accustomed to them. Until within the last few years the printing of cards was generally done by stencilling, the colour being applied through perforated devices in a stencil-plate. The colour employed for this purpose is mixed up with a kind of paste. When there is a device at the back, the outline of the device is printed from an engraved wood-block, and the rest filled in by stencilling. The stencilling of the front and back can be done either before or after the pasting of the sheets into cardboard. One great improvement in the manufacture has been the substitution of oil colour for paste or size colour; and another, the substitution of printing for stencilling. Messrs De la Rue have expended large sums of money on these novelties; for many experiments had to be made, to determine how best to employ oil colour so that the spots or pips may be equal-tinted, the outline clear and sharp, the pigment well adherent to the surface, and the drying such as to admit of polishing without stickiness. The plates for printing are engraved on copper or brass, or are produced by electrotype, or are built up with small pieces of metal or interlaced wire. The printing is done in the usual way of colour-printing, with as many plates as there are colours (usually five), and one for the outlines; it is executed on the sheets of paper, before being pasted into cardboard. When the printing, drying, and pasting are all completed, a careful polish is effected by means of brush-wheels, pasteboard wheels, heated plates, and heated rollers; in such a way that the polish on the back may differ from that on the face--since it is found that too equally polished surfaces do not slide quite so readily over each other. Formerly, every pack of cards made in England for home use paid a duty of one shilling, which duty was levied on the ace of spades. The maker engraved a plate for twenty aces of spades; the printing was done by the government at Somerset House, and L1 was paid by the maker for every sheet of aces so printed. The law is now altered. Card sellers pay an annual license of 2s. 6d., and to each pack of cards is affixed a three-pence stamp, across which the seller must write or stamp his name, under a penalty of L5 for the omission. The cardboard, when all the printing is finished, is cut up into cards; every card is minutely examined, and placed among the 'Moguls,' 'Harrys,' or 'Highlanders,' as they are technically called, according to the degree in which they may be faultless or slightly specked; and the cards are finally made up into packs.'(64) (64) Chambers's Cyclopaedia.