Naturally, the average manufacturer carefully instructs his dyer to furnish him with the “cheap and nasty” goods, not only because it costs less money, but also, unfortunately, because he reasons that “it will be good for business.” The manufacturer has the greatest sympathy with the inclination of the fastidious housewife to throw away anything that looks faded, and to buy in its place something new and fresh. Curtains or portières that hold their original shade indefinitely, he has little or no patience with. A calico dress that keeps its color so that it can be worn for a second summer, is an abomination not to be endured. And in every case, when complaint is made, it is always said to be the fault of the chemist who produced and put on the market such “horrid, fugitive dyes.” As a matter of fact, it is simply a case of picking and choosing. There have been discovered, so far, several thousand different coal-tar dyestuffs of all sorts and kinds. Out of these, probably one hundred, or less, can be considered really fast to both light and washing. The remaining ones, most of which never were considered valuable enough to put on the market, vary in degrees of fastness, the poorest being simply stains which will “bleed” indefinitely with moderate washing, and which will turn almost any color after exposure for a few hours to sun and weather. In the following pages, considerable pains will be taken to emphasize the names and properties of the very best and fastest dyestuffs in the different classes,[1] so that the results of work done with them can be depended upon. [1] In some classes there are no absolutely fast dyestuffs. Perhaps the most interesting thing, in connection with the whole subject of the artificial dyestuffs, is the enormous influence that they have had upon the life of the whole human race. This influence was but slightly appreciated, even by the chemists themselves, until a few years ago. The awakening dates from the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of mauveine, when from one end of the world to the other, honors were showered upon Sir William Henry Perkin, then grown old and nearing the end of his useful and prosperous life. It was then announced, and was for the first time generally recognized as true, that no one of the great discoveries of the nineteenth century—the steam locomotive, the steamship, the telephone, the telegraph, the gas light, the electric light, and the rest—had been more important to the world at large than the discovery of the first coal-tar dye. And probably never in the history of the world have such enormous results been produced from a single discovery, during the lifetime of the discoverer himself. THE ARTIFICIAL DYESTUFFS