of seed-beads; which, after importation,
are sold, threaded, at about three halfpence
for one hundred and twenty strings. There
is a great trade in glass bracelets composed
of large cut beads from Bohemia, made
up in London and sold at twopence each.
France supplies wax-beads, gilt, silver, and
steel beads. England has a reputation for
white solid glass, rosary, and other beads;
and from England the beads of all these
countries are exported, either manufactured
or in strings, to divers regions; but specially
to the savage tribes of Africa. The African
bead-trade requires special knowledge, as
each tribe has its peculiar tastes; so
that a man might buy an ox with a
handful of one sort of coloured beads, and
starve with a bushel of an unfashionable
shape and colour.

Tobacco implements filled up a very large
store. Snuff-boxes have declined in consumption;
while pipes and other smoking
apparatus have increased. The pipe trade
has received an immense impetus from
colonisation. The original yard of clay
has been competed with by a variety of
small, fancy-clay French pipes, coloured and
beautifully modelled, contained in cases. The
meerschaum trade has received a great
extension, and become partly an English
manufacture; that is to say, the meerschaum
pipe-bowl is imported from Vienna, the
amber mouth-piece from Nuremberg; and
the two are joined, mounted in silver, and
put into a case in England.

Among the fancy trades in which England
specially excels, we find brushes and combs.
Bristles are chiefly imported from Russia,
Servia, and the swine countries on the banks
of the Danube; but they make some good
brushes in Ireland, of native pigs' hair.
Everything in the way of wooden and leather
desks, work-boxes, and dressing-cases, is best
finished in England. In cutlery, either cheap
or fine, our workmen cannot be beaten;
but the Germans excel in the ornamental
handles of hunting-knives, and
such things. Hair-combs of imitation shell,
we saw at twopence a gross, affording one
reason why rough country heads are without
excuse. Time was, when a wooden pin was
the only comb within the reach of a country
maid. To accompany the combs are looking-glasses,
at infinitesimal prices,—a trade which
has increased in England a hundredfold
since the repeal of the excise. Among the
new materials of this country is vegetable
ivory; which, a few years ago, was exhibited
as a curiosity by the turners at the Polytechnic,
but which has now, from its cheapness,
good colour, and convenient texture for
working, been extended to a variety of uses
for which ivory was too dear.

A good many mysteries were cleared up by
our voyage of discovery into the warehouse
of Lilliput.

We had long laboured under the delusion
that those tin savealls, those halfpenny
mousetraps, and especially those penny yard
measures, which the cadgers, the wandering
bards of modern England, exhibit, explain,
and expatiate upon with so much eloquence
and such power of lungs, were the produce
of garret-labour. But we found that
penny yard-measures come from philosophical
France; mousetraps are some-times
German; savealls are a large
British manufacture, and our deep-lunged
friends do not vaste their valuable time at the
bench, but dive into such warehouses as
David's, and lay in stores by the gross,
at prices which it is not worth while to
mention. The paint-box, that safe and certain
amusement for children, was laid before us in
an endless succession of sizes and qualities. We
mention, for the satisfaction of those who wish
to introduce fine art into country schools,
that a commencement can be made at three
shillings for twelve dozen; viz., the cedar boxes
containing five primitive colours of paint-bricks.

We pause here. We must be content with
just indicating the enormous collection of
small, common things which, either as raw
or manufactured material, come from all
parts of the world to be made up or classified
and sold here, or sent away again to children
in America, to diggers in Australia, to
the negroes in the West Indies, and princes
and baboos in British India. It is a trade in
trifles, in amusements, and luxuries which
employs thousands of hands and many inventive
minds.

Now ready, price Threepence, Stamped, Fourpence,
THE HOLLY-TREE INN.
Being the Christmas Number of HOUSEHOLD WORDS,
And containing the amount of One regular
Number and a Half:

Also, in Twenty-eight pages, stitched,
PRICE FOURPENCE,
HOUSEHOLD WORDS ALMANAC
FOR THE YEAR 1856
Sold by all Booksellers and at all Railway Stations.

About the middle of January will be Published, Price
Five Shillings and Sixpence, cloth boards,
THE TWELFTH VOLUME
OF
HOUSEHOLD WORDS,
Containing from No. 280 to No. 303 (both inclusive),
and the extra Christmas Number.

The publication of the HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF CURRENT EVENTS has been discontinued; but
the volumes for each year from 1850 to 1855 may
always be had.