The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-08-17 00:00:00

A PAPER EXHIBITION IN BERLIN.

The following N an extract from the Berlin Correspondent
of The 'limes, in which he describes a Paper Exhibition now
being held in Berlin :

On entering the drill-hall of the 2nd Foot Guards,
kindly lent for the purpose by the Colonel-Com-
mandant, one is struck by the wide applicability of
the familiar and apparently narrow term "paper."
You are not easily persuaded that all you see
around you is paper. It takes some time before
you can bring yourself to believe that every object
in this vast, elegant, and seemingly heterogenous
display is paper—nothing but paper. By the side
of the ordinary quire on which you are in the habit
of penning your "private and confidentials " there
is paper-linen from the collar to the petticoat;
there are paper-hangings from the simplest to the
most gorgeous; paper carpets, paper curtains, paper
chairs, paper tables, paper chandeliers, paper frames,
and an infinity of minor knick-knacks for furnishing
rooms. There is paper lace for nosegays and confec-
tionary in every colour and design, strongly contrast-
ing in its elegance with the less pretending, yet
equally indispensable, articles of cigar-case and
blotting-pad. There are paper corals looking like
the real. zoophyte, paper ornaments and jewelry
not easily found out as audacious impositions.
There is the straw paper used for the most
ephemeral productions of the Press that do not
outlive the day on which they are born; there
is in striking juxtaposition that most durable
of foolscaps employed for marriage registers. From
tiny envelopes, the admiration of your lady com-
panion, you stray to rolls of interminable paper
18,000 metres long; from the finest silk note, designed
for "our own correspondent'" letters of professional
length, you wander to a slip supporting on its sturdy
fibre a weight of 6001 b. A special department is de-
voted to albumen paper and similar niceties required
in the photographer's art. Play jug-cards, invitation
cards, and cartes-de-visite, master-works of allied
manufacturers, printers, and painters, vary with
equally grand achievements in the book-binding,
box-making, and flower-maAng lines. To the most
aristocratic portfolios are joined the loveliest
portemonnaiem ; to a sailing boat are associated
barrels as impermeable and water - tight as
caoutchouc ; while paste-board figures remind you
of the nursery, and gold and silver leaves speak of
the Christmas tree and its social delights. Grimly
overtopping these flimsy vanities stands the cellulose
or compressed wood-pulp, of which the greater part of
all paper is made in modern days. Quantities of rags
are stowed away in a corner, Hidden from sight as
beseems their uncomely appearance, they will some
day take rank among the most polished companions
assembled in the crowded hall. The drugs that will
purify them and qualify them to mingly in the fashion-
able society of their compeers are in close attendance,
and so is the machinery which fills the greater part of
the hall, the court-yard, and the temporary sheds.
Of the 600 exhibitors but one shall be named in this
unscientific account. His Serene Highness Prince
Bismarck, Chancellor of the German Empire, being
partner of the firm Bernhard Behrend, at Coslin and,
Yarzin, in addition to his other titles and qualifica-
tions, may be mentioned as a successful manufacturer
of this necessary of daily life. As we gather from the
catalogue, the material wrought up in his mills is chiefly
taken from the extensive woods atVarzin, the manufac-
tory producing at present 40,000 cwt. of paper, 25,000 cwt.
of cellulose, and 9,000 cwt. of ground wood per year.
His Serene Highness, we are told by the same printed
guide, employs 250 labourers, has steam-engines of 600-
horse power, so-and-so many cylindrical machines, so
many turbines, double turbines, &c. He purchases
his drugs in England and sells his goods in Germany,
ungrateful Britain being no longer the good customer
she formerly was. One of his great specialities is paper
slips for the Morse telegraph apparatus.
That Germany has a special call and claim to show
what she can do in the matter of taper will be seen
from the subjoined comparative list :

Number of Kilos Kilos
Inhabitants. consumed. per head.
United States .. 39,000,000 .. 635,000 000 .. 14*
Germany .. 43,000,000 .. 244,000 000 .. 6•
England .. .. 33,000,000 .. 168,000,000 .. 5•
France .. 37,000,000 .. 138,000,000 .. 3•6
Austria-Hungary .. 36,0u0000 .. 92,000,000 .. 25 -
Russia, .. 27,006,000 .. 67,000,000 .. 0 9
Italy .. 28,000,000 .. 38,000,000 .. 14
Scandinavia .. 6,000,000 .. 3,000,000 .. 05
Belgium .. 5,500,000 .. 27,000,000 .. 5•1
Switzerland .. 2,500,000 .. 17,000,000 .. 6•3
According to inscriptions put up in the hall and
illustrated by paste-board cubes of different size,
600,000,000 men employ Chinese paper, while
366,000,000 use the European and 130,000,000 the
Arabian article; 24,000,000 write on leaves, bark, and
wood, 280,000,000 dispensing with writing and read-
ing, and consequently taking no interest in this
enlightened exhibition. Besides the catalogue, which
gives an accurate aocount of the various mills and
workshops, their produce, machinery, and sale, much
useful information upon the subject may be derived
from the Papier Zeitung, a weekly published in this
city.