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528 THE PHOTOGRAPIIIC NEWS. LJLLY 24, 1891. ilotes. Anglo-Indian photographers have lately been protesting in print against the prohibitive prices charged by local dealers. But it is easy to see that this protest would never have seen the light if there were not something still more serious to complain of. The dealers, it is said, are in the habit of supplying stale materials, so that a photo grapher who may have been at extraordinary pains to secure a picture at a distance from home will often find, on development, that the plate he has confidently used is good for nothing. It is rather difficult to suggest a remedy for this state of things, unless it be that plates should be specially made for India, and packed under special precautions. This, of course, could not be done unless the amount of trade with India were much greater than it is at present. Or a plate factory might be established in India by some enter prising maker. Anyone who has had experience of gela tine plate making will know what uphill work this would mean in a climate such as that of India. Even in our own more temperate summer, plate-makers, as a rule, confine the work to the cool and early hours of the morning. In India it would probably be necessary to coat the plates in a refrigerating chamber, such as that common on ship board for the preservation of meat. The degree of cold required need only be sufficient to ensure the setting of the gelatine, and such a temperature could be secured at very little expense. In order to prevent accident from admixture of the two gases hydrogen and oxygen, which, as everyone now knows, form such a terribly explosive compound, it has long been the custom in this country to paint hydrogen cylinders red, and oxygen cylinders black, and, as a further precaution, the hydrogen cylinder has a screw nozzle with a left-hand thread. It has lately been pointed out that in America the oxygen cylinders are painted red, and the hydrogen black, thus reversing the system cus tomary on this side of the Atlantic. It is quite conceivable that accident might arise from American cylinders finding their way over here, or vice versa, and it would be far better that we should agree upon some uniform manner of marking them. The inconvenience and expanse entailed in making a change would naturally be resisted by either nation, and we suppose that matters must remain as they are, in spite of the manifest risk. At the forthcoming National Eisteddfod of Wales, which will be held at Swansea next month, there will be several competitions in the Arts and Miscellaneous Section. The committee have given notice that they have decided to make certain subjects in the section “ open competitions ” —that is to say, they will not be confined to Welshmen. These competitions include painting, carving and sculpture, and photography. The adjudicators are all well-known men, and intending competitors in photography will know that they are in good hands when they learn that Mr. J. Traill Taylor is to adjudicate upon the works sent in. Photographers who wish to secure pictures of the Upper Thames without much trouble or exertion to themselves may be reminded that Messrs. Salter, the well-known Oxford boat-builders, are running two well-appointed steam launches, which daily ply between Oxford and Kingston. The trip either way occupies two days, and beautiful Henley is the half-way house where travellers rest for the night. The seizure in London of a number of photographs of pictures in the Salon raises an old question which we suppose will be always hotly debated so long as Mrs. Grundy exercises her present influence over what is supposed to be English taste. One can understand a Vigilance Society, imbued with Mr. Horsley’s opinions on the subject of the nude, objecting to certain pictures ; it is when it begins to argue that issue must be joined. For this reason Mr. W. A. Coote, secretary of the National Vigilance Association, would have been wiser had he refrained from offering any comments on the subject. However, he has chosen to unburden himself, and we cannot say we are sorry, as he has succeeded in planting himself on ground as debateable as anyone could wish. For instance, he actually asserts that the photograph of a picture may be objectionable, though the picture itself may not be. These objectionable qualities, he says, are introduced into the copy by “ the eccentricities of the photographer’s art.” Mr. Coote, it seems, sees only indecency when a picture is robbed of its colour and reproduced in black-and-white. This would be very terrible if it were not very stupid, and we should very much like to see Mr. Coote justify his position—if he can. At present it looks as if he is bent upon making this self appointed Vigilance Association a laughing-stock—a position, by the way, it has already occupied more than once. One of the most useful items of photographic intelligence which always comes fresh to the non-photographic press is the intimation that the latest fashionable “fad” is for ladies to have their hands and feet photographed. This piece of news has been dished up over and over again for the last three years, and once more came up smiling last week in the pages of a provincial journal. It is really time some photographer came forward and verified the existence of this “fad.” For ourselves, we take leave to doubt the whole business, and we do so for the reason that the notion that ladies should have their hands and feet photographed first saw the light in these columgs, the suggestion naturally growing out of the craze for palmistry, which was then at its height. Still, we should be willing to record the experience of any photographer, even if he has only had one foot submitted to him. Mr. Edison has been anticipated in his kinetograph by a Mr. Hartman, who has invented what he calls a “zoto- graph,” which fulfils the same functions as Mr. Edison’s apparatus, and was made before Mr. Edison applied for a patent. It is said that the zotograph will see everything which comes within its range, and record the same auto matically and correctly. Placed in a car window, it will photograph everything as it goes along. It will also record the babel of sounds as they pass by. It will record even the slightest progressive movement of a horse in its complete race round the track. Hartman claims to fix motions on the sensitive plate at the rate of 50 to 100 per second; Edison does not undertake to record more than 46.