"Lester," she cried, passionately, "do you re-headed staff indicates exalted rank; and in the member that I have been a wife and mother?"

belong to each other. But you are queer, and ber 6, 1709, and in the London Chronicle of

sics will find curious accounts of walking-sticks | many thousands of work-people. Its control in the eighteenth century.

The alpenstock has a history of its own. is now, as used by Alpine travelers, a stout pole, six feet long, with an iron spike at one end, and a chamois horn at the other. It comes from the pilgrim - staff of the Middle Ages. The bourdon, as the Knights Templars call it in their chronicles, was a strong stick, five feet in length, armed at the lower end with an iron spike, and intended to supply support and balance to the user when climbing steep acclivities. Ten inches from the top was a protuberance on which to rest the hand. The upper part unscrewed. In its hollow relics were concealed. From the crooked knob a bag or bottle could be suspended, the bourdon being on the shoulder. A hole pierced the head for the palm branch to be inserted, as proof of authentic pilgrimage.

is in the hands of the Jews. The Meyers, It members of one family of German-Hebrews, are at its head in Austria and Germany proper, and by management peculiar to their race have absorbed all competition. First gaining ascendency at home by the style and cheapness of their wares, they next assailed foreign markets. In Bombay they undersold the Chinese dealers. Scattering thin light bamboo rods along the overland route to India, the native productions in Egypt and Arabia gave place to the more convenient Viennese manufacture. The French occupation of Algiers introduced their graceful walking-sticks to the Moorish gentry of Northern Africa. Paris began to adopt them. Madrid, Naples, and even London followed. They drove the English canes out of the Brazils, and on the western coast of South America, where Belgian manufactures had enjoyed immemorial monopoly, they found a demand which it taxed all their resources to supply. Curiously enough, California, in the use of the Viennese walking-cane, preceded the Eastern States. Mine-explorers and gold-diggers of the Sierra Nevada country gave ton to fashion in New York and Chicago. The im

There is no doubt, however, that the pilgrims' staffs frequently contained secular as well as sacred articles. It was the hollow of a bourdon which brought from Greece the first head of saffron, when the penalty was death for taking the living plant out of the country. It was a pilgrim's staff that contained the first tulip bulb introduced into Holland, the after-portation of the Meyers' canes at the present propagation of which became a source of large national income. The asparagus traces its origin in England to the contents of a Templar's hollow cane; the silk-worm found its way across the seas in the same concealed receptacle; and the seeds of the melon and apricot, tomato and onion, cauliflower and quince, indigenous to Oriental tropics, were transported as exotics to the less kindly soil of Western Europe in the cavities of pilgrims' staffs. Cervantes tells of certain Spanish palmers who concealed gold in their hollow wands, bringing it from Saracen infidels to enrich abbeys and monasteries; and Richard Cœur de Lion was enabled to provide for the wants of his train during his imprisonment in Germany from coin kept secret in the

same way.

time into the United States has swallowed up, like Aaron's serpent, all other. They are found every where. No Jew clothes-man fails to keep them among his stock of goods. Light French ratans, heavy English crab-sticks, curiously carved Brussels thorns, and even the choice Alcasian orange-sticks, have disappeared. The Jew specialty always succeeds, and the walking-stick, manufactured now for thirty years by the Meyers millionaires, furnishes no exception.

Then

In the present manufacture of canes great quantities and varieties of materials are consumed. There is scarcely grass or shrub, reed or tree, that has not been employed at one time or another. The black-thorn and crab, cherrytree and furze-bush, sapling oak and Spanish reed (Arundo donar), are the favorites. The ancient contrivance is not obsolete. come supple-jacks and pimentoes from the West Turning from the dead past to the living pres- Indies, ratans and palms from Java, white and ent, it is found that walking - sticks are still black bamboos from Singapore, and stems of made with hollow centres to answer as reposi- the bambusa-the gigantic grass of the tropics tories. Mustapha Ibrahim, the principal med--from Borneo. All these must be cut at cerical man of the Sultan's harem, descends from tain seasons, freed from various appendages, his carriage, and, accompanied by eunuchs, enters the guarded inclosure, supported by a long gold-mounted cane, which contains medicines and surgical instruments. The English Geo-ers. Then comes the curious process of manugraphical Society provides its Central African explorers with supplies of spring-spear canes and sword-sticks. Alpine travelers now measure altitudes with sextants carried within their alpenstocks; and theodolites in walking-sticks are one of the present necessary accompaniments of the scientific traveler in Northern Asia.

searched to discover-defects, assorted into sizes, and thoroughly rid of moisture. A year's seasoning is required for some woods, two for oth

facture. Twenty different handlings hardly finish the cheapest cane. The bark is to be removed after boiling the stick in water, or to be polished after roasting it in ashes; excrescences are to be manipulated into points of beauty; handles straightened and shanks shaped; forms twisted and heads rasped; tops carved or mountSince 1851 commerce in ordinary walking- ed, surfaces charred and scraped, shanks smoothsticks has more than quadrupled. In Ham- ed and varnished, and bottoms shaped and ferburg, Berlin, and Vienna-the present central ruled. Woods, too, have to be studied, lest dépôts for export-the manufacture employs chemical applications that beautify one might

ruin another kind. Some are improved under ebony in color. No known substance is capasubjection to intense heat, others destroyed.ble of higher polish. Neither heat nor frost afMalacca canes have frequently to be colored fects it. Closeness of texture, freedom from in parts so that stained and natural surfaces are brittleness, lightness of weight, and imperviousnot distinguishable; heads and hoofs for hand-ness to abrasion, give it extraordinary advantles are baked to retain their forms; tortoise-ages. For several years it became the haut ton shell raspings are conglomerated by pressure of London, Paris, and Berlin. Even now, to into ornamental shapes, and lithographic trans- elderly gentlemen of mode, who affect gold heads fers, done by hand, are extensively used upon surmounting stout and serviceable staffs, it is walking-sticks for the Parisian market. distingué above all others. But its cost killed it. For general use it was never much introduced. Besides, it lacks elasticity-an essential element in walking-sticks-and hence is never likely to compete with the various woods.

The highly ornamented and decorated sticks used by the rajahs of the East, exhibited at the Paris Exposition, can hardly be considered as articles of commerce. Bamboo canes richly mounted in gold and silver, sandal-woods enriched with painted ornaments, ivory chowrees elaborately carved, chowrees made of the tail of the yak (Bos grunniens), beetle-nut wands with silver handles, supple-jacks from St. Vincent, and whale's-tooth sticks from Trinidad, are merely objects of curiosity. The same may be said of the sticks used for staffs carried before African chiefs, of the stained quina walking-sticks made at Groenkloof, of the tooroo-palm-rind canes, and of the staff of solid gold, set with carbuncles and diamonds, exhib

Staff's with grotesque heads hold their own in every age. Why, it is difficult to say. Old cynics of Greek memories used them. They were the badge of the tribunes in Rome, whom the better classes despised. Fools and jesters of the Middle Ages carried them as baubles distinctive of their class. The Universal Spectator points them out, in 1730, as "the large oak sticks, with great heads and ugly faces carved thereon, carried at the court end of town by polite young gentlemen instead of swords." That daft Highland laird, Robertson of Kincraigie, made himself famous by carving effigies of friends and caricatures of enemies on the upper end of walking-sticks, until the accost, "Wha hae ye up the day, laird?" became a cant phrase for lunacy all over Scotland. The brigands of Italy adopt them. They are favorites with Magyar chiefs in Hungary; and those used by members of Kossuth's train, during his visit to the United States in 1851-52, were ob-ited by the Rajah of Kisnaghur. None of these, jects of particular notice. It would seem that they have been the accompaniments of eccentricity in every age of the world, but for what reason it is difficult to say. Facts, like bon-mots, are not always explicable. Talleyrand, standing in an ante-room through which the Duchesse De Grammont was passing to dinner, looked up and said, "Ah!" In the course of the feast the lady asked him, across the table, why he had uttered the exclamation “Oh!" upon her entrance. The witty statesman replied, "Madame, je n'ai pas dit oh! j'ai dit ah!"

Animal substances have given almost entire place to vegetable in materials used for walkingsticks. Whalebone is exhausted by the umbrella manufacturers; and tortoise-shell, ram's horn, rhinoceros hide, shark's spine, narwhal bone, and ivory-once used largely by canemakers have become too costly a raw material. The horns of animals, which, treated by heat and mechanical appliances, used once to be drawn out into rods, are no longer employed. The hide of the rhinoceros, elastic and tough, submitting readily to chemical agents, and forming a semi-transparent, horn-like substance, is abandoned on account of enhanced cost. Ivory and bone, also, have become too valuable for other manufactures to compete with vegetable products as materials for walking-sticks.

When Goodyear, five-and-twenty years ago, introduced his hard, vulcanized India rubber to the arts, for cutlery handles, harness trimmings, furniture, and boudoir ornaments, it was expected to supersede all other materials in the manufacture of walking-sticks. It vies with

however, can be considered as representing the art of stick-making in a commercial sense.

All that remains can be said in a word. Walking-sticks are in perpetual demand. While England supplies her home demand for the finished article, she exports raw material, both of native production and foreign growth, for more than a moiety of all the manufactures of the Continent. France to a great degree takes care of herself. Germany imports the raw materials only. The rest of the world, from Alexandria to Canton, and from New York around the Cape to Pacific ports of entry, depends for its walking-sticks upon those hives of industry, Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna.

Turning to fans, we find that more than three thousand years ago artists in Egypt painted fans on the walls of the tombs at Thebes. The fanbearer ranked other officials. His investiture was a grave ceremonial. Pharaohs of various dynasties sit surrounded by fan-bearers. The insignia of the office are unmistakable. Slender, vividly-colored fans, on twisted handles, cool the voluptuous monarch at his meals, and guard sacred offerings from noxious vermin. Its use in Greece was similar in purpose, but more graceful in appliance. Its form became more beautiful. The wings of a bird, joined laterally, formed the graceful fan of the priest of Isis when she became a Grecian deity. In Rome the fan was sacred to Bacchus. The mystica vannus Iacchi was borne in procession at Eleusinian mysteries. Female slaves waved the flabellum over priestesses. Tinted plumes of

the ostrich, semicircular at top and confined at base-the type of the state fan of China to-day -hung from the ceilings of gilded boudoirs; and at the games of the amphitheatre matrons hid their faces and courtesans coquetted behind gorgeous feathers of the muscarium, held up by striplings and damsels.

The folding-fan was brought to France by Catherine de Medicis. Formed of perfumed leather, shaped by sculptors, and painted by artists, it reached its ascendant in the luxurious reign of Louis XV. From the reigning favorite it received the name of "Pompadour.' Gilding and gems increased its favor. Watteau and Boucher lavished upon it their genius. Without it the toilet of a lady of rank was incomplete. Prices paid for the more choice and elaborate kinds were fabulous. Choiseul, to gain the favor of Madame Du Barri, presented her a fan the value of which was estimated at 30,000 francs; and the blasé king supposed he was winning the affection of the same womanalready purchased by a clique at court for the end she attained-by a similar gift, one diamond in the setting of which had been procured at Vienna at the cost of £1400.

bors. The East Indian fan, that does not closethe Assam peacock-feather fan, with its staff fitted for the foot of the servant who waves it back and forth-the Delhi punkah, made of beads and pearls-and the hand-fans of Bengal, are made at home for home consumption only.

France, next to China, is the producing country of the world for this species of manufacture. Its labor is subdivided. Each fan, that sells at wholesale for a cent, passes in making through twenty hands. Fans for different countries are made in different work-shops. The length of ribs for Algeria will not answer for Madagascar. Fans for Mohammedan nations must be without representations of living objects; for Buenos Ayres, without either blue or green colors; for Bulgaria and the East, feathers alone are used; for the South American states, paper.

From the pied, or frame, which is composed of inner and outer ribs, and made from wood or mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell or ivory, to the painted feuille, or leaf, composed of parchment or vellum, satin or gauze, the process of fan-manufacture has reached, in France, a high degree of perfection. The exclusive industry of Audeville, Boisière, and St. Geneviève is deEngland imported fans to a large amount voted to the pieds; of Méru, Beauvais, Oise, from Italy in the last century. At the period and Corbeil-Cerf to the panaches (or ribs); and of Addison and Steele a lady would have felt of Deluge to the feuilles. More than 60,000 as awkward without her fan as a gentleman work-people live by the trade. Artists in Parwithout his sword. Sir Roger de Coverley, in is, known as feuillistes-decorators, who ornadescribing "the angry flutter, the modest flut- ment the frames-overlookers, who attach the ter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, tassels-lithographers, who illustrate by chrothe merry flutter, and the amorous flutter of a mos-polishers, piercers, sculptors, gilders, and fan," says: "I have seen a fan so very angry spanglers, who each make specialties of their that it would have been dangerous for the ab-parts-find in the vast production of fans their sent lover who provoked the passion to have come within the wind its motion produced."

means of livelihood.

The printing, coloring, mounting, and final In the fan-manufacture of to-day China and embellishment of French fans are under the diFrance are the great rivals. They monopolize rection of the eventailliste-fan-maker, in fact, the supply of the world. In lacquered fans the though he has little to do with any portion of former country has no equal-its most common its manufacture. He collects the work of the productions being remarkable for originality, various fan-artisans, arranges their productions, boldness, brilliancy of coloring, sharpness of and employing a small number of skilled workdrawing, and correctness of workmanship. The men in shops usually adjoining his warehouse, great centres of production are Canton and mounts the feuille, ornaments the fan with feathSoutchou, Hang-tehou and Nankin. Fans for ers or lace, gewgaws or tinsel, and places upon each different market constitute independent it the last decorations. He also furnishes drawmanufactories. Richly-painted punkahs for Cey-ings to the operatives in the departments, inlon; peacock-feathers for Assam; fans affixed vents new fashions, instructs the feuilliste as to to central handles, gorgeously enriched with constantly-differing styles of ornament, groups embroidery and jewels, for Indian rajahs; fans together the belongings, and assorts qualities suspended from silver rods, and made to wave and kinds for market. to and fro, for wealthy Brahmins; and fans manufactured of khus-khus grass (Andropogon muricatus), which emit fragrant perfumes, of sandal-wood, of bamboo, of the palmyra leaf, and of the divided leaf of the Borassus flabelliformis, for European and American markets. Egypt, Spain, Turkey, and Tunis produce fans for home supply. Würtemberg manufac-ent rate of increase, especially of cheap fans, tures fans for Eastern Germany. British Gui- France threatens to drive China out of the ana exports ita-palm fans to its tropical neigh- markets of the world.

The annual value of fans made in France exceeds 10,000,000 francs. Machinery is now largely employed. During the last twenty years, while the product has trebled, the employés have diminished. The fly-press has taken the place of hand labor, and chromo-lithography of the artist's brush. At the pres

JANE AUSTEN.