being touched by human hands. Two boys
thus carry away a piece in four folds, which
of course do not touch each other. The lads,
with their poles, lay the sticks across
horizontal poles at some height from the
ground; and there, still untouched, hangs
the paper to dry.

If a polished ground is wanted, the paper—
duly prepared by a chemical process in the
open air—is rubbed with a lump of French
chalk; then, with a surface of felt or flannel,
and finally with a polishing brush; and from
this treatment it comes out with a burnish
like satin. The paper, with a polished or a
dead ground, is now ready to receive the
pattern.

There are three ways of giving it a pattern
—by a printing machine, by block printing,
and by marbling by hand. It appears that
one machine does the work of about four
block printers; that two persons may prepare
the paper for fifteen printing tables; and
that fifty workmen can, by great diligence,
turn out three thousand pieces (of twelve
yards each) per week. They are paid by the
piece—from twenty-pence to two shillings per
score, and a workman can easily earn from
thirty to thirty-five shillings per week. The
business is carried on in large airy rooms,
and although much activity and strength of
eye, foot, and hand are required for joining
the pattern, lifting the heavy block, and
stamping it, there is no pernicious fatigue, or
perilous liability of any kind. It is altogether
a favourable and fortunate kind of employment
for a good workman.

In one part of the premises abides the
designer, educated now, generally speaking, at
one of our schools of design. He watches the
French; he watches the English; he watches
nature; and draws ideas from all for his
patterns. Star patterns are eternal in popular
favour; and so are lobby patterns—granites and
marbles; but beyond these, all is uncertainty.
A new set of designs must be made every
year; and if a pattern does not pay its cost
the first year, it never will. It may not be
utterly lost, but it will never be remunerative.
In one of the lower rooms at Mr. McCrie's,
we trod upon wealth in a truly magnanimous
manner. The floor was laid with obsolete
blocks; and thus we trampled on many
hundred pounds' worth of property.

The blocks are a pretty sight, from the
beginning, when the block-cutter traces his
pattern from oil paper upon the wood, and
taps his chisel, sending it down to a certain
depth in the wood (pine), and then clears
out the spaces, up to the funeral
ceremony of laying these memorials of departed
fashions in the ground; that is, in the floor.
Where little bits of the wood are broken
away, they are supplied with brass or copper.
The blocks for granite papers are stuck all
over "with everything that will make a
mark," as we were told; with odds and ends
of copper and brass, and with common nail-
heads. For the printing machine, the block
is cylindrical, the process being just that of
cylinder-printing of any kind. For the printing
tables, the blocks are furnished with a
strap at the back, to receive the workman's
hand, and they are pressed down on the paper
by a mallet driven by the workman's foot.
Every time that he applies the block, he dips
it on the surface of a stiff liquid in a trough
by his side—the liquid being either the colour
he wants to impress, or the oil which is to
catch and retain the colour to be afterwards
shed over it. For the best sort of gilding,
gold leaf is applied: for the commoner gilding,
bronze powder; for flock papers, the flock
which is brought from the wool districts.
The flock is wool, dyed of various colours, and
reduced to powder, If the size or oil on
which it is deposited be good, the flock cannot
be rubbed off, or removed by any means
short of scratching. The array of crimson
flock papers is really superb in our day. One
never tires of gazing at them in an establishment
like this, and fancying how each would
look in one's own study or dining-room. Of
all charming rooms in a middle class house,
the most bewitching, perhaps, is a library
lined almost throughout with books, with the
spaces between papered with a rich crimson
flock paper, and affording room, between the
book-cases, for a pedestal here and there, with
a bust, or a good cast upon it, surmounted by
a very few choice prints. The crimson makes
a glorious ground for prints.

The workman has not always dismissed his
piece when he has printed it from end to end.
It may be a pattern of two colours, or of six,
or even of twelve; and for each colour a
fresh block and a fresh process are required,
each repetition of course reckoning as a new
piece in regard to his wages. The workman
who does his work wholly by hand, he who
marbles papers for lobbies and stair- walls, has
also to go over it several times. The yellow
polished ground is supplied to him ready for
his brush. He veins it with a camel hair
brush, dipped in a dark colour. One cannot
but admire the decision with which he makes
his strokes, and groups his veinings. We
should stand hesitating which way to make
our pencil wander, doubting whether we were
making anything like marble; but the
accustomed stainer wields his brush with as
much purpose and decision as we do the pen,
knowing as well where to go and wherefore.
When he has thus veined a certain portion,
he sprinkles, by jerking a brush, little drops
of soap and turpentine, which make blotches,
and give a marbled appearance to the whole
surface. The coloured streaks, being diluted,
spread into a perfect resemblance of the veins
of marble; and nothing remains but to daub
some white blotches into the centres of the
groups of streaks. Of all the imitation papers
this appeared to us the most perfect. The
granite was good, with its glittering "frosting"
which frosting is done by scattering,