St. Landry democrat., 1888-07-07
ABOUT PLATE WARE.
A Wonderful Room In Windsor Castle
and Its Contents.

and It's Contents.
In Windsor Castle there is one apart
ment called 1.-The Gold room" In thai
room the gold-plate is0valued at $12,
100000. Much of this plate is only sill
| ver-giit. A good part, however, is OF
solid gold, and ST., 100000 was the esti
mated value of the wholewhethert the ma
terial was gold Or silver. It is said te
be an irksome thing to get out and lay
the plate for a state dinner, so enormous
is the weight. 1t is handled and placed
by the royal pages, some of them hav-
ing been over fifty years in service.
One salver in the Gold Room" is OF
immense size 6 feet in diameter), and
was made from the gold snuff boxes
alone Of George w., presented to him
| by various cities and towns, the lids
and inscriptions curiously preserved on
the surface in a kind of MOSAIC of gold,
and this salver is valued at $4,000.
Among other curious articles here
| is dinner'service of silver, presented
| to Victoria's uncle, William w., when
he was Duke of Clarence, the donors
| being the merchants of Liverpool, re-
| ward for royal service rendered to them
| by his advocacy of the slave trade. For
| ty years later, when he was King, he
| signed the act of PARLIAMENT which abol-
ished slavery in the British dominions
on and from August 1, 1884.
A candelabrum of gold, to be used
for lighting the dinner-table, which is
among the plate at Windsor, is SO
neavy that two strong men are required
TO lift it. Its value is $4,000. There
are lao dozen of gold table and tea
spoons, of six different patterns, and
golden plates of various sizes sufficient
to dine 25O persons.
1t will be noticed that with all the
modern improvements and facilities for
workmanship and manufacture, it is
easy to detect even by the polish a
silver spoon made recently from one
made hundred years ago. The old
plate is heavier owing to it's having
been well hammered in the making,
which reduced the thickness but re-
tanned the weight.
In most parts of Europe what is
called plate" (from the Greek word
plotus, broad, because first applied to
dishes and plates) can not be sold after
it is completed until it has received
particular and recognizable mark from
the Government that it contains no
more than the legal quantity of alloy.
In the United States, where large
quantity of silver and a very small
amount of gold ware is made, the pur-
chaser is not protected in this manner,
must take the vender's word for it that
the metal is genuine. Respectable
manufacturers indeed do stamp the
word coin with their own name and ini-
tials on the plate, and, SO far, this is
protection to the purchaser.
The processes of making gold and sill
yer plate are numerous, and often deli
cate. By mechanical means pressure
between steel rollers), thin layer of
gold or silver may be made to adhere
to a thicker plate of some cheaper
metal; but true gold plate has no such
inferior layer.
The process of rolling, casting,
punching, chasing, hammering, stamp
ing, soldering, riyeting, all come into
requisition in the manufacture of a
piece of gold plate, and also largely in
that made of silver. Electrotyping,
which has so largely taken the place of
the real and valuable metal, is of recent
origin. In 1887 Tsomas Spenser, a
picture-frame maker in England, and
Prof. jacob, great chemist in Russia,
simultaneously discovered electro-met-
allurgy, by means of which inferior
metals may be coated, almost to any
thickness, by deposits of gold, silver or
copper chemically held in solution.
A hundred years ago Horace Walpole
mentioned in letter from Derby that
the greatest curiosity he had met on his
provincial tour was a pair of candle
sticks wrought under a new process.
This was the 'plated ware" which for
nearly century was the peculiar and
profitable manufacture of the towns of
Sheffield and Birmingham. Electro
plated ware of the highest artistic merit
is manufactured in the United States,
most largely in New England Troy
Times.