Silk mill

“ They have never thrown or wove any silk, as yet, that we have heard of,—therefore, if a law was made prohibiting the use of any throwing mill, of doubling or throstling silk, with any machine whatever, they would then send it to us raw. ”

“ As he worked in the silk mill when a boy, from 1730 to 1737, he doubtless heard it from the mill-hands, and there may be some truth in it, though mixed with a little romance. It is this:- Hutton says of John Lombe, that he "had not pursued this lucrative commerce more than three or four years when the Italians, who felt the effects from their want of trade, determined his destruction, and hoped that that of his works would follow. An artful woman came over in the character of a friend, associated with the parties, and assisted in the business. ”

“ This unfortunate gentleman started a small silk-mill at Derby, with the object of participating in the profits derived from the manufacture.
"The wear of silks," says Hutton, in his 'History of Derby,' "was the taste of the ladies, and the British merchant was obliged to apply to the Italian with ready money for the article at an exorbitant price." Crotchet did not succeed in his undertaking. "Three engines were found necessary for the process: he had but one. An untoward trade is a dreadful sink for money; and an imprudent tradesman is still more dreadful. ”

“ We often see instances where a fortune would last a man much longer if he lived upon his capital, than if he sent it into trade. Crotchet soon became insolvent."
John Lombe, who had been a mechanic in Crotchet's silk mill, lost his situation accordingly. But he seems to have been possessed by an intense desire to ascertain the Italian method of silk-throwing. He could not learn it in England. There was no other method but going to Italy, getting into a silk mill, and learning the secret of the Italian art. He was a good mechanic and a clever draughtsman, besides being intelligent and fearless. ”

“ John Lombe succeeded in getting employment in a silk mill in Piedmont, where the art of silk-throwing was kept a secret. He was employed as a mechanic, and had thus an opportunity, in course of time, of becoming familiar with the operation of the engine. Hutton says that he bribed the workmen; but this would have been a dangerous step, and would probably have led to his expulsion, if not to his execution. Hutton had a great detestation of the first silk factory at Derby, where he was employed when a boy ”

“ France, it is likely, could most advantageously pay us in silks for a portion of the large amount of cottons and hardware which we should sell to her; and though our silk manufacturers may now be able to compete advantageously, in some branches of the manufacture, with their French rivals, it by no means follows that they could do so when the efflux of money from France, and its influx into England, had lowered the price of silk goods in the French market, and increased all the expenses of production here. ”

“ In countries which, like the United States, import the principal part of the finer manufactures which they consume, there is little difficulty in the matter; and, even where nothing is imported but the raw material, that may be taxed, especially the qualities of it which are exclusively employed for the fabrics used by the richer class of consumers. Thus, in England a high custom duty on raw silk would be consistent with principle; and it might perhaps be practicable to tax the finer qualities of cotton or linen yarn, whether spun in the country itself or imported. ”

“ In fact the State of Pennsylvania often gives to companies that will come into the mining districts and put up silk mills not only the land for their factories, but also sites for the homes of their employees. That is one thing that has brought so many silk mills into Pennsylvania. ”

“ The trade was accordingly thrown open. Silk mills were erected at Stockport and elsewhere; Hutton says that divers additional mills were erected in Derby; and a large and thriving trade was established. In 1850, the number employed in the silk manufacture exceeded a million persons. ”

“ Being a domestic manufacture, and carried on with the rudest and cheapest apparatus, it requires neither capital, mills, or an [Pg 340] assemblage of various trades. The cotton is separated from the seeds by a small rude hand-mill, or gin, turned by women.
[454] Orme, in his Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, says, “On the coast of Coromandel and in the province of Bengal, when at some distance from the high road or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which every man, woman, and child is not employed in making a piece of cloth. ”

“ The fine yarns are spun with an iron spindle, and without distaff, generally by women of rank; no caste is disgraced here by spinning, as in the south of India; the women do not employ all their time at this work, but only so much as is allowed by their domestic occupations. The coarse yarns are spun on a small wheel turned by the hand. The hand-mill is used to free the cotton from its seeds, and the bow to tease it. The following capital is required for the weaver’s business: a loom, 21⁄2 rupees; sticks for warping and a wheel for winding, 2 anas; a shop, 4 rupees ”

“ Pierre shall go. It will be another step toward making a silk merchant of him."
"I wish I could go, too," whispered Marie.
"You are not to be a silk merchant, chérie," answered her mother gently. "We women are the stay-at-homes, who do all we can to help our men forward in their careers; that is our work."
And so the next day Pierre, very happy and important, and with a large box of luncheon under his arm, set out upon the train for the Pont-de-Saint-Michel silk mills. To be going on such a long journey all alone was a novel undertaking for the lad, who seldom left his own green valley. ”

“ It can be grown from the seed and multiplied to any extent from the cuttings. Our brethren in every ward should take this matter in hand and plant out these cuttings, and send for the silkworms, and set in operation a new branch of industry, which will employ us some six weeks or two months in the summer time in feeding and taking care of the worms; the residue of the labor—winding and manufacturing the raw material into silk can be conducted through the year. Millions of dollars worth of silk might thus be annually produced in this Territory, from labor that now counts very little. ”

“ And have you ever visited our silk mills at Pont-de-Saint-Michel? No? Ah, but you should do so. It is only an hour's journey, and if you are to raise silk you must learn all you can about it. If I should give you a letter to our foreman would not Madame, your mother, be willing you should go? ”

“ Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to introduce the cultivation of the silk industry into the United States. As the business requires a large amount of cheap labor for a short time during the year, [91] it has not as yet been found profitable. Machines are of little use, except in reeling the silk. ”

“ If we depended for this upon European mills, the color desired would be out of fashion before the thread arrived.
As to the weaving of silk, it is said that we are obliged to import the very best raw silk, owing to the high price of labor here—poor silk requiring great cost in labor. "It costs five times as much to tic a knot here as in France." In the best silk, the thread is not lumpy; but, in weaving the lumpy thread of poor silk, the weaver is constantly busy picking off the imperfections. ”

“ Those who objected to a duty on steel have found they were biting something more than a file. Silks in 1860, hardly unwound from the cocoon, were creeping along with only a small showing of sewing-silk and a few trimmings, but now this industry rises to national importance, furnishing apt employment to many thousand women as well as to men; and the annual products, sharply competing with even the Bonnét silks of Lyons, amount to the round sum of $34,500,000. Notwithstanding the exceptionally heavy duties, I am assured that silk goods in general are sold for 25 per cent. ”

“ Pierre opened his eyes.
"Organzine, for example, is used for the warp of woven silk materials and is generally spun from the best quality raw silk, the threads being firm and strong. Tram, on the other hand, is silk of a second grade and is composed of a greater number [149] of fibres. Many of the mills manufacturing woven silks prefer not to own throwing mills. Often their plants are in large cities where land is expensive and they must economize space; or the manufacturers estimate that they can get thread thrown for them cheaper than they can do it themselves. ”

“ The French undoubtedly take the lead in silk fabrics, for which they are admirably qualified by exquisite taste and great artistic skill; but the silk manufacture in England is now so interwoven, in many of its branches, with the manufacture of wool and cotton, and aided by improved machinery, that it may be considered as firmly established. ”

“ The higher pride of the present day is that we buy seven million pounds of raw silk from the stranger, employ a hundred and fourteen thousand of our own people in the manufacture of it by the aid of machinery, and sell it to the stranger, and our own people, at a price as low as that of the calico of half a century ago. In 1853 the exports of silk manufactures, including those of silk mixed with other materials, silk-yarn and silk-twist, amounted to the enormous sum of two millions sterling, having doubled since 1849. ”

“ Moreover, the heavy duties imposed upon raw and thrown silk, which accompanied the strict prohibition of the importation of manufactured silk goods in 1765, by aggravating the expenses of production and limiting the market at the very epoch of the great mechanical inventions, prevented any notable expansion of consumption of silk goods, and rendered them quite unable to resist the competition of the younger and more enterprising cotton industry, which, after the introduction of colour-printing early in the nineteenth century, was enabled to out-compete silk in many markets. ”

“ Throwing. The manufacture in the United States begins with raw silk. We import our raw silk chiefly from Italy, China, and Japan. It is handled here first by the “throwster,” who winds it from the skein and makes various kinds of thread for different purposes.
Raw silk wound on spools in a single thread, and [Pg 207] called singles is often used to make warps (that is, the threads running lengthwise of a piece of cloth) for piece-dyed goods, or cloth which is woven with the gum in the silk, and afterward boiled out and dyed. ”

“ Most of the raw silk of commerce is produced in China, Japan, and Italy. It is also produced to a large extent in Italy, Turkey, and Greece, also France and Portugal. The cultivation of silk is not only carried on by private firms, but is encouraged by the government to the extent of granting money to the manufacturers.
Various attempts have been made to raise silkworms in the United States. All have failed on account of the high price of labor necessary to feed the worms. ”

“ But the culture of silk is gradually being extended, I am told, and by and by it will, unquestionably, become one of our flourishing industries. A little child is capable of attending to a large part of the labor involved in the production of raw silk, and children a little farther advanced can prepare it for the loom. ”

“ The textile industries, some of which are of ancient date, are among those that have most rapidly developed. Handlooms and small spinning establishments have, in the silk industry, given place to large establishments with steam looms. The production of raw silk at least tripled itself between 1875 and 1900, and the value Textiles. of the silks woven in Italy, estimated in 1890 to be £2,200,000, is now, on account of the development of the export trade, calculated to be almost £4,000,000. ”

“ Besides, there is the same old problem of the lack of cheap labor. You see, reeling silk is often slow work. Different breeds of silkworm turn out, as you know, different qualities of thread. You wouldn't believe how it varies as to size, cleanliness, lustre, and perfection of filament. The Americans cannot afford to pay people to classify all these varieties; nor stop their machinery at irregular intervals to pick out the imperfections, or slugs, as we call them ”

“ Every workman should consider himself a link in the big chain, and try to make himself familiar with the other links. Then he will feel as if he is really doing something, and not just pegging away day after day as if he were a machine. That is why I want to learn all I can about silk as a complete industry. It makes winding bobbins and reeling thread a more important matter. Some firms, Uncle Adolph says, have moving picture lectures and by means of them explain to their employees the entire process of their particular industry so they will be more intelligent about what they are doing. ”

“ This cannot be gauged by the decrease in imports of raw material from the fact before mentioned that formerly London was the centre of distribution for Eastern silk, which is now disembarked at other European ports for continental consumption. The shrinkage is the more noticeable in the throwing branch of the industry. Many of the mills formerly in operation in Derby, Nottingham, Congleton and Macclesfield have been closed owing to the importation of foreign thrown silks from Italy and France, where a lower rate of wages is paid to the operatives em- ployed in this branch. ”