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304 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [April 17, 1891. Motes. Our readers are requested to note that, as announced in the last issue of the Photographic News, the price of the paper is now reduced to twopence. More work for the photographic process-block maker. The prospectus of a new magazine, The Ludgate Monthly, has been issued, and, judging from its speci men pages, the publication should “catch on,” as they say over the water. The illustrations are well done, some being from tint drawings, and others owing their being to the zinco-line process.’ It would be an interesting thing to know how many of these constantly cropping up new publications owe their inception to photography. Some of them, of course, could never have been launched at all unless some method of producing pictures without the aid of the slow cutting graver had been devised. The Daily Graphic is an example of one. Certain it is, too, that the army of second-rate comic papers (so called) could never have been possible without the aid of the photo grapher. The World’s Fair at Chicago is, according to a prospectus which we have received, to lick all creation. The American Scribe, in dealing of its wonders, breaks forth into poetry, as the following extract will show : “ North of these buildings, in the main lagoon, will be an island of twenty or thirty acres in area. It is the intention to have this kept as wild and primitive as possible. There the visitor may wander through a miniature ‘ forest primeval,’ pathless and untrans formed by art, and may hunt the fragrant wild flower, or the saucy chipmunk, and generally commune with nature in its native haunts.” One expression we have emphasised by italics, for, although we have referred to every dictionary within reach, we have not found out what it means. A friend suggests that saucy chipmunk is American for amateur photographer. If this be so, we cannot see why he should be hunted; but then, in this country, we do not hunt “fragrant wild flowers.” They are curious people, these Americans. All who have made a study of the human countenance —a category which should, of necessity, include photo graphers—must have noticed that, in spite of the common notion that nature is diverse in her works, and seldom repeats herself, some human beings so closely resemble others of their species that one is almost persuaded to believe that every man has his double. That this is hardly an exaggeration is proved by what most of us have experienced, the addressing of an utter stranger in the street in mistake for an intimate acquaintance, and only finding out the error when confronted by the cold, disdainful stare of the insulted one. Toole, the actor, it is said, once turned such an acci dent into a practical joke of a very humorous kind— humorous, that is, except from the victim’s point of view. In a certain restaurant he had, in error, clapped a stranger on the back and exclaimed, “ Halloa ! George, how are you ? ” Apologies followed, and all was well so far. But Toole presently pointed out the victim to a friend of his who sauntered in, and, without referring to what had occurred, said, “ I bet you a shilling that you won’t go up to that old chap in the corner, as if you knew him, slap him on the back, and say, ‘ Halloa ! George, how are you ? ’ ” The friend took the bet, and carried out its provisions to the letter, with a result that can be better imagined than described. Two well-known men, who have recently gone over to the majority, had well-known doubles. One, the late Lord Granville, was exactly like Mr. Denny, of the Savoy Theatre, when made up for the Grand Inquisitor in “ The Gondoliers ” ; and the other was the late P. T. Barnum, the great American showman, who was, in feature, the exact counterpart of Titus Vespasian, according to a certain Neapolitan sculpture, a cast of which stands in the Crystal Palace hard by the Egyptian Court. The hackneyed phrase, “ There is nothing new under the sun,” has a peculiar suitability when applied to photography. Investigators and experimenters who stumble upon what they think is a novelty are con tinually being pulled up by some tiresome person with a good memory, who calmly says the same thing was done a quarter of a century or so ago. A case in point occurred at a' recent meeting of the Royal Micro scopical Society, in connection with a suggestion of M. Fayel as to a novel method of examining large opaque objects, which he terms “ Photo-micrography in space.” The plan proposed by M. Fayel is to direct a photographic lens to the object, and focus the image upon the ground glass of the camera. The ground glass is then removed, and the aerial image viewed with a compound microscope. No sooner was this method brought under the notice of the Society than Dr. Charters-White remembered a similar plan devised by the late Dr. J. Matthews for precisely the same pur pose, and described and exhibited at the Quekett Club in February, 1879, under the name of the micro megascope. This brought up Mr. Mayall, who pointed out that the micromegascope was known in the last century as the “ megalascope,” and was constructed by B. Martin. If the subject could have been pursued, it might have been discovered that Martin had borrowed the idea from somebody else. However, so far as is known at present, the honours rest with the “ megala scope.” A proof of the widespread interest taken in photography is the frequency with which articles appear in periodicals intended for that omniverous person, the general reader. In Scotland they have