THE GREY GOOSE QUILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 33

THE GREY GOOSE QUILL.

THE OLD STXLE PEN. With on© sole Pen I wrote this book, Made of a Gray Goose Quill; A Pen it was when It I took, A Pen I leave lt still. This tribute to the durability of a quill pen Is from a writer In the Middle Ages. To-day the quill pen has almost disappeared. _et In London there Is still ono Ann making quill pens—that of Henry Hill and Sons, Limited, of Winchester House, Peckham. When a representative of "The Dally Chronicle" called on Mr. J_enry Hill he found, to his surprise, a flourishing business with cellars crammed with bales of quills, and learned that a skilled craftsman can cut by hand over 1000 pens a day. Mr. Hill himself boldly tells the world lt will enjoy life more by using quill pens. It appears that, whereas the wooden penholder with metal nibs Is a frequent cause of writer's cramp, this complaint may be prevented by using the flexible quill, called by the poet " Nature's noblest gift—my Gray Goose Quill." The whole secret of economy in quill pens Is to have three of them In use. When one becomes soft, leave it and take up another. The first will very soon reharden Mr. Hill does not expect to see the return of the palmy days when Ms firm sent over 2,000,000 quills to India In one year. .Only thirty years ago tbe Stationery Office wanted about 400,000 pens a year, and sent about 60,000 to be recut. In those days the Cabinet Ministers usually had quills, cut to thuir own pattern, and a change of Government meant a fresh set of patterns. Queen Tlctorla used large swan pens cut to her own pattern, but King Edward preferred the hard quill of the Hudson's Bay black goose. Turkey quills are mostly employed for legal documents, crow quills for engineering, drawing and etching, and ■wan quills by careful writers because of their durability. To-day artists, authors,, and lawysn still on the quIII. j