FROM all that can be gathered, the members of the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom seem to be well satisfied with the result of their deliberations on the one hand, and their inroads into Wales and old Cheshire on the other. There would appear to have been no personal friction during the meeting, and the names of those already before the public show it to have been a thoroughly representative gathering, whose deliberations are bound to be valuable. I have often been interested in the views of the old city, few corners of which are likely to have been unphotographed this last week. If many members went with the various Welsh trips in the programme, they will have seen some of the most beautiful scenery the United Kingdom affords, and their negatives will not fail to still further popularise a beautiful part of the country which already, so far as its watering places go, is well known to the dwellers in the Midlands, for when my wanderings have taken me Welshwards, I have often noted a goodly sprinkling of Birmingham names. The business of the Convention this year seems to have been of a thoroughly practical character, and if the Committee on lens flanges and screws are—as seems highly likely—able to enunciate a scheme that shall be accepted by the leading opticians, they will score a decided success. From the practical interest in the Committee shown by the leading opticians, there appears to be every probability of a successful result by the adoption of the chief recommendations already made ; and this would be matter for congratulation alike to the general body of practitioners and the makers themselves.
Every thinking man, too, will be inclined to endorse the recommendations of the Weights and Measures Committee; for of all the illogical, absurd, and misleading modes of conveying information of a technical character, commend me to the usual plan for acquainting his fellow workers with his modes of working that the average formula producer adopts. And at the very top of the tree of absurdity is to be found the dry-plate maker. For evidence, let any one examine the printed instructions sent out with the plates; the chief object apparently being to couch the formulae in such terms that the difficulty of comparing notes with this, that, or the other maker, shall be so great as to prevent the attempt. Those familiar with these precious instruction papers will be aware that there are some honourable exceptions, to whom my remarks do not apply. I ask the plate makers, is there any valid existing reason why, if they must boil their instructions down to what they deem a mental pap suitable for the sucking photographers, they should not make an addition to all their papers stating the exact ultimate proportions of the various ingredients in solutions mixed in the complex way they recommend ? This might be done in grains per-ounce, or in decimal parts, and, as this latter is the recommendation of the Committee, the makers would do well to adopt it. It is indeed to be hoped that the outcome of it all will not be a parallel to the result of a great preacher's discourse as described in the antique verse beginning :—
"St. Anthony at church
Was left in the lurch, "
So he went to the ditches
And preached to the fishes."
For we learn that after an eloquent discourse, heard by all members of the finny tribe, we are told,—
“Much delighted were they, But preferred the old way."
There is an old way of another sort which was beginning to get terrible dreary till an enterprising dealer broke new ground. Every one is familiar with the " I have much pleasure in informing you that I use no other plates but yours, and already I have gained half a ton of medals, and last week two hundredweight more were awarded me; please send me two dozen more of plates like the last quarter-gross " style of advertisement. This style of thing, I presume, is getting played out, as I now see a letter, occupying a quarter of a page, sent, not by a half tonner, but by a modest writer, who does not " wish to boast," but states he is "thoroughly satisfied, and could not wish for a better article," for he had " never taken a photograph in his life until he purchased this apparatus only four days before he penned this testimonial." Evidently such testimony must be very valuable as to the merits of an instrument of a similar class to which the market is flooded with.