19 FEBRUARY 1876, Page 3

Mr. Lichfield, of Hanway Yard, writes, apropos of a recent

article on the mania for old china, that in 1836 his own house and Messrs. Babcock's were the only curiosity-dealers in Hanway Yard, and there were but six others in all London. The purchasers of such things were then very few, chiefly rich men, who were looked upon by their friends rather as eccentrics than as men of taste. The entire trade has been developed in the last forty years, and prin- cipally since 1851, when the taste for artistic furniture begao to rage.