Whipcord

“ It is true, my whip is not so splendid as that of my brothers, but jewels are out of place on a hunting-whip, it seems to me; the handle is wanted to be smooth, so that the hand may take a firm grip of it, rather than to be covered with those points and unevennesses. The merit of my whip is not in the handle, it is in the lash, which has such excellent qualities, that you have but to crack it, and your horse will immediately take you over any obstruction there may be in your way—be it a house or a mountain, or what you will. ”

“ Ending knots not only serve the purpose of giving a large end on the rope, but also take the place of whipping, in that they prevent the rope from unraveling. Sometimes an ending knot is also used for its ornamental value.
Fig. 30. A Whipping applied as shown is employed for keeping loose ends from fraying or unraveling, where the use to which the rope is to be put will not permit of a knot on the end. Strong cord is used for whipping. In splicing ropes, the whipping is removed before the splice may be considered complete. ”

“ Although her single spur is at times a most valuable adjunct to a lady, it should never be worn by beginners, nor until its use has been thoroughly taught in the course of study.
It is with regret that I see the riding-whip becoming superseded by the handle of the English hunting-crop, as this is neither rational nor practical, being too short and light to replace the right leg advantageously or to give efficient punishment if it is needed. A good whip, flexible, without being limp, rather long than short, not too heavy, but well balanced, is best, especially in the riding-school. ”

“ The whip is a thicker line, rove through a block or pulley, and having its two ends spliced together without a knot, in such a manner that the join does not check the running of the rope through the pulley. ”

“ An American Whipping is sometimes used for the ends of hawsers. It is commenced in the same way as a common whipping, but finished off by having both ends out in the middle of the whipping and forming a reef knot. This is done by leaving the first end out when you commence to pass the turns on the bight over the last end.
(4) . To Point a Rope End.—First put a stop on at twice and a half the circumference of the rope from the end, which will leave about the length for pointing, unlay the rope to the stop and then unlay the strands. ”

“ A lady’s whip is intended to supply the place of a man’s right leg and spur; it should therefore, however ornamental and thin, be stiff and real. Messrs. Callow, of Park Lane, make some very pretty ones, pink, green and amber, from the skin of the hippopotamus, light but severe. A loop to hang it from the wrist may be made ornamental in colours and gold, and is useful, for a lady may require all the power of her little hand to grasp the right rein without the encumbrance of the whip, which on this plan will still be ready if required at a moment’s notice. ”

“ Every time you turn touch him slightly with the whip, to make him step up close to you, and then caress him with your hand. He will soon learn to hurry up to escape the whip and be caressed, and you can make him follow you around without taking hold of the halter. If he should stop and turn from you, give him a few sharp cuts about the hind legs, and he will soon turn his head towards you, when you must always caress him. A few lessons of this kind will make him run after you, when he sees the motion of the whip — in twenty or thirty minutes he will follow you about the stable. ”

“ To supply the absence of the leg on the off side, in the case of the lady, the only substitute is the whip. But all men accustomed to breaking know that the effect of the whip is altogether different from that of the leg, and that while the whip is occasionally necessary to rouse a slightly lazy horse, and put him into his bridle, in the case of one very free, or at all hot, the whip must be used with great caution by a lady. As I have remarked elsewhere, most young horses are inclined to strike off in the canter with the near leg, which is most unpleasant to the fair equestrian. ”

“ Whip-tops will spin better if the point is armed with a hollow-headed brass nail, such as are used for furniture. The whip may be made of leather shoe-lacings, but the best and most lasting is eel-skin, kept in a moist condition. To whip a top the stroke should never be a high one, but the real motion should come from the wrist rather than the arm. In playing the game, tuck the whip under the left arm, and take the point between the hands, the fingers pointing downward ”

“ Such a whip is seen in our cut No. 213, taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Arundel. No. 91) , which represents a countryman driving a horse of burthen; and he not only uses the whip, but he tries further to urge him on by twisting his tail. A whip with one lash—rather an unusual example—is in the hand of the woman driving the cart in our cut No. 214, which is taken from a manuscript of the romance of “Meliadus,” in the French National Library (No. 6961) , belonging to the fourteenth century. ”

“ The chief uses of a hunting whip are to help the rider to manipulate gates, and to be cracked; the former being much more necessary to a horsewoman than the latter. The crop should therefore be of a serviceable length. It is the very silly fashion at present to have hunting whips that are less than two feet long. Many are made of whalebone, and are covered with catgut, their special advantage being that their flexibility greatly facilitates the process of cracking. A more serviceable crop for a lady is one of stiff cane, the thick end of the handle of which is made rough, as in Fig. ”

“ When the whip is inserted, the holder opens at the bottom, below the joints or hinge, by the pressure of the whip upon the convex conical sides of the holder, and closes at the top of the holder around the whip, thus clasping the whip firmly at the top and bottom of the holder, and holding it steadily and firmly in its place. The whip may be easily drawn out by a perpendicular motion, the holder opening at the top and closing at the bottom, so that the whip is readily detached. ”

“ Very often two whip-threads are used for twisting, in which case they must be drawn together in the doup. If several whip and ground-threads are drawn into one reed they usually work independently at first on a regular weave; following this is the gauze weave formed by a certain number of whip-threads raised either on the left or right of the ground-threads contained in the same dent. ”

“ Raising the point of the whip, when a lady is trotting a horse on the curb alone, and unassisted by her right hand, is very apt to make him break, because the point of the whip is always in motion, and causes the horse to turn his eye back at it. ”

“ Too much whip is a bad thing. In riding in the country a lady must perforce have to open a bridle gate sometimes for herself, and if she is always using a whip to liven her horse up, she will find it difficult to get him to stand still, even while she opens the lightest of gates. As regards the pupil in the school, I repeat she should be habituated to wear a spur as soon as her progress justifies it. ”

“ In the lessons on turning, he may if needful be touched with the whip, only if needful, and then the lash should fall as lightly as the fly from some expert fisherman's rod, the touch of the silk or whip-cord coming simultaneously with the touch on the bars of the mouth. ”

“ The whip is especially effective. It is used with sharp but not severe stroke, upon any part of the body, but never on the head. After the training has made some progress, the effect of the whip is augmented if, along with the stroke, the trainer speaks in a sharp, guttural tone. ”

“ Suddenly Corcoran whirled, peering into the blackness at the far end of the warehouse, where something stirred softly. Kenton drew his pistol. I felt the goose-flesh rising along my arms. Only the dead man, undisturbed, stared unwinkingly in the opposite direction.
The next moment a stray cat wandered leisurely into the circle of light and sat herself down to wash her dusty fur, blinking complacently up at our pallid faces. I wiped the cold drops from my forehead and breathed a deep sigh.
Corcoran turned almost pleadingly to Captain Dolan. ”

“ The application of this whip was so constant as to keep the right arm in continual motion; so that even to-day on the frontier an Indian rider can be distinguished from a white man, at a distance, by the constant rising and falling of the whip arm. ”

“ We know how closely analogous to ‘darning’ was the early weaving; and in our days it is not unusual to find stockings not darned at right angles, and it may be the women weavers of old sometimes put in the weft more or less out of true right angle. In the childhood of weaving we should expect different methods, and it may be, seeing that we have no selvedged cloth until very long after this time, that they experimented with a diagonal weft to see if it would not reduce the tendency to fray out at the sides.” The amount the warp and weft are out of the right angle is stated to be about 20°. ”

“ I shall get even with him some of these fine days when he least expects it, for he is always cutting me with that fine-lashed whip that hangs in the engine-house. I don’t care how much he tries to club me, for I can [64] fight, butt, and run, besides when he has a club in his hand he is obliged to come close in order to hit me, so that gives me a chance to butt him, but a long-lashed whip is a very different matter. It winds itself about one before he knows what is coming. ”

“ If he is very timid about your approaching closely to him, you can get up to him quicker by making the whip a part of your arm, and reaching out very gently with the butt end of it; rubbing him lightly on the neck, all the time getting a little closer, shortening the whip by taking it up in your hand, until you finally get close enough to put your hands on him. If he is inclined to hold his head from you, put the end of the halter-strap around his neck, drop your whip, and draw very gently; he will let his neck give, and you can pull his head to you. ”

“ The driver is always armed with a whip (Fig. 60) . There appear to be as many kinds of whips as there are individuals using them. Each whip characterizes, in a manner, the person who makes it. A great amount of ingenuity is expended in preparing the lash, which is simply indescribable. ”

“ It is possible to arrange the warp threads diagonally from beam to beam, but with continuous weft (that is in weaving so as to get selvedges) the weft has the tendency to slip up on one side and down on the other, hence the weaving is made laborious. With a separate weft for each pick, i.e., for every once the shed is opened, there is naturally not this tendency, but this alleged diagonally woven cloth frays just as easily as any other piece of cloth without selvedge, so in either case there is not only no advantage but distinct disadvantage taking the diagonal “beaming” into consideration. ”

“ The whip is used with all their might. It punishes so severely that after a time it suffices to shake it in order to make the animal dash forward at full speed—the noise made by the cylinder coming in contact either with the rings or with the bar that connects them, recalling to his memory the nearly similar sound of the tekerbeâa. ”

“ STOPPING AT TOUCH OF WHIP ON BACK.
is as likely to excite your companion's horse as your own, and is annoying to most people.
Accustom your horse to stop short, whether at the pull on the reins, the touch of the whip, or the word " Whoa."
After riding have the saddle removed, and should a puffy spot appear on the back where it has pressed, take the hint at once and have the padding eased over the place, or a tedious and vexatious "saddle-gall" may result. There is no better treatment for such a spot than bathing with very hot water. ”

“ Roughly, the amount of contraction to allow in the warp can be obtained by taking into account the counts of weft and the number of intersections which the warp makes with the weft. The thicker the counts of weft the more the warp will be bent out of a straight line, also with an increase in the number of picks the amount of take-up or contraction will increase. ”

“ As compared with true tapestries, the loom-made articles have more limited colour schemes, and their figured effects may be obtained from warp as well as weft, whether interlaced to form a plain face, or left floating more or less loosely. Every weft thread, in passing from selvage to selvage, is taken to the surface where required, the other portions being bound at the back. Some specimens are reversible, others are one-sided, but, however numerous the warps and wefts, only one texture is produced. ”

“ Beating Up the Woof.—The weaver presses the right-hand pedal, and every alternate thread separates from the other, leaving a space between the two sets of warp threads for the shuttle to be thrown from right to left, carrying the woof threads through. The operator then draws this thread up at the side to make a good selvedge and brings home the beater, thus pressing the woof into the warp. A sheer fabric requires a light stroke of the beater, while firm cloth requires more force. ”

“ As the woof is subjected to more wear and tear than the warp, it should be stouter. For this reason each of the two ends of which it is composed is twisted separately before the two are twisted together, while for the warp the latter of these processes is sufficient. The result of this difference is that, when looked at beneath the microscope, the thread of the woof has an uneven look, as though it were a small cable, while that of the warp looks flat and smooth, and is therefore adapted to reflect the [86] light, receiving the shiny look which makes a silk-stuff so attractive. ”