The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-08-09
WRITING INK.
Changes in Fashion-The Great Con-
 surners-Our Inks the Best.

From the New York Sun.
 "For all ordinary writing purposes" said q man acquainted with the ink trade, "colored inks once used to some extent. have been now almost entirely superseded by black ink. They are still made, and in mahy colors; and red is still, as ever, standard for various special uses in counting rooms"
 "Then various other colored inks are sometimes also used in counting rooms, as in the preparation of statements of ex- hibits, in which, for purposes of conven- fence, the several divisions are made each in a separate color. But for the ordinary purposes colored ink, as violet, have gone almost wholly out of use; black Is the thing"
 "Black inks are largely comprised be- tween the blacks and the blue blacks; the former putting on black as it leaves the pen, and the latter putting on blue and turning black. There Is now used in this country more blue-back than black, and the proportion of bue-bfaclS sold Is in- creasing.
 Countries have their peculiarltes in this respect. In France for example, more black ink is used; while England has long been distinctively a blue black country
 writing ink is gold in a great variety of packages; ranging from two ounce bot ties to sixty-gallon casks. Schools boards are the chief purchasers of ink by the barrel.
 Among the smaller packages there are still sold annually thousands of gross of the pyramid-shaped bottles of the time honored type, once in wei nigh universal use. In some remoter parts it might be that ink would still be found in no other form, and the pyramid bottle Is yet sold, in fact, more or less everywhere, though it has now been largely supplanted by modern bottles of improved shapes, in which the ink is more easily accessible, which are far more convenient to the user.
 There have been made in bottles in this country various improvements all, however, chiefly with a view to greater utility. The fancy ink bottles in the form of a lady's slipper, come from Europe, and chiefly from France.
 "The greatest consumers of ink? The commercial and financial users, decidedly. Ink, is to be sure, an article of world wide use, and it is used in millions of homes, and it might be thought that the aggregate consumption of these millions of users would be the greater But even in a letter. writing household they are not writing letters all the while and a bottle of ink might last some time
 Tn counting rooms and offices, on the other hand, men are using ink all the time, and they are critical users, who must have not alone good ink. but fresh ink in clean inkstands, and that sort of thing, and so, common as the use of ink is, it is in the worlds offices and count ing rooms that the greatest amount is used.
 American writing inks exported? To wherever ink is used. American inks are sold to some extent in every country in Europe, to a considerable extent in Germany. England. Holland Spain, and Italy. The sales are made almost en- tirely for the office trade. I should say that third of the ink now used in the offices and counting rooms of the coun- tries, have named Is of American manu- faeture, with the proportionate consump- tion of American inks all the time in- creasing.
 These inks cost them more than they would have to pay for inks made in Eu- rope, but they buy them, nevertheless, and in increasing quantities. for the sim pie reason that American inks are the best in the world"