the article as one of the many odd manufactures made, but never sold
retail, in England.

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STEEL PENS.--All the steel pens made in England, and a great many sold in
France, Germany, and America, whatever names or devices they may bear, are
manufactured in Birmingham. In this respect, as in many others of the same
nature, the Birmingham manufacturers are very accommodating, and quite
prepared to stamp on their productions the American Eagle, the Cap of
Liberty, the effigy of Pio Nono, or of the Comte de Chambord, if they get the
order, the cash, or a good credit. And they are very right; their business
is to supply the article, the sentiment is merely a matter of taste.

There are eighteen steel pen manufacturers in the Birmingham Directory, and
eight penholder makers. Two manufacturers employ about 1,000 hands, and the
other seventeen about as many more.

We can most of us remember when a long hard steel pen, which required the
nicest management to make it write, cost a shilling, and was used more as a
curiosity than as a useful comfortable instrument. About 1820, or 1821, the
first gross of three slit pens was sold wholesale at 7 pounds 4s. the gross
of twelve dozen. A better article is now sold at 6d. a gross.

The cheapest pens are now sold wholesale at 2d. a gross, the best at from
3s.6d. to 5s.; and it has been calculated that Birmingham produces not less
than a thousand million steel pens every year. America is the best foreign
customer, in spite of a duty of twenty-four per cent; France ranks next, for
the French pens are bad and dear.

Mr. Gillott, who is one of the very first in the steel-pen trade, rose by his
own mechanical talents and prudent industry from a very humble station. He
was, we believe, a working mechanic, and invented the first machine for
making steel pens, which for a long period he worked with his own hands; he
makes a noble use of the wealth he has acquired; his manufactory is in every
respect a model for the imitation of his townsmen, as we shall show when we
say a few words about the condition of the working population; a liberal
patron of our best modern artists, he has made a collection of their works,
which is open to the inspection of any respectable stranger.

The following description of his manufactory, which is not open to strangers
without special cause shown, will be found interesting in a social as well as
a commercial and mechanical point of view.

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