high, and too small at- that. Robert Buchanan, Thomas H. Yeatman, and others, were also producing in considera- ble quantity.
Oil-cloth was also becoming an important article of manufacture. It had not been made here until 1834, ex- cept some coarse stuff printed on wooden blocks. In the year named Messrs. Sawyer & Brackett began print- ing with copper blocks, and their products soon com- manded the premium at several industrial and agricul- tural fairs. In 1847 they began making transparent oil- painted window shades.
The Cincinnati type foundry, which was regularly char- tered January 12, 1830, employed in 1850 one hundred hands, and produced a value of $70,000 a year. Every description of type made in the east was now manufac- tured here. The foundry had two thousand fonts on its shelves. Fancy type were cast by steam and under pres- sure, hardening the product and making it heavier. An- other house, Messrs. Guilford & Jones, was likewise in the business, and employing twenty-one hands.
In the comparatively little matter of zinc wash-boards, it was noted by Mr. Cist that Cincinnati produced fifty more this year than any State of the Union other than Ohio, or than any other city in the world.
WILLIAM CHAMBERS' NOTES.
In 1853, as noted in the annals of Cincinnati's Sev- enth Decade, the city was visited by the celebrated Edin- burgh publisher, Mr. William Chambers. Some peculi- arities of the manufacturing business here seem especially to have attracted his notice. He remarks in his book of Things as they Are in America :
Like all travellers from England who visit the factories of the United States, I was struck with the originality of many of the mechanical con- trivances which came under iny notice in Cincinnati. Under the enlightenment of universal education and the impulse of a great and growing demand, the American mind would seem to be ever on the rack of invention to discover fresh applications of inanimate power. Almost everywhere may be scen something new in the arts. As regards carpentry-machinery, one of the heads of an establishment said, with some confidence, that the Americans were fifty years in advance of Great Britain. Possibly, this was too bold an assertion; but it must be admitted that all kinds of American cutting-tools arc of a superior description, and it is very desirable that they should be examined in a candid spirit by English manufacturers. In mill-machinery the Ameri- cans have effected some surprising improvements. At one of the
332
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
machine-manufactories in Cincinnati, is shown an article to which I may draw the attention of English country-gentlemen. It is a portable flour-mill, occupying a cube of only four feet ; and yet, by means of various adaptations, capable of grinding, with a power of three horses, from fourteen to sixteen bushels per hour, the flour produced being of so superior a quality that it has carried off various prizes at the agri- cultural shows. With a mill of this kind, attached to the ordinary thrashing-machines, any farmer could grind his own wheat, and be able to send it to market as finely dressed as if it came from a professional miller. As many as five hundred of these portable and cheap mills are disposed of every year all over the Southern and Western States. Surely it would be worth while for English agricultural societies to pro- cure specimens of these mills, as well as of farm implements generally, from America. A little of the money usually devoted to the over- fattening of oxen would not, I think, be ill employed for such a pur- pose.
IN 1859,
According to Mr. Cist, Cincinnati was considered the most extensive manufacturing centre in the Union, except Philadelphia. Trade and commerce were carried on to the amount of about eighty million dollars a year, with an average profit of twelve and one-half per cent., or ten millions of dollars; while manufacturing and mechanical operations produced ninety millions a year, and a profit of thirty millions, or thirty-three and one- third per cent. Fifty-six hundred persons were engaged in the former pursuits, forty-five thousand in the latter. Twenty establishments, employing six hundred and twenty hands, were making agricultural machines and implements, and turning out a value of one million three hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars for the year- four of them engaged solely upon plows and plow molds. Nine manufactories of alcohol and spirits of wine, with one hundred and forty hands, were capable of pro- ducing six hundred and sixty-four barrels a day, but made but one hundred and ten thousand in the year, worth twenty dollars a barrel, or a total of two million two hundred thousand dollars. Thirty-six breweries turned out, in the single article of lager beer, eight millions of gallons-two-thirds of which, it may be further remarked, were consumed in Cincinnati. Clothing was now the largest business in the city, which furnished the greatest market in this country for ready-made clothing. Forty- eight wholesale and eighty-six retail houses were engaged in it, employing seven thousand and eighty seamstresses, and producing fifteen million dollars' worth a year. Other industries were catalogued, and statistics given by Mr. Cist, in his Cincinnati in 1859, as follows :
*The manufacture of baking-powders had been introduced but eight or ten years before.
Establishment.
No.
Hands.
Product.
Bookbinding
380
$ 326,000
Boots and shoes
474
2,745
1,750,450
Boxes, packing.
6
75
210,000
Brands, stamps, stencils, etc.
10
30
22,000
Bricklayers, masters
290
Plasterers
40
1, 112
640,700
Brickyards.
60
500
285,000
Brooms
2
25
25,000
Bristle-dressing and curled hair.
2
150
140,000
Brittania ware
2
40
100,000
Brushes
15
85
125,000
Bungs and plugs.
I
6,000
Burning fluid.
3
20
195,000
Butchers
210
1,100
4,370,000
Candles, lard oil, etc.
6
142
114,500
Candy.
13
I32
262,000
Cap and hat bodies.
2
20,000
Caps.
7
160
120,000
Carpenters and builders.
310
3,424
2,760,000
Carpet-weavers
15
70
75,000
Carpenters' tools
I
IO
8,000
Carriages
32
450
460,000
Carvers, wood.
4
20
30,000
Charcoal pulverizers
3
I8
30,000
Cistern-builders
3
30
75,000
Chemicals
8
Cloaks, mantillas, etc.
5
240
250,000
Coffee-roasting and grinding.
2
45
225,000
Coopers.
I30
1,756
1, 510,000
Copper, tin, and sheet-iron
II5
760
610,000
Copper and steel-plates.
2
22
48,000
Cordage, hemp, manilla, etc
6
140
234,000
Cotton yarn, batting, twine, etc
5
580
600,000
Corned-beef, tongues, etc.
14
300
225,500
Cutlery, surgical instruments, etc.
IO
50
80,000
Dental furniture.
T
9
10,000
Dentists
40
40
125,000
Die sinkers
3
6
7,500
Drug-grinding.
2
12
60,000
Dyeing
15
45
60,000
Edge-tools and grinding.
19
72
130,000
Engraving, seal papers, etc
8
20
30,000
Files. .
2
19
18,000
Florists, nurserymen, and seed dealers.
25
300,000
Flour and feed mills .
21
45
216,000
Foundries-iron
42
5,218
6,353,400
Dentists
40
40
125,000
Furniture
I20
2,850
3,656,000
Fringes, tassels, etc ..
4
50
66,000
Gas-fitting.
II
56
110,000
Gas-generator
I
15
50,000
Gilding
II
75
60,000
Gilding on glass
I
5
10,000
Glassworks.
I
80
100,000
Grease factory.
I
I20
130,000
Gloves
3
40
30,000
Glue.
6
40
36,000
Animal charcoal.
I
15
$ 30,000
Artificial flowers.
3
40
24,000
Awnings, tents, etc.,
8
66
52,000
Bakeries*
220
656
960,280
Band and hat-boxes, etc ..
6
36
42,000
20
130
250,000
Brass founders and finishers.
IO
Bells,
100,000
IO
1,825
4,334,000
Bell foundries.
2
Brass castings, 225,000
Bellows
3
9
20,000
Belting.
2
96,000
Bill tubes
2
125
342,000
Blacking paste.
3
24
36,000
Blacksmiths
125
345
397,200
Venetian blinds.
7
45
60,000
Blocks, spars, and pumps.
5
20
25,000
Boiler yards
IO
80
363,000
Bolts. .
2
60
65,000
Malt
589,400
Marble-works ..
22
290
320,000
Mathematical and other instruments ..
5
20
40,000
No.
Hands.
Product.
Gold leaf and dentists' foil.
I
7
15,000
Gold pens.
2
5
6,500
Guns, etc
6
30
45,000
Hat blocks
I
4
4,000
Horse-shoeing.
12
40
50,000
Iron bridges
I
75
1, 000,000
Japanning and tinners' tools.
74
130,000
Ladders
6
12
20,000
Lever bolts, etc.
IO
6c
75,000
Lightning rods.
3
35
175,000
Lead pipe, etc.
I
61,000
Liquors
40
240
1,600,000
Lithographers
6
66
165,000
Machinery, wood-working.
2
82
175,000
Ice.
Rolling mills.
I
Establishments.
333
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
Establishment.
No.
Hands.
Produet.
Mats
I
3
8,000
Mattrasses, bedding, ete ..
15
IIO
108,000
Masonie and Odd Fellows' regalia ..
4
18
25,000
Wire-working
5
60
150,000
Wood and willow-ware.
15
90
50,000
Wool carding, ete
3
Writing inks
5
50
100,000
Wrought nails
4
12
12,000
THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.
The manufacture of tobacco was not begun in Cincin- nati until 1863. It is now one of the great industries of city.
During the year ending March 31, 1869, one hundred and eighty-seven classes of manufactured articles were produced in Cincinnati and its immediate neighborhood, by 3,000 establishments, employing 55,275 hands and a cash capital of $49,824,124, and turning out an aggre- gate product for the year worth $ 104,657,612. For the year 1860 the returns had shown 2,084 manufactories, 30,268 hands, $18,983,693 capital invested, and a pro- duct of $46,995,062. Pitting 1869 against 1860, an increase in nine years is shown of one hundred and twen- ty-three per cent; against 1840, an increase of five hun- dred and forty per cent.
The census of 1860 exhibited three hundred and forty occupations as pursued in Cincinnati, of which two hundred and thirty were those of mechanics, artisans, and manufacturers. There was an increase, as against 1850, of fifty varieties of occupation not before practiced here. There was now, according to the Hon. E. D. Manfield, State commissioner of statistics, twenty more occupations pursued in Cincinnati than in Chicago, and fifty more than in the entire State of Indiana.
In 1869 the principal branches of productive industry returned about as follows: Workers in iron, all kinds, $5,500,000; furniture, all kinds, $17,000,000; meats, $9,000,000; clothing, $4,500,000; liquors, $4,500,000; soaps and candles, $1,500,000; oils, lard, resin, etc., $3,000,000; mills of all sorts, $2,000,000.
In 1867 Cincinnati was the third manufacturing city in the Union-the fourth in the production of books. This position was maintained six years later, in 1873, as to rela- tive position in general manufacturing. Of the thirty-seven medals awarded to the United States at the Vienna ex- position of the year, thirteen, or more than one-third, came to Cincinnati manufacturers. The value of their products was, in round numbers, $143,000,000.
The Board of Trade report for 1870, made by Colo- nel Harry H. Tatem, then secretary, exhibited the follow- ing comparative statements of the increase of manafac- turing industries in Cincinnati:
Number of Hands Employed.
Value of Produets.
1850.
28,527
1850. .$46,789,279
Typc and printing materials
5
220
310,000
Undertakers.
24
50
140,000
Upholstery and window-shades
18
210
160,000
Varnish, eopal
3
16
200,000
Veneers
I
20
100,000
Vermicelli, maccaroni, etc.
4
20
80
200,000
Wagons, carts, etc.
52
170
210,000
Wall paper stainers and hangers.
2
30
18,000
Washboards, zine
2
90
210,000
Whiskey
5,315,730
Establishment.
No.
Hands.
Produet.
Wigs
3
7
10, 000
Wines and brandy, catawba.
880
600,000
Medieines, patent
15
50
960,000
Millinery
3.50
1,120
1,750,000
Mineral waters, artificial.
80
176,000
Moroeeo leather
IO
167,000
Mouldings
2
16
30,000
Musical instruments.
5
34
49,000
Musie publishing, etc.
I
75
200,000
Oil, castor
H
5
30,000
Oil, coal
4
Oil, cotton seed
3
53
350,000
Paints.
3
185
418,000
Painters and glaziers.
94
810
456,500
Paper mills
7
Pattern making.
50
27,000
Perfumery, fancy soaps, ete.
12
75
190,000
Photographs, ete.
45
II3
150,000
Piekles, preserves, sauee, ete
2
12
35,000
Planes and edge tools
I
25
30,000
Planing machines
3
32
80,000
Plating, silver
4
Plating, eleetrie.
4
20
35,000
Plumbers
24
210
406,000
Poeket combs, ete.
2
20
40,000
Pork and beef packing.
33
2,450
6,300,000
Pottery
12
70
90,000
Printing ink
2
. IO
20,000
Publishing, book and news.
1,230
2,610,050
Pumps, etc.
I
25
30,000
Railway ehairs, spikes, ete
I
35
360,000
Ranges, cooking, ete
3
45
75,000
Refrigerators
2
80
75,000
Roofing, tin, composition and metallie
I8
150
360,000
Saddlery, collars and harness.
56
300
663,000
Saddle-trees.
I
5
10,000
Safes, vaults, ete
2
135
408,000
Sash, blinds and doors.
20
410
1,380,000
Sausages
28
180
215,000
Sawed lumber, laths, ete
12
150
820,000
Saws
2
30
95,000
Scales, platforms, ete.
7
40
85,000
Serew plates
3
I8
21,000
Shirts, ete
25
200
575,000
Show eases
2
6
6,000
Silver and goldsmiths.
5
50
110,000
Spokes, felloes and hubs.
I
80
125,000
Stained glass
2
6
9,000
Stareh
6
50
230,000
Steamboat yards.
3
400
400,000
Stoeking weavers
4
18
18,000
Stone cutters
20
235
1,125,000
Stone masons
50
435
775,000
Stueco workers.
4
I6
18,000
Sugar refineries
4
106
750,000
Tailoring
I60
1,340
2,035,000
Tanners and curriers
30
380
1,520,000
Tapers
I
I
18
25,000 1,667,000
Trunks, valises, and carpet bags.
12
275
650,000
Trusses, braees, and belts
8
60
56,000
Turners.
18
50
95,000
1860.
30,268
I860. 46,995,062
1870.
59,354
1870. 119, 114,089
Inerease in No. of Hands. Increase in Products.
From 1850 to 1860. . .. .. 1,741 From 1850 to 1860. ..... $ 205,783 From 1860 to 1870. . . . . . 29,086 From 1860 to 1870. . . . . . 72, 145, 027
That year brought the terrible panic, which largely pros- trated the industries of the manufacturing centres. Colonel Sidney D. Maxwell, superintendent of the cham- ber of commerce, in his report for 1875-6, said of this:
1
Tobacco, cigars, ete
93
2,010
93,600
Terra cotta work
24,000
Vinegar
I
Oil, linseed
616,000
25,000
IO
334
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
Cincinnati, in the midst of this general depression, was peculiarly situated. Alone, among the great cities of the country, she was the centre of a large district which had sustained tremendous losses from the storms of the previous harvest. In some places crops had been lit- erally ruined and in others badly damaged. It was nothing short of a great agricultural disaster in nearly the whole locality upon which Cin- cinnati draws for her local trade. In the light of these circumstances must be read the detailed result of the year, for it reveals facts concern- ing the prosperity of this city which, if not exceptional among the great centres of business, are remarkable, and speak for the enterprise of the merchants of the city, the stability of our manufacturers, and the solidity of our commercial foundations so forcibly that it should silence all croakers and be a subject for general congratulation among our whole people.
In volume the business of Cincinnati has not only suffered little diminution, but in some departments it has been more than maintained. The aggregate value is considerably less than in the preceding year, but this grew mainly out of the steady and in many cases great shrink- age in prices. The number of pounds, yards, and packages, in gen- eral, is the only fair test of relative trade, and with this measure there is little but encouragement to the business men of Cincinnati. The sea- son certainly has not been a money-making one, but with constantly shrinking prices good profits could not be expected.
The volume of business in pig-iron and coal this year, notwithstanding the financial pressure, was greater than had been known in the history of the city. The sales of iron were one hundred and thirty-seven thousand six hundred and forty six tons, against one hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and twenty-five the previous year, an increase of twenty thousand four hun- dred and twenty-one tons. There was also a material increase in the cotton business, and some in hog pro- ducts, grain and other of the leading articles.
The manufacture of oleomargarine was commenced in this city in April, 1877.
During the year ending January 1, 1879, the total pro- duction of manufactured articles here reached a value of one hundred and thirty-eight million seven hundred and thirty-six thousand one hundred and sixty-five dollars, against one hundred and thirty-five million one hundred and twenty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight the previous year, and only seven million six hundred and ninety-five thousand one hundred and eighty-nine below the highest production in the best year Cincinnati had known, notwithstanding the great depreciation in values which then prevailed. The number of establish- ments in operation (five thousand two hundred and seventy-two), and the hands employed (sixty-seven thou- sand one hundred and forty-five), were both greater in number than ever before. Cash capital invested in manufactures, fifty-seven million five hundred and nine thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars; value of real estate occupied, forty-five million two hundred and forty- five thousand six hundred and eighty-seven dollars.
In the manufacture of school-books the city was now second to no city in the world. In the production of law-books it was excelled by but one other. ' In the mat- ter of clothing, Cincinnati was the fifth city for volume of product.
Colonel Maxwell says in his report for 1880:
The aggregate value of the products of our manufacturing industry, the number of hands employed, the value of real estate occupied, the cash capital invested, and the number of establishments engaged in Cincinnati, for each year in which statistics have been compiled touch- ing these particulars, will be found in the following table :
ments ......
establish-
Number of
invested ...
capital
estate occu-
Value of real
ployed ......
hands
Number
duction . . . ..
Value of Pro-
Total for year 1840.
1850.
1860.
30,268
46,995,062
=
1870.
51,673,741
37,124, 119
59,827
127,459,021
1871 ..
50,520,179
40,443,553
58,443
135,988,365
1872 ..
3,971
55,265,129
45, 164,954
58,508
145.486,675
I873 ..
4,118
54,377,853 63, 149,085
52,151,680
€0,999
143,207,371
=
1875.
4,693
64,429,740
53,326,440
62,218
146,431,354
1876 ..
5,003
61,883,787
51,550,933
60,723
140,583,960
1877.
5, 183
57,868,592
47,464,792
64,709
135,123,768
1878.
5,272
57,509,215
45,245,687
67, 145
158,736,165
¥
I879.
5,493
60,523,350
48, 111, 870
74,798
148,957,280
* Not reported.
The aggregate production for 1879 was by several millions the largest ever reported in the history of Cin- cinnati. It was thought that the products of manufact- uring industry in the city for 1880 would reach one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred millions.
Colonel Maxwell says further in his masterly reports :
It is a noticeable feature of Cincinnati that they who are managing our industrial establishments are generally men who are thoroughly ac- quainted with the practical features of their business. They are me- chanics themselves, who did not commence to build at the top of the structure, but at the bottom, when they had small means. These oaks, whose great spreading branches now shelter so many families of work- ingmen, were once small producers, who have grown up by degrees, gathering skill with experience and strength with their skill. The re- sult is a large intelligence in the prosecution of business. Then, as a sequel to this, we find that the capital used by our manufacturers con- sists largely of the accumulations from their business. Their surplus has not been committed to the treacherous waves of speculation, but has been turned into their business to enlarge their usefulness.
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