An Act of Parliament passed two years ago ordained that from and after a specified date all new trade-marks must consist of the printed or impressed or woven name of a particular firm or individual; or a copy of the written signature of the party concerned; or distinctive devices, designs, marks, headings, labels, or tickets. The scope is sufficiently wide to give an ample choice; but it must not extend to representations of the Queen, the royal family, or foreign sovereigns; nor to royal or national arms, crests, or mottoes; nor to the arms of cities, boroughs, countries, or families; nor to representations of prize or exhibition medals; nor to the use of the words 'trade-mark,' 'patent,' 'warranted,' or 'guaranteed.' No such restrictions, however, are placed upon any trade-marks that were in use before the passing of the recent Act. The Lord Chancellor and the Commissioners of Patents divide between them the carrying into effect of the new statute. A new office has been established for the registry of trade-marks, with a registrar at its head. The Lord Chancellor has framed rules and regulations, with a tariff of fees approved by the Treasury. The registry, when once granted for a trade-mark, holds good for fourteen years, and is renewable for equal periods of fourteen years on the payment of additional fees. There is so much to pay on application for registry; then so much for any and every extension to other classes of goods; then so much if there be two or more marks for the same article; then so much on actual registration; then so much for every change of name or of address; and then so much for a certificate. The outlay amounts to a good many pounds altogether, but not approaching the cost of a patent. The registrar has a certain time allowed to him between the application and the registration to make the necessary scrutiny, &c. Every application for registry, accompanied by a drawing or engraving, must give an accurate description of the trade-mark, specifying any words, &c. to which the applicant attaches special value—of course within the limits permitted by the rules.
As one registration of any trade-mark is valid only for one class of goods, a careful classification becomes necessary; and this has proved to be one of the most remarkable features in the system. Some one's brains, or the brains of more than one, must have been a good deal exercised in dividing the whole range of human industry into fifty classes, and in assigning the contents of each class. For instance, the first three classes comprise chemical substances and preparations used in manufactures, agriculture, and medicine; the fourth resins, oils, and gums. Then follow three great classes to include metals, machines, and engines; four more for instruments and tools of various kinds; and two for cutlery and edge-tools. Without specifying each individually, it will suffice to say that two classes are occupied with works in the precious metals and jewellery; two with glass and china; two with building and engineering materials and appliances; two with arms, ammunition, and explosives; one for naval equipments and appliances; and one for land vehicles of all kinds. The textile branches of industry make a large demand for classification, in regard to raw materials, yarns, thread, and piece-goods: three for cotton, three for flax and hemp, one for jute, three for silk, three for wool and worsted, and one for carpeting and rugs. Saddlery and harness require one class to themselves, so does made-up clothing, so do india-rubber and gutta-percha goods. Paper, printing, and bookbinding; furniture and upholstery; food and ingredients for food; fermented and distilled liquors; aërated and mineralised beverages; tobacco, snuff, and cigars; agricultural and horticultural seeds; candles, matches, lamp-fuel, and laundry substances; perfumery and toilet requisites; games and toys of all kinds—claim each its own class. Lastly comes class fifty, a refuge for the destitute, comprising everything 'miscellaneous,' everything for which room cannot well be found in any of the other classes. The registrar has sometimes a little difficulty in deciding to which class a particular trade-mark properly belongs.
As one of the consequences of the new Act of Parliament, a Trade-mark Journal has been established by the Commissioners; and this is our picture-book. It appears once, twice, or thrice a week, according to the requirements of the subject, and (at the time we are now writing) has reached about its seventieth number, and contains something like four thousand pictures or representations of trade-marks. To what extent the collection will increase by-and-by, no one can form even a guess. The illustrations relate to the trade-marks applied for under the new Act; and the Journal also gives the name and calling of each applicant, a description of the goods, and a statement of the length of time during which the mark has been used. The Journal thus affords all persons interested in trade-marks authoritative information as to the nature of the marks used in the respective trades. A wood-cut block or an electrotype must be forwarded to the office, representing the particular trade-mark applied for, if it is to appear in the Journal; and each quarto page is made up by printing from several such blocks or casts. Even if the mark consists only of names and words, still a block or plate must be sent representing it.
The Master, Warden, Searchers, and Assistants of the Cutlers' Company at Sheffield possess, in virtue of ancient charters, very special privileges, which the new registrar of trade-marks is not allowed to contravene. He works in harmony with the Company; and every trade-mark recognised by the latter may claim of right admission into the register. To facilitate the granting of trade-marks for cotton goods, an office has been established at Manchester for the exhibition of all marks, devices, headings, labels, tickets, letters, &c. used in the cotton trade, and locally designated 'cotton-marks' and a committee of experienced Manchester men decide which among these symbols or hieroglyphics deserve to be regarded as trade-marks for registration.
Who can count the varieties of fanciful devices that make their appearance in our picture-book? Analogy between the device and the goods is sometimes attended to; but more frequently it is thrown overboard altogether. Do we require portraits of individuals, celebrated or otherwise? Here is a sarsaparilla man, here one renowned for cod-liver oil, and anon a hero of sewing-machines; Sir Walter Raleigh is brought into requisition by a tobacco manufacturer; while a cigar-maker, taking advantage of the recent excitement connected with a famous picture, adopts a wood-cut copy of Gainsborough's 'Duchess of Devonshire.' Or are we likely to be smitten with views and landscapes? We can choose between the Egyptian pyramids lighted up with an orient sun; a view of Keswick (near which most of our black-lead for pencils is obtained); a view of a paper manufactory. In some sense apposite are a baby in a cradle, for needle-making; a broken willow-pattern plate, for a newly warranted cement; the Colossus of Rhodes [roads], for railway signals; Cupid sharpening his arrows, for emery-grinding wheels; a smart man measuring round a smart forehead, for hat-making; the sun eclipsing nearly everything, for the eclipse sauce; a dog's head, for fibrine dog-cake; four nigger plantation minstrels, for cigars; and 'No place like home' as a trade-mark motto for fenders and fire-irons.
To account for others, the fancy must make wide excursions indeed. A maker of edge-tools adopts stars and crowns, a monkey eating an apple, an elephant's head, oxen and lions with initials on their flanks, a negro's head, a cassowary, a boot, a sledge; and the head of an Aztec accompanied by the inscription: 'Look for this stamp on each tool, if you want a genuine article made from electro-boragic cast-steel.' A locomotive does not seem specially suitable as a trade-mark for silk goods; nor a rearing and roaring white lion for Portland cement; nor a feudal castle for good hosiery; nor a crowing cock for artificial manure; nor a helmsman at the wheel for aërated waters; nor a tearing ranting buffalo for floor-cloth.
[POPPET'S PRANKS.]
Poppet, the subject of the following sketch, was a little brown monkey, who was for several years a member of our family. She had no hair on her face or the palms of her hands—I say hands, as they were beautifully formed, with long filbert nails, very pretty although black, except the thumb, which certainly was not aristocratic, being as broad as long. Her feet were like her hands, but longer, and she could use them with equal facility. Her eyes were really beautiful, of a clear golden brown; the nose certainly rather flattened; and the mouth large, but displaying a set of beautiful little pearly teeth that many a belle might have envied. Altogether Poppet was a very pretty little thing; and when arrayed in a little tartan dress with white tucker, her hair brushed neatly, and an amiable expression on her face, looked very winsome and coaxing; but that expression could vanish with the swiftness of lightning, and one the reverse of prepossessing take its place.
How we lived for the first three months after her arrival, when she roamed the house at her own sweet will, has been a source of wonder ever since; certainly it was in much discomfort; when working, sitting with our scissors and thread in our pockets, for if they were placed on the table, in an instant they were carried to the top of the window cornice, Poppet's favourite retreat. Sometimes, if coaxed by an apple, she would drop them; at other times no blandishments would prevail, and she would sit drawing her sharp little teeth over the thread, cutting through every row. If she captured a paper of pins or needles, she delighted to climb to the top of a tall plum-tree, where, free from molestation and deaf to entreaties, she amused herself by dropping them one by one. One day my mother entered the bath-room just in time to see Poppet dart out of the window to a large tree, which unfortunately grew close by, with a quart bottle of magnesia in her hand, which she proceeded to shower down, much amused at the miniature snow-storm, and not leaving a grain in the bottle. The meals at that time were most uncomfortable. When there were eggs for breakfast, we had to pocket or hide those not in immediate use, or Poppet would snatch them up and be out of reach in a moment. As a general rule, when food is fairly in the mouth, it may be considered safe; but I have often seen Poppet perch on some one's shoulder, open the mouth by a sudden jerk of one hand on the nose, and another on the chin; then the little brown hand would dive in, and the contents be transferred to her pouches; all being done with such extreme rapidity that strangers used to think it little short of magic.