The average earnings of locksmiths are 15 to 20 per cent. less than the figures given at (B. 89.) American competition in castings has, so far as the lock trade is concerned, considerably diminished since 1865. By grinding English sand to the fineness of flour, and by the adoption of Plaster of Paris moulds and improved methods of casting, transatlantic supremacy over England no longer prevails. While in the matter of cheap and clear castings they have maintained for their productions the reputation for practical qualities which has so long distinguished them. Artistic design and ornamentation have improved. Germany is now the most formidable rival to the English lockmaker, owing to the low wages and long hours endured by the German locksmiths. The remedy for this state of affairs ought, in the interests both of commerce and humanity to be found not in a retrograde movement on the part of England to Germany, but in the uprising of the German workman, to secure the same _status_ as that enjoyed by his English confrere. =Magic Lantern Slide Painting.=--[H. H. STANTON.]--The old fashioned method of tracing from a drawing or engraving though still used, has given way to a great extent to the introduction of photography. Special drawings are made, photographed on to glass, and subsequently painted. Girls and also artists are employed in the work. Photographic slides from various parts of the world come to Birmingham to be finished. =Measuring Rules and Tapes.=--[JOHN RABONE.] (B. 628.) It is noteworthy that in the “garret” at Heathfield Hall, near Birmingham, where Watt amused himself during the latter years of his life with his copying machines--the prototypes of those afterwards known as the American and Enfield--is still to be seen an example of Watt’s early work in London before he entered upon his remodelling of the steam engine in connection with Matthew Boulton. In one of the drawers there are preserved several of the old fashioned tools, formerly, and still used in rule making by hand, and also carefully wrapped up in paper by Watt himself, is a “brass sector with a French joint,” which, unlike his compasses and other mathematical instruments, has undergone no wear, and is as faultlessly clear and perfect as it was on the day it left the maker’s hands. The only assumption that can be made respecting it is that it is the identical “brass sector with a French joint,” of which young Watt so glowingly wrote to his father, now a hundred and thirty years ago; and if that be so, it is the only known specimen of the great engineer’s work as a rule maker.