=Bedsteads, Iron and Brass.=--[L. BRIERLEY.]--(B. 624.) In 1849 there were only about eight manufacturers of metallic bedsteads in Birmingham and the neighbourhood, whose united production probably reached 400 finished articles per week. In 1865 the number had increased to twenty, with a weekly output of about 5,000; the number of makers within a radius of fifteen miles is about forty, and the weekly production not far short of 20,000. As the number of manufacturers increased, and competition necessarily became keener, so improvements were continually being effected. The old imitation bamboo cane gave way to more artistic effects of colour. The pillars and rails were decorated with flowers and Dutch metal, or with gold--accomplished partly by hand, and partly by the process (long known in the potteries for ornamenting china ware) called transferring. This somewhat pronounced, if not “loud” style of decoration, though still in demand for foreign countries, has in its turn been replaced by plain polished surfaces, relieved at intervals with brass, nickel, or silver plated joints, and mountings. Prices range now (1886) from 5/- or 6/- for a plain stump bedstead to £100 for electro-silver plated canopy or fore part constructed to suit Oriental taste. The United States now buys and also makes metallic bedsteads. Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, Mauritius, Canada, East and West Indies, the States of South America, Egypt, China, and to some extent, Japan, purchase. About 500 persons are now employed in Birmingham and neighbourhood in the bedstead trade; the average earnings of men are about 23/- per week, and of women about 14/- per week. Within the last ten years wire mattresses have been introduced. The price was formerly £4 to £5 for a mattress, according to width. Now a good one may be obtained at a price varying from 20/- to 40/-. While Birmingham and the district is the principal seat of the bedstead trade there are extensive manufactories in London, Manchester, Glasgow, and Bristol. Metallic bedsteads are also made extensively in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and of late years in the United States also. A great number are, however, still exported to Spain and America in spite of the native competition, and protective duties amounting to 45 per cent. Our trade with Spain is very much reduced of late years in consequence of England being denied the advantage of “the favoured nation” clause.