el buttons with facets, and it is
said that for some of superior design he received as much as 140 guineas
per gross. Horn buttons, though more correctly speaking they should have
been called "hoof" buttons, were a great trade at one time, selling in
1801 as low as 5-1/2d. per gross. "Maltese buttons" (glass beads mounted
in metal) were, in 1812, made here in large quantities, as were also the
"Bath metal drilled shank button" of which 20,000 gross per week were
sent out, and a fancy cut white metal button, in making which 40 to 50
firms were engaged, each employing 20 to 40 hands, but the whole trade
in these specialities was lost in consequence of a few men being enticed
to or imprisoned in France, and there establishing a rival manufacture.
Flexible shanks were patented in 1825 by B. Sanders. Fancy silk buttons,
with worked figured tops, were patented by Wm. Elliott, in 1837.
Porcelain buttons, though not made here, were designed and patented by a
Birmingham man, R. Prosser, in 1841. The three-fold linen button was the
invention of Humphrey Jeffries, in 1841, and patented by John Aston. In
1864 so great was the demand for these articles that one firm is said to
have used up 63,000 yards of cloth and 34 tons of metal in making them.
Cadbury and Green's "very" button is an improvement on these. Vegetable
ivory, the product of a tree growing in Central America and known as the
Corozo palm, was brought into the button trade about 1857. The shells
used in the manufacture of pearl buttons are brought from many parts of
the world, the principal places being the East Indies, the Red Sea, the
Persian Gulf, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Panama, and the coasts
of Central America, Australia, New Zealand, &c. The prices of "shell"
vary very much, some not being worth more than L20 per ton, while as
high as L160 to L170 has been paid for some few choice samples brought
from Macassar, a seaport in India. The average import of shell is about
1,000 tons per year, and the value about L30,000.--There are 265 button
manufacturers in Birmingham, of whom 152 make pearl buttons, 26 glass, 8
horn and bone, 14 ivory, 12 gilt metal, 3 wood, and 5 linen, the other
45 being of a mixed or general character, silver, brass, steel, wood,
and papier mache, being all, more or less, used. Nearly 6,000 hands are
employed in the trade, of whom about 1,700 are in the pearl line, though
that branch is not so prosperous as it was a few years back.

_Che