IXETXROIXTXOTIOXT. 
From the “ Daily Telegraph” of October 26. 
r HERE was a Golden Age once upon a time, 
\ve are told— a Silver Age, an Age of Iron, 
and one of Bronze; and certainly, if \ve are 
to attach any importance to the fiint hatchets 
found in the “ drift,” there was even an Age 
of Stone. Critics who wish to appear smartly 
cynical are even apt to qualify the present 
epoch as an “ Electro-plated Ageand the 
philosophy of Mr. Carlyle with regard to 
shams may be diluted to infinity when we 
come to descant, with a complacent causticity, 
on the multitude of makebelieves and “ perfect 
Substitutes” for the precious metals which the 
discovery of electro-metallurgy has brougbt 
forth. I have no ambition to be satirical at 
the expense of the good people who may choose to wear 
lacquered guard chains or “ imitation” jewellery, or at whose 
banquets plated side dishes or “electroed” spoons and forks 
make their appearance. I am not going to turn up the 
domestic teapot to seek for the Hall mark, or to inquire 
whether the many bracelets glistening on the arms of my 
neighbouv’s wife are of genuine or spurious gold. I am 
merely desirous of recording some experiences I have recently 
gathered concerning the maldng of electro wäre at Bir 
mingham—experiences mainly acquired from visits to the 
Workshops of the Messrs. Elkington. Legion, in truth, is 
the name of the electro-platers and gilders, the bronzists and 
brassers, of Birmingham. Still, Elkington’s, taken as a 
whole, must be accepted as a typical establishment, not only 
in the department of the manufacture of electro-ware, but in 
regard to that combination of fine art with industrial skill 
which is one of the most marked characteristics of the 
Midland metropolis. 
Entering the vast premises of the Elkingtons, the visitor 
first passes up a lofty staircase between an avenue of imposing 
bronze statues of the kings of England, and is ushered into 
extensive show rooms set out with all the industrial and 
artistic marvels in genuine gold and silver, and electro-ware, 
repousse, and enamel, with which successive International 
Exhibitions have made the world familiär. The inquirer, 
however, anxious to penetrate behind the scenes of all this 
splendour, and to learn the secrets of the various processes, 
hastens to enter Ins name in a visitors’ book. His precursor 
as a signatary may have been a Prince of the Blood Royal— 
in truth, I was very much edified to mark the bold and 
legible characters in which Prince Arthur had inscribed his 
name on the Elkington record; and his successor may be a 
Japanese ambassador, a Russian boyard, or a hardware 
dealer from the State of Pennsylvania. For all the world 
must fain come to Birmingham to see how things are made. 
Presently he is given into the Charge of a trim damsel, who 
will “ see him over the Works” if he be an ordinary visitor. 
In special cases, special ciceroni of higher Status undertake 
the courteous office. 
First you see the wäre made, be it a spoon or a fork, a 
teapot, a soup tureen, or a candelabrum; nor, watching the 
preliminary stages, can you fail to recognise the analogy 
between the fabrication of these articles and the making of 
Steel pens. Once more you behold the stamping or cutting, 
and the embossing or raising presses in active requisition, 
only on a far more extensive, powerful, and complicated 
scale than in the case of the Steel pens. The force of a pound 
weight at Gillotfs is represented at Elkington’s by the force 
of a ton, and often of many tons. 
The wäre, being fiuished and ready for plating, is taken 
to a room where each article is scrupulously weighed, and 
the weight entered in a book, with the amount of silver 
which it is intended to deposit registered against it; then 
the wäre is thoroughly cleansed in a solution of caustic 
potash to free it from grease. It is afterwards scoured with 
sand and dried in sawdust, is immersed in “ dipping ” acid 
to give it a bright surface, and is repeatedly swilled in clean 
water. A piece of copper wire having been fastened to it, 
the wäre is plunged into a solution of cyanide of mercury to 
prevent Oxydation, and then the fork, or spoon, or teapot 
which is to glisten so brightly on the middle-class board, is 
taken to the plating vat. This vat, or tank, is divided by 
suspended plates of silver into a given number of compart- 
ments, and the articles are suspended by their wires on brass 
rods, and so arranged as to present an equal amount of 
surface for the deposit of silver. As much as twenty-four 
ounces of silver can be deposited in the course of an hour; 
and this, with the perfect smoothness, hardness, and thick- 
ness of the silver deposited, may account for the great 
durability of the articles manufactured by the Elkingtons. 
When the wäre has been in the vat a sufficient time—that is 
a secret into which the visitor is not initiated—it is taken 
out, rinsed in cold water, and dried. Then it is again care- 
fully weighed, and the precise amount of silver deposited 
upon it ascertained and registered. Electro-gilding is carried 
on under analogous conditions, the diiference in the material 
being allowed for; and several of the suspended plates of 
gold I saw in the gilding vat were worth, I was informed, 
from eighty to a hundred pounds sterling apiece. 
Being now silvered, or gilded, or brassed—for I saw 
great bunches of metal buckles receiving a brazen bath— 
the wäre is sent up to be “ finished,” “ bright-hammered,” 
or “ handed up.” Sometimes the wäre has to be elaborately 
chased, under other circumstances as elaborately engraved, 
but these processes do not difler from those carried on in 
the regulär gold and silversmiths’ trades. The Elkingtons 
are both gold and silversmiths on a very large scale. 
A careful survey of these ingenious manufactures, 
together with some mental reference to social statistics, will 
not unnaturally lead to the conviction that the most re- 
munerative department of the electro-plater’s business is 
connected with the production of spoons, forks, and teapots; 
while even such apparently trifling articles as electro-brassed 
buckles are not to be despised, and may be made to yield 
a very fair margin of profit. But these are not by any 
means the only wäre produced at Birmingham by the 
Elkingtons. They will fabricate sumptuousshields mrepousse 
oroxydized silver or of iron—witness that marvellous Paradise 
Lost Shield, made by Morel Ladeuil for the Paris Exhibition 
of 1867, the original of which is now in the South Kensing- 
ton Museum; they will manufacture the most gorgeous 
race-cups and international trophies; they will produce 
“surtouts” or table-services in gold, silver, or electro, of 
a nature to put to shame the famous one made for the 
Paris Hotel de Ville; they will cast or electro-deposit yom 
equestrian Statue twenty feet high, if you desire it: and 
especially, at the present moment, they are employed in the 
production of the most exquisite enamels on copper and 
bronze I have ever seen—not the cloisonne enamel of 
Barbedienne, although in that department they have 
turned out some choice specimens, but the lustrous, United 
Japanese enamel, intersected by golden threads. The 
preparation of all these works, tasteful in design and skilful 
in manufacture as they are, necessitates the employment 
of a very large staff of artists, draughtsmen, modellers, 
sculptors, chasers, engravers, and enamellers. In short, 
the establishment of the Elkingtons, in addition to being 
a huge factory, is a vast art Studio—the latter being directed 
by a very accomplished French gentleman, long known in 
Connection with industrial art, M. Willms. To the kindness 
and courtesy of the managing partners in the firm, and to 
the kindly intelligence of M. Willms, I am indebted for the 
opportunity of studying the details ofa surprising exposition 
of human industry, ingenuity, and taste.