Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1874 — Plated Silver Ware. [ARTICLE]

Plated Silver Ware.

Pirated ware originated in England about the middle of the last century, the first application having been made to small articles in 1742 by Thomas Bolsover, a Sheffield mechanic. The new elegance brought within the means and supposed proprieties of the middle class took the name of “ Sheffield Plate,” not from the process of plating, but from the silver ware of which it was an imitation. Plate, in this sense, is not our Saxon word cognate with flat, but was borrowed from -the Spanish plata (silver), and applied to all utensils made of the precious metals, in whatever form. To our elderly readers “ Sheffield Plate” will still have a familiar sound, for under this name the beauty of silver was first popularized in America, and to a far greater extent than even in England. Probably the Sheffield and Birmingham manufacturers of plated ware at one period exported more' goods tb This country than they sold at home. A further and greater advance was made in 1838 by the invention of electroplating, or rather the practical application of the method which bad been known, but strangely neglected, for thirty years. At one stroke plating was' greatly reduced in cost, its applications. indefinitely extended, and its effects incomparably improved. Everybody in America is now familiar with the ordinary wares of our numerous electro-plat-ing companies, and there is hardly a cottage worth two hundred dollars in the country where such wares are hot' found the rich plating of the Elkintons in England and the Gorhams in America is too high in first cost for the strictly popular demand. ; Within half a century the business of the American silversmith was mostly confined to making spoons to order for the jewelers, who rarely purchased more than one or two dozen at a time, for particular orders. About 182.7 it was noticed that the silversmiths began to venture into the manufacture of light spoons for general sale through a class of cheap jewelry peddlers, who are still well remembered by natives of the New England of that period. The Providence manufacture had begun to be extended and brought into national relations by the enterprise of a young goldsmith, named Jabez Gorham, who adapted his work to the general requirements of the trade, and made his way with it in the Boston market by underselling and outpushing the unmercantile mechanics of his craft. The droll account the old gentleman, who died about five years ago, used to give of his semi-annual marketing in Boston is more expressive than a general description could be of the very modest status of the now imposing silver trade of our chief cities—how the Boston jewelers' assembled at his lodgings, pursuant to notice, that thdy might be all admitted at the same moment, without partiality, to view and divide the little trunkful of new jewelry spread out upon his bed !—Scribner's Monthly for December. —Poor young thing! She fainted away at the washtub, and her pretty nose went ker-slop into the soapsuds. Some said it was overwork; others, however, whis : pered that her beau had peeped over the back of the fence and called out: “ Hullo, there, Bridget, is Miss Alice at home?” — New York Commercial. —A gentleman in the cigar business sends this autumnal gem to the editor of the Detroit Free Press: Tie autumn, and the leaves are dry, And rustle on the ground. Producing fn’ards of cigars At a trifling coet per pound. —A San Juan miner who has been prospecting in Southwestern Colorado has found a whole forest of petrified trees, with petrified birds sitting on the limbs singing petrified notes. i r i ■ ■ ■" - —When a man marries for money Punch thinks it is more appropriate to speak of his spending the money-moon.