the reach of the photograph to imitate.
Others, however, deemed the alarm quite
uncalled for. One of the members of the
Photographic Society, writing to the Times,
stated that the detection of photographic
fraud would be easy; that the water-mark of
a bank-note results from a difference in the
substance or thickness of the paper, and is
visible only by transmitted light; that an
imitated water-mark would be on the surface
only, and would present merely a slight
darkening of the front of the note: that it
would be visible by reflected as well as by
transmitted light; that it would be on the
surface only; that by doubling a fraudulent
note, so as to see at the same time part of the
front and part of the back, the fraud would
be at once detected. So the matter ended.

Whoever would have thought of the bag-
man, the commercial traveller, lightening his
pack by means of the photograph? Yet such
seems actually to be the case, in a mode in
which it is not very difficult to understand.
Certain large and important firms manufacture
solid objects of design in the fine arts;
and they furnish their travellers with specimens
of their best and most novel productions.
These specimens are carried from shop
to shop, and from town to town, and are given
away at last to the best customers. Now,
the carriage of such specimens is troublesome;
they are either bulky, or they require much
care, or both. By stereoscopic photographs,
two pictures are produced of one object,
each under such an angle or aspect as it would
present to one eye only; and when the two
pictures are viewed by the two eyes through
a stereoscope, the effect of solidity, of length
and breadth and depth, is produced, and the
observer's visual organs are affected very
much in the same way as they would be by
the actual solid objects which those pictures
represent. The notion is, therefore, that the
manufactured article will be sent, when
finished, to a photographer, who will prepare
by the camera the two perspectives for the
best view of it; and will provide any number
of copies of the photographic couplet (this
would perhaps be a convenient name for
them) thus produced. The traveller would
take these pictures or couplets with him; he
would also take a stereoscope, in one of the
neat and convenient forms now adopted;
he would produce his pictures and his
stereoscope to his customer, and by their
means convey to him a notion of the
appearance of the choice wares of his
firms. If further improvements enable the
opticians to manufacture good stereoscopes
at a cheap price, the system may witness a
still more remarkable extension; the
shopkeepers or purchasers may have, each his
own stereoscope; the manufacturer may send
photographic couplets by post; these couplets
may be looked at through the stereoscope;
and a judgment may thus be formed of the
merits of the article submitted for sale.

There are evidently attempts now being
made to print ornamental designs on silks
and woollen stuffs by means of photography.
Hints and short paragraphs meet the eye
occasionally, sufficient to show that, either by
means of Mr. Talbot's steel engraving process,
or by some new development of the art,
manufacturers both at home and abroad are trying
their hands in this direction. The subject is
just in that stage, that any week or any day
we may be prepared to hear of photographic
novelties, which will produce wonderful
results in manufactures.

Railway accidents and war—both bad—
are both proposed to be brought under
photographic supervision. When a " collision"
takes place, the witnesses before a coroner's
jury often differ greatly in their accounts of
the relative position of the trains or the
locomotives on a railway; but it is urged
that if a photograph were taken on the spot,
this photograph might perhaps be the
best witness of all. Such things have been
talked about in England; we believe they
have actually been accomplished on one or
two occasions in Austria. Of war, we must
speak in the future tense. The positions of
a fleet, of an army, of a bridge of boats, of a
besieging party, of a bastioned and
parapetted wall, of a redoubt, of a reconnoitering
party, are often of the highest moment to a
commander, since those positions may determine
his course of proceeding. His aides-de-
camp and reconnoitering officers give him the
most correct information they can furnish on
these parts; but what if they could give him
faithful pictures, actually showing the state
of things at any given moment? The idea
is considered so feasible and so valuable, that
photographers have actually been sent out
with some of the expeditions that have lately
left our shores. Strange, scientific, mournful,
all at once!

PARIS WITH A MASK ON.

EVERY spring, the people of Paris enjoy three
days of the most hilarious madness. The
general love of extravagance displays itself
fearlessly; and most extraordinary combinations
of the elegant and the grotesque is
the result. The eve of the carnival is the
fête day of the washerwomen. On this day
these ladies parade through the capital in
elegant carriages, and dressed in the gayest
costumes. As illustrations of perfect washing
they are without fault. In the evening they
have a very grand ball, from which their
partners return to prepare for the morrow's
revelry. A stranger who has read vivid
pictures of carnival gaieties, who has realised
the happy custom of throwing splendid
bonbons from elegant balconies of Rome—in
short, with a mask on—will naturally be in a
state of some excitement on the eve of a
Parisian carnival. And the shops will have
prepared him for a grotesque sight, and