[A CURIOUS PICTURE-BOOK.]
We have before us one of the most singular picture-books that can well be imagined; singular because unexpected in its character. It is a book containing the trade-marks of several thousand merchants, manufacturers, and shopkeepers; each device printed, in the proper size, from a block or cast of the original; and the whole collection likely to be very formidable in dimensions by-and-by. The system has sprung out of the passing of a particular Act of Parliament two years ago; and we shall best facilitate a comprehension of its nature and purport by glancing at that which preceded it.
A trade-mark and an armorial bearing have much the same meaning, however different in splendour and dignity. Each is a token to distinguish certain persons from others. In the middle ages distinguished families and famous old commercial companies had their marks; so had monasteries, abbeys, and convents; so had municipal towns and chartered guilds; so had merchants and shipowners. By degrees the mark became embodied as a trade-mark in some instances, as an heraldic shield or crest or coat-armour in others. Some noble families at the present day can shew coats of arms including (in the device) trade-marks once belonging to the founder of the family when a trader.
As a feature in legitimate commerce, it is fair and right for a man to affix to his wares some mark or symbol to distinguish them from the wares of other traders. The mark may have a significant or symbolical meaning, or it may be wholly fanciful; no matter which, provided it be his and his only. The range to choose from is so wide as to be practically limitless; for the mark may be a name, initial, signature, word, letter, device, emblem, figure, sign, seal, stamp, or diagram; and it may be impressed upon or otherwise attached to a cask, bottle, vessel, canister, case, cover, envelope, wrapper, bar, plate, ingot, sheet, bale, packet, band, reel, cork, stopper, label, or ticket. He must indeed be a difficult man to please who cannot select out of all these. A quadruped, bird, or fish; a sun, moon, star, or comet; a triangle, diamond, square, oval, or hexagon; a crescent, a castle, a ship; a portrait, medallion, or profile; a view of a warehouse or of a plantation—anything will do, if it suffices to imply 'This is mine: you must not imitate or forge it.'
No one can glance through the daily papers, in the columns relating to actions at law, without seeing evidence how jealously the privileges of trade-marks are watched by the owners; nor is it difficult to see why this jealousy is exhibited. If A possess something which has a money-value to him, B would like to possess it also if honestly obtainable, or something sufficiently like it to be equally advantageous. Unfortunately men do not always wait to consider how far honesty should actuate them. There is a vast amount of shabby peculation on the part of men who avail themselves, directly or indirectly, of other men's trade-marks, in order to obtain a share of custom which does not fairly belong to them. A belief or hope is entertained that if the public do not know exactly which is the real Simon Pure, a sham Simon may perchance come in for some of the pickings.
Suppose, for instance, there is a Macassar oil which has brought a fortune to a particular firm; another concocter of toilet 'requisites' may be tempted to adopt the same title, in the hope that the originator may fail to shew that the Straits of Macassar have really anything to do with the matter. If a compounder of pills and ointments (say Mr Jones) is driving a flourishing trade at a particular shop, and if another person (also named Jones) opens a shop close by, and sells similarly curative pills and ointments, he may hope to trade partly on the good-luck of the other, and may defy any one to prove that the surname has been falsely assumed. If a trader be making a good thing out of baking powder, and another man wraps up another (perhaps an inferior) kind of baking powder in packets printed almost exactly in the same style and wording, he trusts to an unwary public being deceived in the matter. No small difficulty has been felt at times, by judges and jurors, in determining whether a particular designation or inscription really deserves the rank of a trade-mark, and ought to be protected as such. If a man's name be combined with the name of the article sold, this would in most cases be a good trade-mark: such as Day and Martin's blacking, Delarue's playing-cards, Elkington's electro-plate, Rimmel's perfumed valentines, Reid's stout, Beaufoy's vinegar, Fortnum and Mason's hampers, Crosse and Blackwell's pickles, and the like. But if there happen to be two men of the same name in the same trade, then there may possibly be materials for wrangling, should the men be disposed to wrangle. It is for this reason that Dent's watches, Mappin's cutlery, Clarke's coals, Smith's gin, &c. would not be alone sufficient as trade-mark designations; because there are two persons or two firms entitled to use it, something additional would be needed.
The imitation of a label is one of the most prevalent modes of displaying the shabby dishonesty of those who disregard the rights conferred by a trade-mark; but brands and painted marks are imitated with equal boldness, if not so frequently. Soda-water bottles which have in the making been stamped with the name of a particular firm have, in like manner, got into the hands of persons who fill them with soda-water of an obscure and unrenowned quality. Wine-casks and cigar-boxes, branded with well-known names, have similarly been utilised by the sellers of inferior commodities. As to two Howqua's mixtures, it was shewn that there was no such person as Howqua concerned in the matter. Is it true that Birmingham manufacturers often receive orders from merchants to make certain goods, and to stamp on them certain trade-marks belonging to third parties; and that the manufacturers do this as a matter of course, 'all in the way of business?' Is it true that, in obedience to orders from wholesale houses in the Manchester goods-trade, manufacturers will sometimes put two hundred yards of sewing-thread on a reel, and paste on it a label denoting three hundred yards? If so, 'pity 'tis 'tis true.' The latter of these two ifs does not relate to a trade-mark piracy, but it is equally indicative of a shameful disregard of the principles of meum and tuum.
Foreigners have had in past years much reason to complain of English imitations of labels, inscriptions, signatures, and trade-marks. Among metal goods there was one American Company famed for the really good edge-tools manufactured by them; they were imitated at Birmingham, so far as regards a similar mark stamped on each article, or a similar label attached; of course the tools, whether good, middling, or bad, were not what they professed to be; they were worth less in the market, but were nevertheless sent forth as ifs made by the original Company—a bit of sharp practice very little creditable to the parties concerned.
Most amply have foreigners taken their revenge; indeed it is not improbable that they first began this game; seeing that they had more to gain from a great manufacturing nation than we had to gain from them in this way. Sheffield has been despoiled by them in a notable degree. Knives, files, fish-hooks, needles, &c. made very cheaply of inferior steel, receive in the German workshops (more perhaps than in those of France or Belgium) brands, marks, wrappers, and labels so closely resembling those of eminent Sheffield firms, as to deceive all but the most wary. In some instances, the foreigners have given the go-by to us with an almost superb audacity: imitating the very notification on English wrappers that to imitate that particular trade-mark is felony! Print what they may, stamp what they may, English manufacturers of high-class goods find that they cannot ward off this kind of cheatery—cheatery, not of money direct, but of the good reputation which possesses money's worth. However, international trade-mark laws are doing something to lessen this unfairness—of English towards foreigners as well as of foreigners towards English. Some further illustrations of these matters will be found in the volume of this Journal for 1859.
Now for our picture-book.