_Plain, Relief and Cameo Stamping._--Under these heads are included all the various processes by which crests, monograms, addresses, etc., are embossed upon notepaper, cards, programmes, or private Christmas cards. The trade has increased enormously of late years, and a new process has been introduced which renders it possible to employ the printing press. This, however, is only worth while when the order to be executed is a very large one; and most stamping is done by hand machines, a die being fixed into the machine and impressed by tightly screwing down. The machine is worked (like an ordinary copying press) by a horizontal bar, having a ball at each end, and swung from right to left. The lighter machines can be worked by one hand; the heavier require two, and are found fatiguing. Some are so heavy that they can only be worked by men. Practice is necessary in order to get the stamp in exactly the right place, and, in relief or cameo work, in order to mix the colours, which are rubbed on the die, to precisely the right thickness. Plain stamping--the easiest process--is that in which letters, a coat of arms, or a trade mark, are raised but not coloured; in relief stamping the raised surface is coloured; and in cameo stamping (of which the registered letter envelope is an example) a white device stands out from a coloured background. When two or more colours are employed considerable care, skill, and patience are needed. This work, in two or more colours, is called _illuminating_; in one branch of it--the highest--gold and silver are employed on a coloured surface, and here women are not employed. _Show-card Mounting._--Card mounting is a distinct trade, and is almost entirely in female hands. Almanacs, advertisements, and texts for hanging up, all belong to the province of the card mounter, whose main business is to unite the picture and cardboard that arrive separately in her workshop. The board is first cut either by a man at a cutting machine--or "guillotine"--or occasionally by a girl at a rotary machine adjustable to different gauges; then "lined," by having paper pasted over the back and edges. Inferior work is not lined. Finally, the picture or print is pasted on the card, the backs of three or four pictures being pasted at once, and each in succession being applied to its own card. Some means of hanging up is still needed, and various methods are in use. Sometimes eyelets are inserted into a punched hole by means of a small machine which a girl works by hand. Sometimes the edge is bound with a strip of tin, having loops attached to it; in this case the tin strips are cut by men, and applied by hand machines, again worked by girls. Sometimes, as in the case of maps, charts, and large diagrams, a wooden rod is fixed at the top, this fixing being done by girls.