Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1882 — Tinned Costumes. [ARTICLE]

Tinned Costumes.

We referred a week or two ago to an alleged invention of a German chemist by which woolen and cotton fab rics could be coated with a layer of dissolved silk and made to assume the glossy and soft appearance of actual silk goods. Experiments in a somewhat similar direction appear to have been made by a French chemist, who, however, coats his material with a thin layer of tin instead of silk. The modus operandi is described as follows: He first makes a mixture of zinc powder and dissolved albumen, which he spreads over the fabric by means of a brush, leaving it to dry, when the stuff is passed first through superheated steam and afterwards through a solution of chloride of tin. By this means an exceedingly thin layer of tin is spread over the whole side of the fabric, which is thus rendered waterproof and protected against ordinary rough usage. The utility of the invention is not quite apparent, for probably few people would care to don garments in which they would bear a very close resemblance to animated kettles and tea-pots; thotigh in the preparation of theatrical dresses and even of the bright “trimmings” in which the female heart delights, the invention might find a limited application.—Colonies and India. ♦ • —■ ■ The chambermaids of Austria appear to be more tender-hearted than their superiors. A young German S;entleman went to Vienna to propose or a charming girl he had met at one of the Bohemian watering places. He alighted at a hotel, where one of the chambermaids, to whom he had scarcely ever spoken beyond asking gravely for his boots, fell violently in love with him. S He could not make a similar donquest of the parents of the young lady he came to court, eo he committed suicide. The soft-nearted-chambermaid declared she could not survive the handsome German. A few days after a young girl was seen on the sill of an upper window, struggling with another woman whoftrove to hold her back; but she away, and, leaping from the window, smashed her skull.