The art of transfer-printing on pottery and porcelain, by which all these pieces are decorated, has completely revolutionized the business of china decoration in England, and cheapened the price of decorated crockery, as did the invention of types and printing cheapen and multiply books. John Sadler, who invented the process of transfer-printing, was originally an engraver. He had his attention first called to the possibility and desirability of china-printing by a very trifling incident—by seeing some children when playing “doll’s house” paste on broken pieces of crockery, pictures cut from waste-paper prints which he had thrown away. For years he and his partner, Guy Green, managed to keep his invention enough of a secret, so that he printed not only for Liverpool works, but for many others. Much of the Wedgwood Queens-ware was stamped by him, being made at the Wedgwood factory, carried in wagons over bad roads to Liverpool, and, after being printed, returned in the same manner to Burslem to be fired. In spite of all this manipulation and transportation it could be sold cheaply, for Sadler’s tariff of prices for transfer-printing was very low. “For printing a table and tea-service of two hundred and fifty pieces for David Garrick, £8 6s. 1½d. Twenty-five dozen half-tiles printing and colouring, £1 5s.” These printed half-tiles were sold for 2s. 6d. a dozen, while the black printed whole tiles brought only 5s. a dozen. Sadler’s process was very simple. He printed on paper with an ordinary copper or steel plate, then laid the print while wet on the glazed piece of pottery. Then, upon pressing it, the ink was transferred to the pottery piece, and afterward burnt in. Nearly all these wares were printed in black, but some have the prints in blue, and some in vermilion. Others, printed in black outlines, are filled in by hand with various colors, sometimes with very good effect. Hancock and Holdship followed quickly in Sadler’s wake, in printing on pottery and porcelain in Worcester, and there bat-printing was introduced at a later date. In this process linseed-oil was used instead of ink, and the oil design was printed on a “bat,” or sheet of prepared glue and treacle, which, being pliable, adapted itself readily to the shape of the pottery article to be printed, and transferred to it the oil lines of the design. Powdered color was dusted on these oil lines, the superfluous color being removed by cotton wool, and then fired in. Engravings for bat-printing were usually in stipple work, and the prints can readily be recognized and distinguished from those of transfer-printing. It is interesting to us to know that an American who seemed to have a hand in every invention of his day, had also his little share in the suggestion, if not in the discovery, of printing upon pottery and porcelain. Benjamin Franklin wrote thus from London, November 3, 1773, to some unknown person: