Bolting Slots for Machine Tools.-Ditto.

Noses of Lathe Spindles.-Ditto.

Matches and Match Boxes.-No established length of matches. Match boxes on the market to-day will not receive the matches of yesterday.

Vent-holes and Primers for Ordnance.-A thorough-going individual (U. S.), having much to do with this matter, early adopted a standard. The standard is not of an authoritative record, and occupies precisely the same position as any standard of uniformity installed in an establishment owned by an individual.

Sections of Rolled Iron.-No uniformity in shapes substantially alike, and no community of dimension of iron from different mills. Established standards of common shapes are much needed.

Hinges. No established system of sizes or of arrangement of screw-holes. An old hinge cannot be replaced by a new one without a special fitting and damaging mutilation of wood-work.

Locks.-About the same condition of things, while there is absolutely nothing, save a lack of facilities for establishing commercial standards, to prevent common lines of door locks, of different makers, thoroughly interchanging with each other so far as their attachment to doors, etc., is concerned.

Chain Pumps.-No standard for bore of tube or size of buckets. Hub Bands.-Their manufacture is now never associated with the manufacture of hubs, but still there is no standard list of sizes to which the hub-maker and band-maker conform.

Mantels and Grates.-Total lack of system in arranging sizes. A new grate, in order to fit a mantel, must be made especially for its position.

Oil Well Tools.-Joints of these tools should conform to some established standard of sizes, but there is no standard size.

Planes and Bits.-No system of sizes in the construction of bits and throats.

Printers' Chases.-No system of sizes.

Height of Car Platforms.—Standard recognized.

Car Brake Shoe.-Tendency toward standard.

Car Bumpers.-Ditto.

Car Axles.-Recognized standard.

Essential Dimension of Railway Axle Boxes.-Ditto.

Photographic Cards, Albums, etc.-A vague system without record. Cards and albums were inaugurated at the same time, and

with a common understanding as to size. The lack of record is resulting in considerable confusion at present. Some card sizes have been lost and cannot be re-established, and other sizes have been established, to be lost, in turn, in the future.

Photograph Cameras.-It is desirable among photographers to use one or more tubes interchangeably in a number of cameras, but no system of interchangeability in the nose threads of the tubes and sockets of the cameras has ever been arrived at.

Stereoscopic Pictures and their Holders.-Ditto.

Eyelets and Eyelet Tools.-A standard of size but no record. Electric Light Carbons and their Holders.-No standard, and every premonition of trouble in the future.

Electrical Battery Jars and their Containing Boxes.-No standard of dimensions, and trouble already developing in the telephone service.

Envelopes.-There is no system in the arrangement of proportion

or sizes.

Thimble Skeins for Wagons.-No attempt at system.

Carriage Clips.-No standard.

Door Knobs and Spindles.—A sort of common following, with just sufficient recognition to result in exasperation.

Air Brake Couplings.-Private standard.

Doors and Door-Frames.-These are now market articles, emanating from different factories. There is no established system of sizes.

Sash, Shutters, Window-Frames.-Ditto.

Telegraph Insulators and Shanks.-A young trade with a practical standard having no record, and requiring only a reasonable length of time to lose the full benefit of the standard adopted. Letterpresses.-No system of sizes.

Picture-Frames.-There is in the market a line of what are called ordinary sizes," and pictures and glass are also marketed in a line of "ordinary sizes." The line of ordinary sizes started out with something of an understanding, on the part of the trade, by reason of the number of sizes being limited, but as the list was added to, the original understanding was lost sight of, and all is now in confusion. Spectacles.-There is no standard of size, either as to complete spectacles, or to the fitting of glass and rims.

Clothing Sizes.-A sort of an attempt at something interchangeable, but individual attempts are not based upon a common understanding.

Stove Pipe.-No standard ever adopted which will enable pipe sections to interchange. The standing joke.

Wood Sections.-Under the specialty system of manufacture there have been installed lines of trade, in common moulding, flooring, battens, styling, etc. The common sections of the market compare with each other only in a very general way, while, with facilities for recording standards, there would be readily adopted a series of accurately defined sections for the guidance of bit-makers and users, which would enable these wood sections to interchange readily. Pinion Wire.-No standard.

Shanks for Sewing Machine Needles.-No standards.

Panes of Glass.-" Ordinary sizes" not based on any common understanding.

Barrels, Kegs, etc.-No standards of dimension.

Washers. No standards.

Brick. A reckless standard varying 1-4 inch in neighboring yards, and varying an inch in different localities.

Type.-A standard of height without record.

body and face without record.

Standards of

The same lack of system applies to spigots, bungs, furniture casters, pens and holders, theatre scenery, bill boards, bottles and corks, candles and candlesticks, beds, etc., etc.

There is, for instance, no established custom regarding the shanks of furniture casters, though there is a lame tendency in that direction. Nothing being of record, progress is slow, and without hope of any ultimate system. It is desirable that new casters fit in old places.

There never seems to have been any community of thought between the candlestick-maker and the chandler. Candles will go into candlesticks, but have never been known to fit.

The theatre is, nowadays, a travelling institution, and much trouble is met with in adapting scenery to the various theatre stages. Some system of depth, etc., for scene grooves is desirable. The show-bill of the travelling theatre is of metropolitan print, and is combined by "sheet" or by "stand." The bill-boards of the universe must receive them arranged in the order contemplated. There is a hazy sort of a system apparent about the sizes covering bills and boards. There is no uniformity in sizes of beds, and everything is at sixes and sevens regarding bedsteads, mattresses, blankets, quilts, and sheets. The mattress of one room should certainly fit at least one other bedstead.

And the list might be almost indefinitely extended.

A mutual understanding regarding the dimensions of the articles previously referred to is desirable in order that there may be an interchange and common fitting. In such matters the demand for standards is most pressing. We now come upon a line of articles, common in the market, emanating from different manufacturers, used by all the people. Much of the purchasing of the day is done by correspondence, instead of by inspection, and it is desirable that a purchaser, whether consumer or trader, should know something of the size which the market offers, as well as something of the manner in which the sizes are to be specified. In dry goods, for instance, about every variety of fabric is manufactured in some peculiar width or some peculiar variety of widths. There is no uniformity in the matter.

Prices of such goods are invariably rated by the yard, but the price per yard gives no idea of the cost of quantity. Dry goods have their widths specified in yards, quarters, inches and lines. In some cases we find an arbitrary system of numbering. In other cases we find a list of specific names without meaning, such for instance as "full width," "extra," "double," etc.

Furthermore, there is no uniformity in the arrangement of quantity in package, bolt, etc. Again, many fabrics are woven into complete square articles, of common demand, but the sizes are not based upon any adopted system. What can be said of dry goods. can be said of metal goods in the sheet, and also of an immense number of marketed articles whose dimension-grade is not intelligently specified. The following notes will convey some idea of the condition of this matter.

Flannel.-Widths not based on any system, and liable to be specified as "seven-eighths," which, on inquiry, may turn out to be 29 inches wide, and again as “4 - 4" which is evidently intended to mean four quarters of a yard, but which turns out to be about 35 inches.

Sheeting. Width liable to be specified as "9-8," "5-4," "11-4," etc., which is suggestive of eighths and quarters of yards, but which is liable to be found misleading.

Cotton Wadding.-Will be quoted "per sheet," which means nothing.

Perforated Card Board.-Ditto.

Ribbons.-Ribbon widths present every possible phase of absurdity. The market finds them gauged in widths by arbitrary sets

of numbers, understood by nobody; again, by a set of numbers indicative of the number of lines. (Twelve lines make an inch.)

There are a great variety of arbitrary ribbon scales; one for this manufacturer and one for that one, one French and one English, one for silk ribbon and one for velvet. Where different dealers specify the same ribbon gauge, there is no correspondence of the ribbon widths. The condition of ribbon grading in the market to-day is such that if a number seven ribbon is ordered, it is liable to come having a width of one and three-eighths inches, one and one-half inches, one and one-fourth inches, and, possibly, you will be asked if you want a ribbon seven inches wide.

Buttons. Are graded in size by a button scale, and the variety of button scales is well calculated to satisfy the most critical.

Pins.-Pins have their length specified by an arbitrary system of symbols. Such as "D C," "B C," "F 31," "D B," "S W." These symbols mean double corkey, big corkey, short corkey, and

so on.

Manufacturers and dealers have no mutual understanding of the system employed. The system is not used alike by any two makers. In addition to the lengths, pins are specified in classes, as "Class A," which refers to brass pins of the largest size, stuck in papers in twelve rows, thirty pins to the row, and 360 pins to the paper, etc. There is no uniform understanding of the system,

but all use it.

Needles.-Needles come by number and class. No standard. No uniformity.

Thimbles-Graded by sizes. No standard.

Music Strings.-Graded by tone letters with no standard.
Shoe-Pegs.-Graded by numbers. No standard.

Bags and Sacks.-Chaos.

Braid, Ruffling, Puffing, Binding, Banding, Tape, etc.Graded in a hap-hazard manner, sometimes in inches, sometimes by arbitrary scale of unknown value, and sometimes by some one of the various ribbon scales.

Napkins.-An elegant system of grading the sizes. We quote from the catalogue of a metropolitan dealer: "5-8" or 18 to 20 inches according to quality, "3-4" or 24 to 28 inches according to quality.

Worsteds. Size is specified as "double" or "eight-fold" or "single or four-fold," and a pound of worsted means eight ounces. It is put up in hanks of indefinite quantity.