The Press., 1895-06-20
BEFORE MATCHES CAME.
Tho Flint and Steel and Flashlights al
 TallOw Dips of Our Ancestors.

The Flint and Steel and Flashlights and
 TallOw Dips of Our Ancestors.
 To the present generation it may seem next door to the incredible that in the first years of the reign of William " there were no lucifer matches. In lieu thereof there were only long matches or splints of wood tipped at each end with melted sulphur, and before the compli- cated system of dipping the sulphuret- ed match in concentrated sulphuric acid came into use these matches were kindled first by striking a light with flint and steel and then causing the spark to ignite small quantity of tin der, an infammable substance usually composed of partially burned linen.
 This simple adjunct to the process of obtaining a light had been in use all over the world from time immemOrial. The French finder was called lama dou, word the etymology of which has been fiercely contested, some phi lologers deriving it from the old French adjective "amadou, equivalent to am- orous, and conveying the moral idea of the sweetly agreeable sensation of the hand coming in contact with a very soft substance, while others trace it to the Latin lad manum dulce. " The French finder was often made of the spongy portions of mushrooms and other fungi, and prior to the introduction of lucifer matches the manufacture of amadou was one of considerable importance The cryptoganlic substance was beaten o11 ,l,1A Al of felt until it became homogeneous and it was then impregnated with a solution of salts of hitter or simply pull verized gunpOwdCr Tho Germans still fabrica a delicate kind of amadou which is used ill surgery for stanching hemorrhage. As for flint and steel, they have as completely faded out from our domestic economy as they have from firearms, and the finder box is so rare ly seen that it might we'll be included in an exhibition of old social curios.
 With finder and finder boxes has also vanished the rushlight which, when William Cobbett was a boy, English cottagers used to make for themselves by gathering rushes and dipping them successively ill melted tallow until suffi- cient thick adipose matter was obtained In houses where refinement was sup posed to prevail the rushlight was invariably placed in a japanned tin shade perforated with circular orifces, and the insomnolent invalid had the pleasure of contemplating a large number of round spots of light on the ceiling, reflected from the rushlight oP toll candle, much given to sputtering, which smelled abominably, have also died the death, and mold candles" which strove to emulate wax ones in their form, but hardly succeeded in doing so, have been superseded by cheaper can dles, almost as shapely and as light giving as the old and costly spermaciti. Seventy years ago gas was little used. re were no railroads, few steam bCats l. | no lucifer matches; yet, as Mr. W alter Besant might put it, the world went very well then.-London Tele- graph.
 His Names.
 A pair of twins was born in the Back Bay district. A bright boy set about to try to name them. He said, Twill they be called Peter and Repeater?" But no. His mother would not listen to the name Peter. Then he said, "Let them be called Max and Climax"
 "No," she said. "They are both little girls, so we cannot name one of them Max"
 Then he said after much thought, ''Let them be called Kate and Dupli- cate" After that his head was band aged, and he was sent out to play Union Signal.