PALMER, EDWARD H. 



he held for ten years. Finding his work there 

 not altogether congenial, and his income only 

 moderate, Prof. Palmer, in 1881, transferred 

 his residence to London. He entered largely 

 into journalistic and literary pursuits, at the 

 same time carrying forward his Oriental stud- 

 ies with unremitting assiduity. He was wide- 

 ly consulted on questions that related to the 

 East, and his vast learning, for a man of his 

 years, was made to subserve the interests of 

 justice and truth. His publications, beginning, 

 in 1865, with a translation into Arabic verse 

 of Moore's ' k Paradise and the Peri," extended 

 on from year to year to the close of his life. 

 He produced an Arabic grammar, a Persian 

 dictionary, the "Life of the Caliph Haroun al- 

 Raschid," and edited and revised Henry 

 Martyn's Persian translation of the New Tes- 

 tament. He furnished a report on the " No- 

 menclature of Sinai " ; a report on the " Bed- 

 ouins of Sinai and their Traditions " ; and an 

 account of the *' Negeb, or South Country of 

 Holy Scripture." He translated " The Song of 

 the Reed," mainly from the Persian and Ara- 

 bic, and brought out an edition and translation 

 into English verse of the Arabic lyric, poet, 

 Beha Ed-din Zohair. He also published a 

 volume of Gypsy-English poems, in conjunc- 

 tion with Charles Godfrey Leland ; and trans- 

 lated into English verse, with the collaboration 

 of Magnusson, the lyrical poems of Runeberg, 

 the great Swedish poet. Besides all these, he 

 produced various essays, poems, and letters in 

 Urdu and Persian, which appeared in the na- 

 tive papers in India. 



In the summer of 1882 Prof. Palmer acceded 

 to the request of the Government, and set out 

 on a mission which ended so disastrously to 

 himself. He was commissioned to visit the 

 Arab sheiks of the Sinai Desert ; to expend, 

 if needful, 20,000, in order to secure their 

 neutrality along the line of the Suez Canal ; 

 and to win them, if possible, from joining Ara- 

 bi Bey in a fanatical and so-called holy war 

 against the English, lie entered upon his mis- 

 sion with entire courage and confidence. He 

 penetrated the wilderness, accompanied by 

 only two attendants, and trusted for safety to 

 his former friendly relations with the Bedouin 

 tribes, and his intimate knowledge of their lan- 

 guage and peculiarities. After some weeks 

 spent in negotiation, he gained success in the 

 work he had undertaken; but as he was 

 returning to Suez to redeem the promises 

 made to the chiefs of pecuniary aid, he was 

 treacherously betrayed into the hands of a 

 party of Bedouin robbers; he and his two 

 companions were taken prisoners, and after a 

 few days' captivity the three were murdered. 



In view of the services which he might yet 

 have rendered to Oriental literature, it was a 

 great and grievous loss. He was in the very 

 prime of life, with a brilliant future before him ; 

 a man of varied and marvelous gifts, and one 

 who secured the esteem and affection of all 

 who knew him. The life of the " Sheik Ab- 



PAPER-HANGINGS, ETC. 615 



dullah " (as was his Oriental title) was written 

 by his friend and to some extent fellow-work- 

 er, Walter Besant, M. A. It is an interesting 

 volume (published early in 1883), and gives 

 not only the story of his life, but also copious 

 extracts from his publications in Arabic and 

 Persian. It has also a portrait of the profess- 

 or, in Oriental costume. 



PAPER-HANGINGS AND WALL-PAPER. This 

 industry has made greater advances within the 

 past ten years than almost any other of onr 

 older manufactures. Thirty to fifty years ago 

 the only wall-papers made in this country were 

 of the cheapest and poorest quality. Printed 

 on an unsized brown paper, from wooden 

 blocks which did not match well, with stiff 

 and ungainly designs, in not more than three 

 or four colors, and with combinations as ab- 

 surd and impossible as could be conceived, 

 they were only tolerated by the poor as a sub- 

 stitute for whitewash. All the better class 

 of wall-papers were imported, and these, 

 though greatly superior to the domestic papers, 

 were then mostly of patterns which would not 

 now be considered desirable. There was some 

 progress as the tastes of the population im- 

 proved, and better stock and somewhat better 

 designs were introduced ; but though the reg- 

 ister was better, the old hand-printing with 

 blocks was still practiced, and even the best 

 patterns had a stiff, unnatural, wooden appear- 

 ance. A few of our manufacturers were be- 

 ginning to desire something better, and this 

 led to many experiments; but most of these 

 were mere gropings in the dark, without any 

 clear comprehension ,of what was actually 

 wanted. Gilding had been introduced, though 

 it was not skillfully applied ; and, with that 

 perversity which possesses some manufacturers, 

 no sooner was it found that there was a de- 

 mand for gilt papers, than some of the makers 

 began to use the Dutch gilding in place of gold- 

 leaf, and the tarnished figures soon disgusted 

 purchasers. Even in 1860 the wall-paper in- 

 dustry did not flourish. There were, accord- 

 ing to the census of that year, 26 establish- 

 ments making wall-papers in the entire coun- 

 try ; they employed 1,294 hands (the printing 

 was generally done by hand) ; there was in- 

 vested in the business, $1,037,600 of capital 

 (about $40,000 to each factory) ; and they pro- 

 duced goods valued at $2,148,800, about an 

 average of $80,000 to each establishment. 

 There were more of the higher priced papers 

 made than ten years before, but the cheap and 

 ugly patterns were still in the ascendant. At 

 that time we were importing nearly $2,000,000 

 worth of paper-hangings. The war brought 

 with it some changes in this as in many other 

 things. Foreign goods were not so readily ob- 

 tained, and our manufacturers had awakened 

 to the necessity of making better and more 

 tasteful goods if they would gain and hold the 

 market. Machine-printing was introduced, and 

 better designs furnished, though as yet the for- 

 eign patterns were slavishly copied. The cen- 



