The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-08-12
FACTS ABOUT WRITING INK.
Changes in Fashion-The Great Consul
 mars-American Inks the Rest

| changes III taSnlOn-Ine Great C0nSu- mers-American Inks the Best. "For all ordinary writing purposes" |" said a man acquainted with the ink 1 trade, ''cOlored inks, once used to some extent, have now been almost entirely
 superseded by black ink. They are still made, and in many colors: and red 1 ink is still, as ever, a standard for vari-
 ous special uses in counting rooms.
 The various other colored inks are sometimes also used in counting rooms, as in the preparation of statements of exhibits, in which, for purposes of con- venience, the several divisions are made each in a separate color. But for ordi- nary purposes coIored ink, as violet, has gone almost wholly out of use;
 black is the thing.
 Among the inks for special uses might be mentioned white ink, made for writing with on black paper, and es-
 pecially employe dior writing cards for window displays and like purposes.
 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-black than
 black, and the proportion of blue-black sold is increasing.
 Countries have their peculiarities in this respect. In France, for example, more black ink is used; while England
 has long been distinctly blue-black
 country.
 Writing ink is said in a great variety of packages ranging from two-ounce
 bottles to sixty-gallon casks. School 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 we'll
 nigh universal use. In some remoter parts it might be that ink would still be found in no other form, and the pyra- mid 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 view to greater utility. The fancy ink bottles, which serve also as inkstands, as bottles in
 the form of ladys slipper come from
 Europe, and chiefly from France.
 "'The greatest consumers of ink? The commercial and financial users, deci-
 dedly. Ink, is to be sure, an article of
 worldwide use, and it is used in mill lions of homes and 1t might be thought that the aggregate consumption of these
 millions Of users would be the greater.
 But even in letter writing household they are not writing letters all the while, and bottle of ink might last some time.
 "In 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 co, common as the use of ink is, it is in the worlds offices and count ing rooms that the greater amount is used.
 American writing inks exported? Lo WneFeFer ulh IS uSeu. AlueAlSe'iA inks are sold to some extent in every country in Europe, to considerable ex- tent in Germany, England, Holland, Spain and Italy. The sales are made
 almost entirely for the office trade. I should say that third of the ink now used in the offices and counting rooms of the countries have named is Of American manufacture, with the pro- portionate consumption of American inks all the time increasing.
 "These inks cost them more than they
 would have to pay for inks made in Flu
 rope, but they buy them, nevertheless,
 and in increasing quantities, for the
 simple reason that American inks are
 the best in the world. .''-New York Sun.