bargain." _(Signed)_ Henry Manton, September 15, 1886. Mr. T. Vary writes that James Perry began making steel pens in Manchester, and quotes the _Saturday Magazine_ to show that metallic pens were given by him as rewards of merit in schools as far back as 1819. Mr. James Cocker, writing in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph,_ in 1869, says: "That he rolled steel wire for James Perry for penmaking in 1829." The death of Mr. Gillott seems to have revived the discussion of the origin of steel pens, and a correspondent in the Sheffield _Daily Telegraph,_ in the issue of January 11, 1872, in the following letter, puts forth a claim on behalf of a Sheffield man: "The well-written and well-merited memoir of the late Mr. Gillott, the Birmingham steel pen maker, which has just appeared in the newspapers, affords a curious and instructive illustration of the success which not seldom attends the combined action of ingenuity, industry, shrewdness, and integrity among our labouring classes. Born in the humblest rank of our local workmen, a steady scholar in our Boys' Lancasterian School, and apprenticed to a scissors grinder, the deceased worked his way upwards into a position of influence and opulence as a manufacturer, which entitled him to take social rank with the merchant princes of the land. And if his name has long since ceased to be familiar among his once contemporary workmen in Sheffield, and is not even mentioned in the Directory, it has for several years past been recognized and respected by the visitors at the annual exhibitions of our School of Art, in connection with the many rare and valuable pictures lent by him on those occasions. The printed _fac-simile_ of the autograph appeared in the 'advertising columns' of almost every newspaper in the world, and perhaps, as an expert might have said, was characteristic. In the admirable account of his life above referred to stress is laid upon one prominent and praiseworthy feature of his character, viz., his readiness to acknowledge the obscurity of his origin and the steps of his industrial success. In those details no mention is made of his Sheffield master and predecessor in the ingenious art of steel pen making. And as the notice alluded to is without dates, it is difficult to furnish information on the material point of priority, though the fact of supremacy in the trade is clear enough. In one of the columns of Lardner's Cyclopedia, published in 1833, the names of Perry, Heeley, and Skinner are mentioned as steel pen makers. With the latter, who if he did not make wealth, certainly earned a wide reputation for the low price and excellent temper of his 'steel nibs,' Mr. Gillett was a workman, in Nursery Street, Sheffield, having gone with his master from the scissors grinding stone to the making of polished steel ornaments for ladies' work, then fashionable. How much, in what way, or whether at all, he was indebted to his experience in Mr.