A TRADE WITH MANY TEMPTATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 49

A TRADE WITH MANY TEMPTATIONS.

RTAHTI.INU lIfcQUKSTS M.VUE 10 EnCJUAVEUS.

Kuiely there ate few trades or callings in the many occupations of civilisation, that oii'er to a Urst-clabs workman such dangerous and haunting temptations ns engraving (writes a follower of the ciaft). A few yeais ago a young Scotsman, a fellow-apprentice oi mine, leifc the provinces and started in business on his own account in London. When he was just beginning to get on, a gentleman of prepossessing appeal u nee called at his office, asking to see some specimens ot his work. The stranger warmly eulogised what was shown, and himseli produced an impression ol an exceedingly line piece o] ornamental engraving of which he required an exact, reproduction on steel. Price was no object. The young art isl. jumped at the offer. The work was done and paid foi, and tor some months he heard nothing further fiom his customer. Then one evening he was anested on a charge ol being an accomplice of a gang of forge.is, who had flooded Germany with

I'OKGKD LOTTERY TICKETS.

On seeing one. of tho coupons, h« instantly roccgnised the ornamental engraving as his own, and was stunned with shame, and 'error. By employing clever counsel he escaped punishment, but the affair cost his friends a considerable- sum. Another acquaintancegave up a situation in England in 1892 to accept an ofl'ei of s'k months' engagement in l'aris, the .sum offered for hi? services being £200. He \\ as a clever \vr rkman, but a sorry spendthrift. I hud noticed him in the company of a foreign-looking, well-dres>.sed little fellow a few months preceding his departure. He was very reserved in the matter, and, I fancy, regretted having told me so much as is stated above. Certainly I never got anything further from him, except! a promise to write at the end of hi 3 engagement. But the letter never came. Twelve months after came news of a large amount of counterfeit banknotes being in circulation in France, and I often think of the tongues that the dark waters of the Seine have silenced. The eccentricities of humanity often put money into the engraver's pockets, and lend to vary h's monotonous routine. A well-to-do old gertleman once hud a fad to have the book of ] 'balms engraved m minute writing characters Oil copper, paying

£5 per. rsALir, taking them all through. When the tenth Wds finished he took the plates and proofs away, paid his bill, and I never afterwards ] heard o£ him. Again, a writer of music-lu.il songs had his favourite ditty engraved in beautiful Italian writing characters. When one impression had been pulled it was framed and the plate destroyed. Lest the reader should think that in' regard to the ! Parisian incident I have somewhat strained my imagination, it might be as well to mention an experience of my own. At one time I was infatuated with a pretty and accomplished girl, who, with her father and brother, took up her abode in B , the town in which I was then in business. Not to make a long story of it, when it was thought I was completely ensnared in the meshes of love, a design began to unfold itself, and that design was — the reproduction* on steeJ of a £5 Bank of England note ! Some, perhaps, may be able to imagine my position. I refused point blank, but before I could nerve myself to

IXTORJI T?ra POLICE, the trio had gone. Ere they left, however, tlw sent, me a i>oie consisting of a few significant words: "Remember that, silence is SoJden. that speech is srr.m. !" Ifc might have been an idle threat simply to silence me; it might have been that they belonged lo a gan/j powerful enough to avenge their betrayal — but I never tested it .'—From CasselJ's Saturday Journal for April.