The colours now used do not exceed fifty in the most elaborate productions of the Cashmere loom. Formerly it was said that three hundred shades of colour were used. The embroidery is not worked with the needle but woven in the cloth. The patterns are read off from a book, and not from a drawing. There is an embroidery language, by which the colours, number, division, and distribution and manipulations of the threads, and the forms and sizes of the flowers, foliage, &c., are symbolically designated. The looseness of twist in the web is owing to being done by the hand; these objections, however, have all lately been remedied by the ingenuity of the French artists, and particularly Messrs. Polino Brothers, of Paris. SECTION EIGHTH. LACE MANUFACTURE. The history of the arts furnishes no instance of such remarkable changes in the wages of labour, and no such instructive lessons of the influence of mechanical improvements, as that afforded by the manufacture of bobbin-net lace. For some time after its commencement, in Nottingham, in the year 1809, it was common for an artizan to abandon his usual occupation and betake himself to a lace frame, in which he became a share holder, and realize by working upon it, from 20s. to 40s. per day. In consequence of such enormous earnings, Nottingham, with Loughborough, and the neighbouring villages, very soon became the theatre of an epidemic mania, unequalled in modern times. Many unfortunate individuals, although destitute of mechanical genius or even talent of any kind, tormented themselves both day and night with schemes of bobbins, pushers, lockers, point-bars, and needles of every variety of shape imaginable, till their minds got permanently bewildered. Indeed, several lost entirely what little sense they once possessed; and * For an account of the lace and net-work manufactures in ancient days, the reader is referred to page 5, and from page 41 to 57. others after cherishing visions of the most unbounded wealth, as in the dreamy age of alchemy, finding their projects abortive, sunk into the lowest depths of despair, and committed suicide, by blowing out their brains? Bobbin-net lace is a light semi-transparent texture of fine cotton thread, arranged in hexagonal meshes. This species of cloth or web is produced by means of a warp, the same as in plain weaving, except that the threads are further apart. A specimen of this texture is represented at Fig. 132. Fig. 132. The weft or filling, however is applied in quite a different way from that of plain cloth: it consists, in the first place, of an equal number of threads with the warp; and these weft threads are made to revolve round every two threads of the warp, which changes the relative positions of the warp threads. Second.-Among all the pairs of the warp-threads which have been thus twined together by weftthread, one of them is shifted to the neighbouring warp-thread upon the left, and connected to it by the convolution of the weft thread; after which, the shifted warp-threads change back to their first position, where they are again entwined or laced together by the weft thread, as before; and the other threads of these pairs shift to the right and are entwined or laced together in the same manner as the first or left hand set were. Third. While this maneuvering in the positions of the warp threads is in progress, the weft threads which entwine or lace them together, also move to one side, and after the warp-threads have been laced or entwined twelve times with a weft-thread, the latter moves sideways through one interval of the warp-thread, and, if it were coloured, would produce, in the course of fabricating the cloth, a diagonal line across it. The manufacture of lace, therefore, differs from plain weaving, in this, that the threads of the warp are not alternately raised and depressed, for the purpose of introducing the weft, but are shifted laterally to the next pair, to which they become united by the weft-threads, working likewise in pairs, each of them entwining two individual threads at once, as in the manner above explained. Fig. 133 will give the reader a more correct idea of the nature or mode of manufacturing this species of texture, by the crossing or twining of the warp and weft-threads together. This specimen shows, upon a magnified or enlarged scale, how the fabric is produced from the conjunction of three threads; one of which proceeds from the top, downwards, in a winding or wave line (constituting Hogarth's line of beauty;) the second of these threads runs towards the right, and the third to the left, crossing each other obliquely in the centre between each two meshes throughout the series, as shown in the Fig. The warp-threads, as before stated, are placed perpendicularly in the machine, and derive their curvature from the tension of the obliquely disposed weft-threads, by which they are alternately drawn to the right and to the left. The weft-threads which are to pass through the intervals of the warp, in order to interlace or entwine two threads of the latter together, are wound upon little bobbins; one of which is represented, one fourth its real size, at Fig. 136, where both an edge and a side view are given. It consists of two thin discs, cut out from sheet brass, by a press or stamping machine; and they are so connected or riveted together, that a narrow space or circular groove is left between them, as shown in the edge view, Fig. 136. A round hole is pierced in the centre of each bobbin, as shown in the Fig., having a little notch or jog at one point, for guiding the bobbin upon a spindle with a feather upon it to fit the notch or jog; which prevents the bobbins from being misplaced on the spindle. Any convenient number of these bobbins are put upon a spindle, which spindle is then arranged in a suitable winding machine, for the purpose of filling the bobbins with weft-thread, previous to being put into their respective working positions in the lace-frame. After these bobbins have been filled with weft-thread, each of them is placed within a small iron frame, like that represented at Fig. 135, and this frame is known to lace manufacturers by the name of the bobbin-carriage: Fig. 135 exhibits a side view and section of this frame, fourth its real size. Into the circular or gouged-out space of the carriage, the bobbin is inserted, so that the grooved border of its discs embraces the narrow edge A A; and the bobbin is kept from falling out by the pressure spring B, which spring, also, communicates sufficient friction to prevent it from revolving too easily, but yet allows the thread to be given off, when pulled with gentle force. The thread, as it comes from the bobbin, escapes through the eye C, at the upper side or the top of the carriage; after which, it takes its relative position in the formation of the lace. The variety of mechanical combinations to which this manufacture has given birth, is without a parallel in any other branch of the arts. Since 1809, when Mr. Heathcoate obtained his first successful patent, a great number of other patents have been granted for making lace. But we shall confine ourself to giving a faithful description of the most recent improvements which have been made in the manufacture of this kind of texture, namely, by the ingenious John Heathcoate, of Tiverton, county of Devon, a gentleman who may with justice be called, the father of the lace manufacture in Europe; and William Crofts, an ingenious mechanic of Radford, county of Nottingham, with whose improvements we shall commence. Mr. Crofts' first invention consists in a mode of producing ornamental spots on a plain bobbin-net; which spots are formed while the lace is in progress of fabrication, by means of coiling up and accumulating certain of the warp threads into masses, so as to pro duce spots at such parts of the plain net as are required to form the intended pattern. The invention, is an application of peculiarly jointed wires, in conjunction with hooks for catching the threads which are to be looped up, in order to form spots, with certainty and facility; the action of the hooks, being aided by the pointed wires, enables the machinery to perform without interruption, the backward and forward swinging motions, which are usually given to the bobbins and carriages, in circular comb rotary machines. Fig. 134 represents the operating parts of a lace machine, taken in transverse section. When the spots are about to be formed, the front working points K, are drawn towards the front of the machine out of their working positions, and remain in a state of inactivity, during the formation of the spots. The bobbins A and B,* with their threads a,* and b,* intended to form the spots, are then selected by the pushers 3, and projected forward out of their places in the |
