The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-03-16
CONSULAR CURIOSITIES.
Odd Facts Concerning England's
Foreign Commerce.
silks Weighted With Flour, and Wines
Worth Nine Cents Bottle Sold for
One Dollar-Clever Tricks
OF Trade.

1.-The prompt issue of consular reports
on British trade is an achievement for
which merchants and shipper should
be grateful to our foreign office, says
Cassell's Saturday Journal. Some of
them are, II we accept the cynical def
milton that gratitude is lively sense of
favors to come; for in the latest batch
of reports several consuls complain
that enterprising tradesmen have sent
them patterns of cloth goods, ETC.. with
prices for prompt cash. and asked
them to obtain orders. But these an
nual returns from our representatives
abroad are of interest and value to
others besides those engaged in trade.
They contain a lot Of out-of-the-way
facts on imports and exports, the social
condition Of various peoples, the curl
GUS industries of the world and thou
sand other subjects. Last year, it ap-
pears there was decrease in the i'm
portation of sandal-wood into Hankow,
China. The product is used in incense,
burnt mostly by women, and our con-
sui remarks that 'here'-and, surely,
elsewhere too-'one of the natural
economies of the working classes is
reduction of the religious expenses of
the family
Similarly, the statistics of imports
and exports bring to light many facts
about adulteration. Ladies being great
on pongee silk just now, will be inter-
ested to know that that material is
weighted with size made from bean
flour, and that, when bale of inferior
.e 1,a O., ~;
dust which fills the room On opium
we learn that it is not only faxed in
various ways, but largely smuggled
into Tainan, China, by being squeezed
into large bamboo pipes. In Morocco
| it is customary to adulterate beeswax
with composite candles, considerable
| quantities of which are imported for
| this special purpose. We seem to do
| little in this line ourselves, or how is it
| that in Madagascar they can tell Lam
| cashire from American calico from the
| smell?
"From La Rochelle comes u startling
| fact about wine, of which no fewer
than 25,584 tons were imported seaward
| last year from Spain, Italy and Africa
This enormous quantity, after being
| mixed and blended with natural or arti-
| fetal French wine, is consumed in this
country (France), or exported as French
wines to other countries Thus does art
assist nature. Which is the better
natural or artificial grape juice?' 1t
seems hard to tell. Our consul at Cadiz
| relates that he and friend visited one
of the native sherry cellars, and tested
two samples which appeared to be of
the same wine. They were so much
alike that it was with difficulty they de-
cided which they preferred. One of the
partners in the firm then told them that
one wine was sold at ESQ butt and the
other manufactured for one of the
largest mail steamship companies in
the world at the rate of AID per bottle,
and retailed to their passengers at Is
bottle
among the suggestions made for
opening our trade is one from Dantzig
with regard to Newfoundland fish,
great deal of which, our consul thinks,
might be sold in the inland towns. He
thoughtfully adds, however, that trav-
elers would have to be furnished with
printed directions in two languages
German and Polish), showing how the
|
people would eat it raw, as they do her
rings, and then they might not like it.
A hint Is thrown out, too, that some
English houses might do business with
the ivory carvers of Dieppe, where the
handicraft of carving, established two
centuries ago, still fourishes. The
work is said to be far superior to that
of the Japanese, Chinese and Indians
Ten or twelve workmen do nothing all
the year round but carve crucifixes,
some Of which are worth $50 or e4O.
''Quite new industry is that Of jap
anese floor mating, as made at Piogo
and Osaka. The body Of the fabric is a
kind Of native grass interviewer with
fine thread, sometimes 800 to the yard,
and the result of this combination is
said to be as soft and pliable as cloth.
Prices for a roll forty yards long by one
yard wide are from $13 to SIS. An as
tonishing fact, considering that the
trade is in it's infancy, is that one firm
has sent away more than 4, 1000 patterns.
Firearm making. carried on at Liege, in
Belgium, is another industry touched
on. Forty thousand men are employed
in this trade. Like the English nail
and chain makers, these work at home
at their domestic forges The various
pieces are put together at the factories
The output of the town in guns, ETC.,
may family be imagined from the fact
that from 100000 to 100000 car
: tridges and forty tons of powder are
consumed annually in testing them.
BY the way. there are only five houses
for this purpose in Europe-Liege
(where there is the largest in the
! world, Birmingham, London, St.
Etienne, in France, and Fellah, in
Austria, are the places which possess
them"