i AKI'MAKIXt:. 



CAKD RATENSIH 



AID 



Neither the country nor the date of the introduction 

 of playing-cards ii correctly known, great diversity f opinion 

 110 both these points. It is believed that the figures ami spots of the 

 Brat card* were pencilled, and that the use of wood-blocks M printing 

 them WM of later introduction. It U known that there have been 

 playing-card maker* in this country for nearly four centurion. In 

 India, cards are often made quite circular in form. In Russia, 

 until within the bat few yean, the importation of playing-cardi 

 was atrictly prohibited; there was an imperial manufactory kept 

 up at AlexandroOaki, near 8L Petersburg, the profit" being applied 

 to the maintenance of the Foundling Hospital in that city. The 

 manufactory contained many of the beat forma of apparatus in 

 vented by De la Rue and Applegath ; and the produce usually 

 amounted 



per day. 



to the enormous quantity of 14,000 packs of playing-cards 



The carton or paatebaard for playing-cards in formal of several layers 

 of paper pasted together, each layer or sheet being large enough for 

 forty average cards. The layers are four in number, all selected with 

 especial reference to many requisite qualities, especially those for the 

 face and the back. The panting is very carefully conducted, and is 

 followed by cool drying, hot drying, and henry pressure. The outer 

 surface* undergo a peculiar treatment ; if the cards are to be " white," 

 the surface in furnished with a kind of flinty coating, in order that the 

 black and red for the pips, and the varied colours for the court-cards, 

 may come out clear and sharp ; if they are to be" coloured backs," the 

 ground tint is laid on by a regular colouring process, and the coloured 

 urface is then further prepared for the reception of a pattern or 

 device. The colouring material here spoken of is mixed with sue ami 

 water, and applied with a brush. Messrs. De la Rue, wh. > have carried 

 this art to a higher pitch of excellence than any other English manu- 

 facturer, employ tasteful designers to produce elegant patterns for the 

 backs of cards ; and much mechanical and chemical skill has been dis- 

 played in devising new modes of colour-printing for this purpo..,-. 

 Some of the combinations of gold and colour are exceedingly Iwautiful. 

 The number of cards in each pack in, as is well known, 52 ; but there 

 have been exceptions to this number both in past and present times. The 

 number of suits with us is always four, but in the East, and in Kuro]>c 

 in earlier days, there were many instances of higher numbers. With us, 

 the hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, are the only varieties ; but in 

 ther days and countries there have been leaves, acorns, bells, cups, 

 words, batons, coins, pine-apples, heads, squares, ovals, circles, fishes, 

 tortoises, lions, goats, horses, boats, axes, and nthiT devices. Lastly, 

 our court-, or coat- (as Mr. Chatto designates them), cards are now 

 always kings, queens, and knaves ; but the history of playing cards 

 presents us with a curious medley of officers, subalterns, valets, virtues, 

 heroes, savaus, &c. The fixity of character in modern cards is certainly 

 an advantage to the manufacturer; since he may make millions of 

 jocks without caring for any important modification. Messrs. De la line 

 some years ago, spent a Urge sum of money, and much thought and 

 labour, in an endeavour to introduce graceful (inure* instead of the 

 monstrosities with which we are familiar under the names of kings, 

 queens, and knaves ; but the public had become accustomed to these 

 latter, as to the conventional " willow-pattern " for dinner plates ; and 

 the attempt was abandoned at a heavy loss. 



Most of the London card-makers employ the mode of stencilling, 

 ii"t printing, for the pips and pictures. A stencil-plate is cut 

 out, and the colour, mixed with paste, is brushed on the sheet 

 through the holes in the stencil-plate a process requiring verj- 

 uice manipulation, to prevent the colour from spreading beyond 

 the margin of the stencil-holes. Home parts of the picture cannot 

 be done by stencilling; they require the use of engraved wood 

 Murks; and some manufacturers employ blocks altogether, Sten- 

 i illing may be done on the paper either before or after it is pasted 

 to other papers to make the cardboard: but the printed cards must 

 IK' dne before the pasting. The best cards are now printed in oil 

 oiloiin, on the principle of colour-printing of some other kinds- 

 after the expenditure of much time and ingenuity in ensuring that the 

 pip shall be equal-tinted, the outline clear and sharp, the colour well 

 adhesive to the paper, the removal of all clamminess or stickiness, and 

 the susceptibility of receiving a high polish. When the stencilling and 

 prin ting have been completed , and the four thicknesses of pajier projierl v 

 pasted together, the cardboard is dried, polished, and rolled to a high 

 degree of gloss. The ace of spades is printed under a wholly different 

 and peculiar arrangement, to insure the ]yment of one shilling duty 

 Majesty on every (nek of cards. Each carton or cardboard, 

 having forty cards imprinted on it, is cut up into forty pieces by an 

 apparatus similar to that used by bookbinders for cutting millboard. 

 Every card is then minutely examined : and packs of fifty-two are made 

 up from those which resemble each other as closely as possible in tint 

 and general excellence. The strange technical names of " Mogul," 

 " Harry," and " Highlander,'' are given to three qualities into which 

 the cards are sorted; if they are not good enough for " Highlanders," 

 they are thrown aside a* waste cards. When the packs are arranged 

 and made up, an exciseman attends to witness the wrapping in 

 stamped papers. 



A few year* ago it was supposed that about 600,000 packs of playing 

 cards were made in I., t, I u annually. 



It is not necessary to describe the manufacture of any other kinds of 



cards made of cardboard or pasteboard, such as visiting or address 

 cards ; seeing that they exhibit similar applications of some of the 

 same operations as those described above. 



Card* far Cardi*yEngiiHt. In the cotton manufacture, one of the 

 early processes consists in disentangling the fibres of cotton, so as to 

 re-arrange them in a imition more or less parallel, free from knots or 

 other interruptions. The instrument employed for this purpose is a 

 kind of brush called a " card," set with wire-teeth disposed in a regular 

 manner. The action of this instrument is very similar to that of a 

 comb for hair, or a heckle for flax ami hemp, the fibres being made to 

 pass between the teeth, or the teeth between the fibres, according t.. 

 the arrangement of the mechanism. The wire teeth of the cards are 

 inserted in carefully-prepared strips of leather, which used ("in 

 lie affixed to flat handles or .-upport.-. but are at the present (!. 

 round the exterior surface of a cylinder. Several such cylinder 

 arranged nearly in contact, and fibre* of cotton being laid within reach 

 of one of them, the cylinders by their rotation catch up the fibres, 

 pass them on from one to another, and comb out or straighten them 

 in the tmit.it. 



When the manufacture was in a ruder and less important p 

 than at present, those cards were mode by hand ; the leather being 

 dressed and cut, the holes pierced, the wire straightened and brought to 

 the necessary shape, the teeth ent oil' n.,1 in-.itcd into the hoU in the 

 leather, by persons who made this a regular branch of employment. 

 But machines are now employed to effect this, so intricate an. I 

 tiful in construction as to have been often alluded to as among the 

 most admirable pieces of mechanism known in our workshops and 

 factories. It wan in the year 1811, that Mr. Dyer, of Manchester, first 

 took out a patent for one of these machines ; two other patent 

 obtained in 1814 and 1824; and more recently further improve- 

 ments have been made in the construction by Mr. Walton and other 

 inventors. 



The machine consists of a large number of levers or rods, capable of 

 motion in various directions, ami iu\i'i^ one after another in a par- 

 ticular and definite order. The ditl'civnt kinds of work to be performed 

 by it ore so numerous and so dissimilar, that the ma.ss of details 

 becomes exceedingly complex, and not easily followed even with the aid 

 of wood-cuts. In the first place, the strips of leather which 

 form the cards are attached to the machine, in such a way as to ^Kiit 

 laterally as fast as they are supplied with wires. A series of forks or 

 points are thrust out, to pierce holes of the requisite depth in the 

 leather, and are drawn bock again when this is effected ; sliding ; 

 unwind the wire from a coil, and bring it forward; a mo\ 

 descends upon each wire, and cuts off a piece long enough for one of 

 the teeth ; a blunt kind of stud or rod presses against the mi. Ml- of 

 the piece so cut off, and presses it into a horse-shoe or rather a st-iple- 

 sliape, with the two points jiarallel ; each .-taplc oi tooth is seized by 

 nippers, thrust half way into a hole in the leather, bent angularh by 

 another piece of apparatus, so as to give an exactly di-tei mined obli,|ii it y 

 t<> it, and lastly driven home to ita proper depth in the hole. All this 

 is effected by successive movements in the different )Kirts of tin- 

 inachin.-; r.nd several teeth, forming those in one row. are made and 

 fixed at once. When one cycle or series of the processes is con 

 the leather is mode to shift onwards through a small space, and to 

 present a new surface for the iv< -pi ion oi 



The efficiency of the machine was such, I'ven MOM \< -u.- ago, tint, a 

 steam-engine of five-horse pov. ' a hundred of them at work, 



while each machine could make and fix from a Imndicd t,. a h 

 and fifty taeth in a minute; but successive impr 

 increased the power, that now four or live hundn-d t.-eth air formed in 

 the same space of time. There are not often oppoituniti 

 these beautiful machines, except in the l.am-a-liin- an.: 

 districts; but occasionally they are exhibited at Mechanic-' and 

 Scientific Institutions, and of late years at the greater international 

 exhibitions. 



So large is t i'iion of this kind of ' garniture,' as it U 



for the carding-cngines of the cotton districts, that at a time when 

 the cotton manufacture barely exceeded one-half of its present amount - 

 it was estimated that four thousand hides and forty -eight ' ' 



were cut up weekly to make them. The w ires are insei 

 . because the flexibility of 1 allows it to be brut 



round the surface of a cylinder. Patents have been token out for im- 

 proving the surface of these leathers. If a hard and tangled tuft of 

 cotton occurs in the process of carding, the rigidity of th< 

 the leather prevents the tooth from landing or yielding t 

 obstruction; and it has been proposed to remedy this by applying to 

 the face of the leather, licforc the wires arc inserts! in it, a coating of 

 woollen cloth, saturated with caoutchouc (. n-ndcr it very pliable. 

 Another suggestion is for the use of n textile mate-rial, with a warp of 

 hi-mp. Max. or i .t ton, and a weft of w.mllen, saturated in like m 

 with a solution of caoutchouc. But Isith are alike in their object, and 

 have relation only to the minor working of the method, the card- 

 making machine lieing independent of them. 



CAKDAMINE PUATENSIS Mtdiral propertin <,f. This indige- 

 nous herbaceous plant decorates our meadows and pastures in April 

 and May, with its light purple reticulately veined flowers, which an- 

 the officinal parts. They possess a faint mellifluous odour, whirl, is 

 nearly lost by drying. The taste is acrid and pungent, similar to but 



