According to the returns made to the Royal Commissioners, the Blacksmiths’ Company now comprises four keepers or wardens, twenty-one assistants, the Livery, and the yeomanry. The freedom of the Company is obtainable by servitude (as an apprentice), by patrimony, and by redemption. Formerly a quarterage of 4_s._ per annum was collected, but this caused much trouble in the collection. Females were formerly admitted, but none during the last twenty years. For thirty years previous to 1833 the admissions or calls to the Livery were often one or two only a year, the highest years being 1805, 1810, and 1818, when ten, eleven, and ten respectively were admitted. During the same period the freemen numbered from six to twenty a year; in 1813 and 1818 the actual admittances were twenty-one. In 1834 about three-fifths of the Livery were, or had been, smiths, and of the whole Company nearly one-half were of the trade. There is one advantage in this Company—the calls to the Livery go by rotation from the lists of the yeomanry, and according to seniority. In 1882 there were eighty-three freemen and eighty-one liverymen. As deaths take place a fresh “call” is made, although in the nine years ending 1879 only thirty-two were admitted freemen. Another difficulty has arisen as regards apprentices; only three were admitted in the past ten years. Persons, even freemen, have been led astray by the “know-nothings” of society, and have simply been persuaded to believe that the City apprenticeship is now of no value. We know different; and hence we heartily applaud the endeavours of the Company of Blacksmiths and their energetic clerk, Mr. W. B. Garrett, in holding the exhibition in 1889 in the Ironmongers’ Hall, and promoting technical education among the rising generation of the trade, art, or mystery. The Corporation of London also proposes to make the “indenture” more conformable to the times, and this, too, is a step in the right direction. The Blacksmiths’ Company now holds its meetings at Guildhall. Formerly they met in the Blacksmiths’ Hall standing on Lambeth Hill, Doctors’ Commons, which in Hughson’s time (1806) was “a much neglected structure,” and yet “a good brick building with very convenient and stately apartments.” This building formed part of the City lands of the Corporation of London, and by indenture dated in February, 1746, was granted on a forty years’ lease by the City to “the Wardens, Keepers, and Society of the Mystery or Art of the Blacksmiths.” It is described as situate in the parish of St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, having a frontage to Lambeth Hill of 76 feet 6 inches, and then used by the Company as their hall, &c. When the lease expired, the Blacksmiths held their meetings, as we have said, at Guildhall, and do so still.