"They were pursuing their rounds, and performing their duties with an ease and facility that promised a speedy termination to their labors, when suddenly they came upon an instrument that, from its external appearance,--solidly rich, yet free from the frippery that was then rather in fashion,--attracted their attention. One of the company opened the case, and carelessly struck a few chords. The others were doing the same with its neighbors, but somehow they ceased to chatter when the other instrument began to speak. One by one the jurors gathered round the strange polyphonist, and, without a word being spoken, every one knew that it was the best piano-forte in the Exhibition. The jurors were true to their duties. It is possible that some of them had predilections in favor of other makers; it is certain that one of them had,--the writer of the present notice. But when the time for the award came, there was no argument, no discussion, no bare presentment of minor claims; nothing, in fact, but a hearty indorsement of the singular merits of the strange instrument." From that time the Steinways made rapid progress. The tide of California gold was flowing in, and every day some one was getting rich enough to treat his family to a new piano. It was the Messrs. Steinway who chiefly supplied the new demand, without lessening by one instrument a month the business of older houses. Various improvements in the framing and mechanism of the piano have been invented and introduced by them; and, while some members of the family have superintended the manufacture, others have conducted the not less difficult business of selling. To this hour, the father of the family, in the dress of a workman, attends daily at the factory, as vigilant and active as ever, though now past seventy; and his surviving sons are as laboriously engaged in assisting him as they were in the infancy of the establishment. Besides the Chickerings and the Steinways, there are twenty manufacturers in the United States whose production exceeds one hundred pianos per annum. Messrs. Knabe & Co. of Baltimore, who supply large portions of the South and West, sold about a thousand pianos in the year 1866; W. P. Emerson of Boston, 935; Messrs. Haines Brothers of New York, 830; Messrs. Hallett and Davis of Boston, 462; Ernest Gabler of New York, 312; Messrs. E. C. Lighte & Co. of New York, 286; Messrs. Hazelton and Brothers of New York, 269; Albert Webber of New York, 266; Messrs. Decker Brothers of New York, 256; Messrs. George Steck and Co. of New York, 244; W. I. Bradbury of New York, 244; Messrs. Lindeman and Sons of New York, 223; the New York Piano-forte Company, 139. About one half of all the pianos made in the United States are made in the city of New York.