GLASS CHANDELIERS.
A visit to the show rooms of Messrs. Hancock and Rixon enables us to report a notable change they are effecting in the style of glass chande- liers. The fashion hitherto in vogue is characterized by its generally cylindrical contours, and the predominance of the prism in its ornamenta- tion. All its outlines are circles or vertical right lines. In the new style the general form approaches more to that of the cone ; catenary and double curves abound, and the ornamentation consists of spear heads, festoons and drops of richly cut paste. There is another important difference between the two styles. In the old the component parts are set closely together, so as to present at every point the appearance of an unbroken wall of glass round the axis of the chandelier. In the new style the axis is everywhere visible, and the light instead of being partly interrupted at its first point of incidence, passes freely to the further side, and is refracted with equal vividness from all parts of the lustrous mass. In fine, the new style, for which an appropriate name has not yet been devised, admirablyimitates in glass that of the old cristal de roche chan- liers which adorn some of the palaces of the Continent.
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