Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner (03/Jul/1852) - Honley: Novel Application of Steam-Power

The following is a transcription of a historic newspaper article and may contain occasional errors. If the article was published prior to 1 June 1957, then the text is likely in the Public Domain.

DISTRICT INTELLIGENCE.

HONLEY.

Novel Application of Steam-Power.

Perhaps there is not another establishment in the Huddersfield district in which steam-power is applied to more purposes than is the case at Messrs. D. Shaw, Son, and Co.'s large works at Honley. The spirit of enterprise with which the worthy head of that firm has been imbued in the application of steam seems to have been caught by the workmen, as will be seen in the sequel. During the past week, the wife of the engineer has been weaning her sucking child, and the other morning she was suffering severely from the fulness of her breasts ; and having no one near to perform the operation of drawing the milk from them, she was doing that business herself by means of a tobacco-pipe. She was almost sick with the operation when her husband came in to his breakfast. On seeing his wife in this state it immediately struck that genius that he could make the tobacco-pipe perform better service than it was now doing ; and while the idea was in his mind, forthwith went back to the engine-house, inserted a small tube into the end of the vacuum pipe, and fixed the tobacco-pipe in the end of the tube. He then sent for his wife, who came and sat herself down, put the nipple of her breast into the bowl of the pipe, and had her breasts emptied much sooner and easier than could have been done by the child itself, or by any other means heretofore made use of for such a purpose. We were favoured with an opportunity on Thursday morning of seeing the woman's breasts drawn, and could not but feel astonished to see an engine of a hundred horse-power turning a prodigious quantity of machinery, and at the same time drawing a woman's breasts like an infant! Query, could not a similar instrumentality be applied to "cupping," "tapping," and other operations of a like nature?