158 

 CHAPTER XIV. 



MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS. 



Under this head ai-e included such products as could not 

 readily be classified under any of the foregoing, but which are 

 — many of them, at least — of great commercial and economic 

 interest. A reference to one trade alone will suffice to prove 

 this — we mean the trade in Walking-sticks and Umbrella 

 and Pabasol handles ; for while at the present time this is 

 one of the great trades of this country, in the early years of 

 the present century it was practically nil. There are no pub- 

 lished returns showing the importation of raw material used 

 in this trade ; but from figures which we have been at some 

 trouble to obtain, it would seem that of rattan canes alone, 

 imported during the year 1886, there were some 1,600 

 tons, of the estimated value of £30,000, while other canes 

 imported from the East numbered 28,950,000, valued at 

 £94,000 ; and to these may be added imports from other 

 parts of the world, as Brazil, Algeria, West Indies, France, 

 etc., bringing up the gross total value of rough mateiial to 

 £189,000. Placing this against the value of the imports in 

 1850 of £1,600, it will be seen what progress has been 

 made in this one trade alone, which deals almost exclu- 

 sively with produce furnished by the vegetable kingdom. 

 As a further proof of the importance of this trade at the 

 present time, I may mention that Messrs. Henry Howell 

 and Co., of 180, Old Street, City Road, E.G.— the largest 

 firm engaged in this trade in London, and to whom I am 

 indebted for the above facts — constantly employ as many 

 as 530 hands in their establishment. Another trade whose 

 operations are confined almost exclusively amongst plants, 

 and which within the last thirty years has considerably 

 developed as a branch of English commerce is that of 



