or “Green’s patent,” &c.  Several patents were taken out in 1779, 1800, and at later dates, and, as is usual with “good things,” there has been sufficient squabbling over sheathing to provide a number of legal big-wigs with considerable quantities of the yellow, metal they prefer.  George Frederick Muntz, M.P., if not the direct inventor, had the lion’s share of profit in the manufacture, as the good-will of his business was sold for L40,000 in 1863, at which time it was estimated that 11,000 tons of Muntz’s mixture was annually made into sheathing, ships’ bolts, &c., to the value of over L800,000.  The business was taken to by a limited liability company, whose capital in March, 1884, was L180,000, on which a 10 per cent, dividend was realised.  Elliott’s Patent Sheathing and Metal Co. was formed in.1862.

Snuff-boxes.—­A hundred years ago, when snuff-taking was the mode, the manufacture of japanned, gilt, and other snuff-boxes gave employment to large numbers here.  Of one of these workmen it is recorded that he earned L3 10s. per week painting snuff-boxes at 1/4d. each.  The first mention of their being made here is in 1693.

Soap.—­In more ways than one there is a vast deal of “soft soap” used in Birmingham, but its inhabitants ought to be cleanly people, for the two or three manufactories of hard yellow and mottled in and near the town turn out an annual supply of over 3,000 tons.

Spectacles.—­Sixty and seventy years ago spectacles were sent out by the gross to all part of the country, but they were of a kind now known as “goggles,” the frames being large and clumsy, and made of silver, white metal, or tortoise-shell, the fine steel wire frames now used not being introduced until about 1840.

Stereoscopes, the invention of Sir David Brewster, were first made in this town, Mr. Robert Field producing them.

Steel Pens.—­Though contrary to the general belief, metallic pens are of very ancient origin.  Dr. Martin Lister, in his book of Travels, published in 1699, described a “very curious and antique writing instrument made of thick and strong silver wire, wound up like a hollow bottom or screw, with both the ends pointing one way, and at a distance, so that a man might easily put his forefinger between the two points, and the screw fills the ball of his hand.  One of the points was the point of a bodkin, which was to write on waxed tables; the other point was made very artificially, like the head and upper beak of a cock and the point divided in two, just like our steel pens, from whence undoubtedly the moderns had their patterns; which are now made also of fine silver or gold, or Prince’s metal, all of which yet want a spring and are therefore not so useful as of steel or a quill:  but the quill soon spoils.  Steel is undoubtedly the best, and if you use China ink, the most lasting of all inks, it never rusts the pen, but rather preserves it with a kind of varnish,