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THE

DRAPER'S DICTIONARY.

a flftanual of Geytile fabrics :

THEIR HISTORY AND APPLICATIONS.

By S. WILLIAM BECK.

"No true classification of the kinds of out textile manufactures has ever been attempted, though it would, if correctly done, be a most valuable record; and therefore all attempts to give detailed descriptions of the products of our looms are attended -with difficulty and a want of satisfaction to both writers and readers. It is remarkable that a country like ours, more dependent than any other on its manu- factures, has neYer attempted a systematic history of them." — T. C. Archeb : Wool and its Applications.

pLoitfum :

THE WAREHOUSEMEN & DRAPERS' JOURNAL OFFICE,

148 asd 149, ALDER3GATE STREET, E.C.

A1

PEEFACE.

The approval accorded to this work during its passage through the pages of the Warehousemen and Drapers' Trade Journal has been such as to justify its re-issue as a separate volume. The objects held in view during its preparation were briefly these : to reduce the chaos of particulars relating to the history of textile fabrics to an exact study ; to give facts in a handy and convenient form for reference, and only on the faith of recognised authorities ; and to clothe the dry bones of figures and statements with the literature of the subject. How far these aims have been reached the reader must judge.

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THE DBAPEB.'S DICTIONARY.

ABACA. Manilla hemp. A very handsome woody fibre produced in abundaace in the Indian Archipelago, and extensively cultivated in the Philippine Islands.* It is produced from the leaf -stalks of a plan- tain or banana (Musa textilis), and is much used in India in the manu- facture of the finest linens, muslins, and other delicate fabrics. For these the inner fibres of the leaf-stalks are used, the outer fibres being only fit for matting, cordage, and canvas. The varieties are very diverse ; the finest of them command by far the highest quotation in the hemp market. Manilla hats are produced from this material. " M. Duchesne states that the well-known fibrous manufactures of Manilla have led to the manufacture of the fibres themselves at Paris into many articles of furniture and dress. Their brilliancy and strength give remarkable fitness for bonnets, tapestry, carpets, network, hammocks, &c." (Ure, Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures, &c, 1860.)

ABB. The eighth quality in sorting wool, between seconds and livery. The yarn of a weaver's warp.

AGGBAPES. An old name for hooks and eyes.

AIGULET. This word may be found under a wide variety of orthography. Its most common form in literature is Aglet, but we find also, among many other renderings, Aglet (Palsgrave), Aglot, Aiglet (Harl. MSS.), and Aguillette (Cotgrave). Through this latter form we derive it from the French, a tag to a point, and, according to Johnson, that from aiger, sharp ; but its proper root is from the Latin acicula, a diminutive of acus, a point.

A tag of a point curved into some representation of an animal, generally of a man (Johnsox). Properly the point fastened on the end of a lace for drawing it through the eyelet-holes, then, like E. point, applied to the lace itself (Wedgwood).

In this first sense the word is illustrated by Shakespeare in the Taming of the Shrew, where Grumio says of Petruchio, "He tells you

* Of the wild banana, one kind {Musa textilis) grows in vast abundance in some of the most northerly of the Spice Islands. In the great island of Min- danao, in the Philippines, it nils extensive forests. From the fibrous bark, or epidermis, is manufactured a kind of cloth, in frequent use among the natives. It also affords the material of the most valuable cordage which the indigenous products of the Archipelago yield. Chawfurd : Mist, of Archipelago.

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flatly what his mind is : why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet, or an aglet-baby." "Aglottes of silver fine" are men- tioned in the 25th Coventry Mystery, one of a series of miracle plays preserved in a MS. ascribed to the 15th century. Aigulets have been frequently and often lavishly used as ornaments, particularly from the time of Henry VIII. to that of Charles II., and were not only attached to the ends of points or laces used to fasten various gar- ments, but dangled at the borders of slashes and from caps. In Walker's History of the Irish Bards is printed a MS. from the State Paper Office, in which Sir Anthony St. Leger, Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1 541 , is shown as dressed in * ' a cote of crymosin velvet with agglettes of golde 20 or 30 payer ; over that a greate doble cloke of right crymosin sattin, garded (edged) with black velvet, a bonette with a fether set full of aggylettes of golde." Spenser, in the Faerie Queene (1590), describes a stripling —

"A goodly youth, wearing an hood with aglets spread; "

and "fayre Belphoebe,"

" yclad for heat of scorching aire, All in a silken Camus (chemise) lilly whight, Purfled upon with many a folded plight, Which all above besprinckled was throughout With golden aygulets, that glistred bright Like twinckling starres."

Sir John Hay ward, the historian, mentions a "gown addressed with aglets esteemed worth £25." They were not, however, always made of precious metals, but of baser materials, and were then, as is shown in early Wardrobe Accounts, used as ornaments to harness, being fixed on with small chains. The name is still used in haberdashery, and denotes round white stay-laces.

" He gyueth alwaye hys old point at one end or other some new aglet. But when at his cost is don thereon, it is not all worth an aglet of a good blewe poynte." Sir T. Moke : WorTces, 1557.

" And yonder pale-faced Hecate then, the moon Doth give consent to that is done in darkness, And all those stars that gaze upon her face Are aglets on her sleeve, pins on her train."

Thomas Kyd : The Spanish Tragedy, 1603.

ALAMODE. A silk material a la mode in the 17 th century, originally manufactured in France, but introduced as an industry into this country into 1685, when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes caused

multitude of French emigrants — variously estimated as numbering from 300,000 to a million persons — to seek refuge here, to the consider- able advantage of our manufactures. Fairholt says that it was a plain kind of silk, something like lustring, but thick and loosely woven. On the other hand, Chambers, in his Cyclopcedia, 1741, describes it as being thin, light, glossy black silk, not quilled or crossed, chiefly used for women's hoods and men's mourning scarfs. At this date it had quite loBt favour in the eyes of the public after having been previously exten- sively used. An Act passed in the 4th year of William and Mary, 1692,

ALA ( 3 ) ALP

For the better Encouragement of the Silk Trade in England, prohibited the importation of lustrings and alamodes, alleging that the manufac- ture here had then reached greater excellence than was attained by foreigners, and had become of considerable importance. JiSee Lustring. ALAPEEN. A mixed stuff either of wool and silk or mohair and cotton ; mentioned in Observations on the Wool and the Woollen Manu- facture by a Manufacturer of Northamptonshire, 1739.

ALEXANDER. A stuff called Alexander, Bourde de Alisaundre, Burdalisaunder, or Bordalisaunder, with other variations, is frequently- mentioned in old inventories of church furniture, and took its name from Alexandria in Egypt, though not exclusively manufactured there. The Surtees Society's volume for 1858 includes inventories of chantries within the Cathedral Church of York, in which this material is fre- quently mentioned.

" An other (vestment) of grene Alexandre, j hyngying afore the alter of Alexander, j corporalia of gren Alexander with flours ; "

and other like entries, all of the 16th century. It was known, how- ever, long before that period, for in 1327 Exeter had a chasuble of Bourde de Elisandre of divers colours, and in 1392 Richard Beardsall left as a legacy a piece of burd Alysaunder. The Very Rev. Dr. Rock, in his excellent little work, Textile Fabrics, shows that this was a striped silk. He finds in its full title an indication that this was always its distinguishing characteristic. " 'Bord' in Arabic means a striped cloth ; and we know, both from travellers and the importation of the textile itself, that many tribes in North and Eastern Africa weave stuffs for personal wear of a pattern consisting of white and black longitudinal stripes. St. Augustine, living in North Africa, near the modern Algiers, speaks of a stuff for clothing called ' burda ' in the end of the 4th and 5th century. It is not impossible that the curtains for the tabernacle, as well as the girdles for Aaron and his sons of fine linen and violet and purple and scarlet twice dyed, were wrought with this very pattern, so that in the ' burd Alysaunder ' we behold the oldest known design for any textile."

ALNAGE, Aulnage, ell measure ; from the French aune or dine, an ell. All the attempts which our forefathers made for regulating of manu- factures, when left to the execution of any particular officer, in a short time became simply a tax upon commodities, without respect to the goodness thereof, as was most notorious in the case of aulnage, which was intended for a proof of the goodness of the commodity ; and to that purpose a seal was invented, as a signal that the commodity was made according to the statute, which seals, it is said, may now be bought by thousands and put on what the buyers please. (Chambers' Cyclo- paedia, 1741.) See Assize.

ALPACA (Auchenia Paco) is the woolly hair of an animal of the camel tribe. There are four varieties of Llamas, or Auchenias, and con- siderable doubt exists as to their proper classification. There are the Llama proper [Auchenia Llama) ; the Alpaca, which is commonly regarded as a domesticated species of the former ; the Vicugnia (A. Vicugnia), and Guanaco (A. Guanaco), which is usually looked upon as the parent stock from which the remainder proceeded. All these have many points

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ALP ( 4 ) ALP

in common with the camel, but are adapted to traverse the mountainous districts of Chili and Peru, which they inhabit. In general appearance and size they resemble a full-grown deer, but are thoroughly domesti- cated, with the exception of the guanacos, which are found-wild farther south, as far down as the Straits of Magellan. All are gregarious in habit, feeding in flocks frequently from 100 to 200 in number. The wool of the alpaca proper is alone used to any extent in our manufac- tures, although several attempts have been made to utilize that of the vicugnia and guanaco, which are very fine in fibre. Alpaca is imported in ballots, bales of about 70 lbs. weight, and is sorted on arrival into eight qualities, each suitable to a particular class of goods, but all, after being cleansed and combed, are almost exclusively worked up in Brad- ford and its vicinity. Mr. James, in his History of the Worsted Manufacture, gives so full and particular a narration of the rise of our alpaca industry that nothing is left to add. " So early as the year 1807 the British troops returning from the attack on Buenos Ayres brought with them a few bags of this wool, which were submitted for inspection in London ; but," observes Walton, in his work on Alpaca,* " owing to the difficulty of spinning it, or the prejudice of our manufacturers, it did not then come into notice," and for more than twenty years the attempt does not seem to have been renewed, thus depriving for that period the country of the advantage derived from this notable manu- facture. According to the best authorities, the first person in England who introduced a marketable fabric made from this material was Mr. Benjamin Outram, a scientific manufacturer, of Greetland, near Halifax, who, about the year 1830, surmounted, with much difficulty, the obstacles encountered in spinning the wool, and eventually pro- duced an article which sold at high prices for ladies' carriage shawls and cloakings ; but their value arose more from being rare and curious articles than from intrinsic worth. These were, it is well established, quite destitute of the peculiar gloss and beauty which distinguish the alpaca lustres and fabrics of later times, and after a short period the manufacture was abandoned.

About the same time as Mr. Outram was weaving goods from alpaca the wool attracted the notice of the Bradford spinners. Messrs. Wood and Walker spun it to some extent for camlet warps used in the Norwich trade. Owing to the cheapness of alpaca wool during the first years of its consumption in England, it was occasionally employed instead of English hog wool for preparing lasting and camlet warps, being spun to about No. 48. The earliest manufacture of the alpaca wool into goods at Bradford appears to have begun under these circumstances. In the commencement of 1832 some gentlemen connected with the trade to the west coast of South America were on a visit at the house of J. Garnett, Esq., of Clitheroe, and on their alluding to the difficulty of meeting suitable returns for goods forwarded to that part of the world, he suggested to them the transmission of alpaca wool, and offered if they would send him a few pounds' weight to ascertain its value for manufacturing purposes. In a few months he received some samples of alpaca wool, which, on the 2nd of October, 1832, he for- warded to Messrs. Horsfall, of Bradford, with a request that they

* Walton, On the Alpaca ; its Naturalization in the British Isles con- sidered as a National Benefit.

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would test its value. Accordingly they fabricated from this wool a piece resembling heavy camlet, which they showed to the Leeds merchants ; but the piece not developing any peculiar qualities of alpaca did not please, so that Messrs. Horsfall were not encouraged to proceed further with experiments. However, in the same year, Messrs. Hoyam, Hall, and Co., spirited merchants, of Liverpool, perceiving the value of the alpaca wool, directed their agents in Peru to purchase and ship over all the parcels of alpaca wool they could meet with, some of which being sent to the Bradford district was spun and manufactured by several parties there. The pieces chiefly fabricated from alpaca in the neighbourhood of Bradford were figures made with worsted warp and alpaca weft, the figure being raised and lustrous like union damasks. These goods were in vogue only for a limited time, for neither the figured nor the plain ones seem to have suited the public taste. Until the introduction of cotton warps into the worsted trade it may be safely averred that the alpaca manufacture had not been developed, and would never have made much progress without being combined with cotton or silk warp, To Titus Salt, Esq., of Bradford, must undoubtedly be awarded the high praise of finally overcoming the difficulties of preparing and spinning the alpaca wool so as to produce an even and true thread, and by combining it with cotton warps, which had then (1836) been imported into the trade of Bradford, improved the manufacture so as to make it one of the staple industries of the kingdom. He has by an admirable adaptation of machinery been enabled to work up the material with the base of ordinary wool, and thus present beautiful alpaca stuffs at a reasonable rate. Every previous attempt had been made, as far as can be ascertained, with worsted warps, with which the alpaca did not easily assort.

Attempts have been made to naturalize the alpaca in this country, on the Continent, and in Australia, but with small success. It was urged that as the animal inhabited a region where coarse food only was ob- tainable, and showed in itself a remarkable abstemiousness and hardi- hood, that it would thrive over here in waste lands and moors, and render barren regions such as the Highlands profitable. Early failures were attributed to alpacas having been confined in parks and allowed luxuriant herbage ; but all endeavours have ended alike in failure, though the question at one time excited great interest. In 1844 some articles from the wool of an alpaca wich had been kept at Windsor were made up at Bradford and presented to Her Majesty.

AMENS. A stout figured stuff known in the early part of the pre- sent century.

ANGORA, Angola. The hair or wool of the Angora goat (Capra Angorensis), an animal rather smaller than the common goat, a native of Asia Minor, where it is still principally reared in the neighbourhood of Angora, a city in the province of Natolia. This textile was first imported into this country under the denomination of Mohair, by which term it is still known. (See Mohair.) Angora in the fleece is of remarkable fine- ness and of a very pure white ; it hangs on the animal in long spiral curls, which, when ready for shearing, nearly touch the ground. From 5 lbs. to 7 lbs. of wool is yielded by each fleece. It is manufactured by the inhabitants of Asia Minor into shawls and other fabrics, which are greatly

ANT ( 6 ) APP

esteemed in Turkey, the shawls particularly equalling those of Cashmere. Some of the hair is also made into yarn. Formerly it was only allowed to leave the country after being spun, and its export was at one time entirely prohibited. Financial embarrassment has made Turkish con- servatism less exacting, and the rams are now sold for purposes of breed- ing on the common goat, which has been very successful, particularly in Texas and California. Angora is made up here into camlets, imitations of velvet, gimps, and other trimmings. The name is also applied in the trade to mending worsted.

In a work published in 1852 on Colonial Sheep and Wools (Sol they), an account is given of the introduction of this textile into England, which had taken place but a short time prior to the issue of the work, and within the author's knowledge. The incidence of this trade, as related by the author, still applies to existing business : —

"Within the last two or three years a new texture made of goats' wool has, however, been introduced both into France and this country which calls for particular attention. The texture consists of stripes and checks, expressly manufactured for ladies' dresses, and having a soft feel and silky appearance. The wool of which this article is made is chiefly the wool of the Angora goat. This wool reaches us through the Mediterranean, and is chiefly shipped at Smyrna and Constantinople. In colour it is the whitest known in the trade, and now more generally used in the manufacture of fine goods than any other. There are, however, other parts of Asiatic Turkey from which supplies are received, but in quality not so good as that produced in Angora. After the manufacture of shawls with goats' wool declined in France this raw material remained neglected a long while. About two or three years ago, however, the French made another attempt and brought out a texture for ladies' dresses in checks and stripes, which they call irpoil de chevre.' The warp is a fine spun silk coloured, and the weft Angora or Syrian white wool, which was thus thrown on the surface. This article has a soft feel and looks pretty, but in wearing is apt to cut. The price of a dress of French manufacture has been from £2 10s. to £3 ; but by adopting a cotton warp the same article is now made in England and sold for 15s., and it is found that the cotton warp as a mixture suits the goats' hair best."

ANTERXE. A stuff of wool and silk mixed, or of mohair and cotton. {Observations on Wool and the Woollen Manufacture, 1739.)

APPAREL. The putting like to like ; a suit ; clothing ; dress (Fr. appareU — pareil, like; L. par, equal, like). (Donald: Chambers's Etymological English Dictionary .)

APPRENTICE, literally he who learns (Fr. apprenti — apprendre, to learn ; L. apprehendo, to lay hold of). This custom is of very remote antiquity, and the exact date of its institution cannot be fixed. An Act of 1388 first mentions apprentices, but only incidentally. An Act of Henry VI. declares the binding of City apprentices to have been a City custom time out of mind. As far as can be decided, we may believe that the practice is coincident with the formation of the City Companies — first known as gilds, and their members as gild merchants — established in the 12th century to resist the inroads of feudalism. As these com-

APR ( 7 ) APR

panies usurped, so far as they were able, local government and became exclusive, gilds of handicraftsmen — craft gilds — were formed, which finally, after a severe struggle, overpowered the earlier gilds. To these craft gilds admittance could only be gained by birth, marriage, or appren- ticeship. Incorporation of the companies commenced in the time of Edward III., when that monarch himself became a member of the Merchant Taylors or Linen Armourers. Elizabeth endeavoured to make apprenticeship universal, proposing even to make poulterers serve the term of seven years, which, with some exceptions, has been the general length of service. The Statute of Apprentices, passed in the 5th year of her reign, enacted that no one could lawfully exercise, either as master or journeyman, any art, mystery, or manual occupation, except he had been brought up therein seven years as an apprentice. This law remained in force until 1814, when it was repealed by 54 Geo. III., except in so far as it reserved the customs and bye-laws of the City of London and other cities, and of corporations and companies lawfully instituted.

APRON. Of unsettled etymology. Minshieu proposes Afore one. Skinner, Anglo-Saxon Aforan (Afore). Boucher thinks it "may per- haps be derived from Nappe, whence our word Napery." Mr. Bockett says, "in the North the word is Nappern, conformable to the old orthography," and he derives it from the Fr. naperon, a large cloth. So also Mr. Todd. Lacombe has Appronaire and Apronier (Richardson). A cloth worn in front for the protection of the clothes, by corruption from napron. Still called nappern in the North of England (Halliwell). From old Fr. naperon, properly the intensitive of nape, a cloth, as napkin is the diminutive (Wedgwood).

Planche says the apron first appears in an illumination of the time of Edward III., but Fairholt describes an illustration in Strutt's Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England, taken from a MS. in the Sloane Collection, executed in the 13th century, which shows a blacksmith at work in an apron similar in shape to that still worn by men of that class. Chaucer has " barme or lap cloth," from A.-S. barm, the lap or bosom. Aprons of leather are still called barm- &kins in Northumberland, and " dirty as a barm-skin " is current as a proverb in Lincolnshire. Leather aprons seem to have been common to apprentices in the 16th century. In the Second Part of King Henry I V., when Poins has suggested to Prince Henry that they might disguise themselves by putting on "two leather jerkins and aprons," the Prince replies : —

"From a god to a bull? a heavy declension! it was Jove's case. From a piince to a prentice ? a low transformation ! that shall be mine."

In Whitaker's Craven, under date 1307, is " Pro linen tela ad naperon ns." They have constantly varied in size and length, especially when used by the upper classes rather for show than utility, and have frequently been of very rich materials. Stephen Gosson in his Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Gentlewomen, 1596, inveighs against " These aprons white of finest thrid, So closely tide, so dearly bought, So finely fringed, so nicely spred,

So quaintlie cut, so richlie wrought ; Were they in work to save their cotes, They need not cost so many grotes."

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Mary Queen of Scots is said to have left over 100 aprons of varied shape and colour. In the early part of the 18th century they were very much worn ; this time of small dimensions, but making up in costliness what they lacked in size. In the Ballad of Hardylznute, published in 1719, is a notice of

" An apron set with many a dice Of needlework so rare, Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess, Save that of Fairly fair."

They were again very fashionable during the early part of the 18th century. The famous Beau Nash, the autocrat of Bath when it was a fashionable resort as a watering-place, conceived a great aversion to white aprons ; and, says Goldsmith in his Life of Nash, " I have known

him on a ball night strip even the Duchess of Q , and throw her

apron at one of the hinder benches among the ladies' women, observing that none but abigails appeared in -white aprons."

" And the eyes of the both were opened and they sowed figge leves together and made themselves aprons." Bible, 1539.*

" Instead whereof she make him to be dight In woman's weedes, that is to manhood shame, And put before his lap a napron white Instead of Curiets and Bases fit for fight."

Spenser : Faerie Queene, 1590.

" Hold up, you sluts, your aprons mountant."

Shakespeare : Timon.

" The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons."

Id. : Henry VI. " You have made good worke, You and your apron-men."

Id. : Coriolanus. " Now, fie ! how you vex me ! I cannot abide these apron husbands."

Middleton : Roaring Girl, 1611. " When he hath found out a fig-leaved apron that he could put on for a cover for his eyes, that he may not see his own deformity, then he fortifies his error with irresolutions and inconsideration, and he believes it because he will." Bishop Taylor.

" Fortune in man has some small difference made : One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade ; The cobbler apron'd, and tbe parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd."

Pope : Essay on Man.

AEMOZEEN. A stout silk, almost invariably black. "It is used for hatbands and scarfs at funerals by those not family mourners. Sometimes sold for making clergymen's gowns." (Peekins on Haber- dashery. )

An advertisement in the British Chronicle of February, 1763, announces

" A Real Sale of Silks.

" At the Coventry Cross, Cbandos Street, Coven t Garden. Consisting of a very great assortment of Rich Brocades, Tissues, flowered and plain Sattins,

* The rendering of this passage " made themselves breeches" is the distin- guishing value of the well-known " Breeches" Bible.

ARR ' ( 9 ) ASB

Tabbies, Ducaps, black Armozeens, Rasdumores, Mantuas, &c. Being pur- chased of the Executors of an eminent weaver and factor, deceased, and of another left off trade."

ARRAS (It. Arazzi) takes its title from a town of that name in the province of Artois in the north of France, where it was first manufactured.

" The Avals were round about appareiled With costly cloths of Arras and of Toure ; In which with cunning hand was pourtrahed The love of Venus and her Paramoure, The fayre Adonis, turned to a flowre; A worke of rare device and wondrous wit."

Spenser : Faerie Queene, 1590.

" Round about the walls yclothed were With goodly arras of great majesty, Woven with gold and silk, so close and near, That the rich metal lurked privily, As faining to be hid from envious eye." Id. : lb.

See Tapestry.

ASBESTUS. (Fr. Asbeste ; Ger. asbest.) Sometimes called Mountain Flax, Earth Flax, or Salamander's Wool, a mineral substance of fibrous texture, of which several varieties differing in colour and substance are found, all alike having the property of resisting the action of fire. The ordinary asbestus is a compact mass of filaments, and is found in nearly every country in Europe, including our own (in Cornwall, Anglesey, and Aberdeenshire), as well as in Canada, Greenland, India, and Siberia. Varieties in form occur : sometimes it is found in thin cakes of closely-interlaced fibres (known as Mountain Leather), in small, brittle, curved sticks (Mountain Wood), and in masses woven with cellular openings (Mountain Cork). A more delicate and pliable fibre was called amianthus (Gr. amiantos, undefiled), a name given to it by the Greeks because of its coming out cleansed and pure after being passed through fire. This is found most abundantly in Corsica and {Savoy. By the ancients asbestus cloth was used for enshrouding dead bodies during cremation, so that the ashes of the corpse might be pre- served distinct from the wood composing the funeral pile. M'Culloch says this statement is corroborated by the discovery at Rome, in 1702, of a skull, some calcined bones, and a quantity of bones, all contained in a cloth of amianthus, nine Roman palms in length by seven in width. Its employment in this way was, however, confined to the very richest families, incombustible cloth being very scarce, and fetching an enormously high price (Dictionary of Commerce) . Various applications have been made of asbestus. Paper has been made from it in sufficient quantity to admit of the issue of a book which could defy fire, and its use in this manner for important documents is advocated. The Brahmins of India are said to have used it for the wicks of their perpetual lamps, and it is still employed for a similar purpose in Greenland. Thread, armour, ropes, nets, and when mixed with clay, pottery have all been made from it ; but it has principally been employed in making cloth, and is still manufactured into a material for packing purposes. The process of manufacture is to soak the lumps of fibre for a long time in water, and by repeated washings to separate the filaments from the

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earth which binds them together. The threads are then moistened with oil, and, mixed with a small quantity of cotton, are then spun and woven in the ordinary manner, after which the cloth is burnt to destroy the cotton and oil.

"By art were weaved napkins, shirts and coats incomsumptible by fire.''' Browne : Vulgar Errors.

" The same matter was woven into a napkin at Louvain, which was cleansed by being burnt in the fire."

ASSETS. Enough to satisfy (old E. asseth, Fr. assez, L. ad, to, and satis, sufficient).

ASSIZE. Literally, assessment. The regulation by law of certain com- modities, more particularly of bread, ale, and cloth. The earliest known notice of any assize is in 1203. The first statute respecting its applica- tion to cloth was passed in 1328, and was called " The Measure and Assize of Cloths of Ray and of Colour," " whereby is directed the length and breadth of those two sorts of cloths, and that the King's Aulneger shall measure them ; and they shall be forfeited to the King if they be short of the following lengths and breadths, viz. : First, the cloths of ray (not coloured) were to be twenty-eight yards in length and six quarters broad. Secondly, the coloured cloths were to be twenty-six long and six quarters and a half wide." Ray means striped, but it is rather puzzling to find mention of goods striped, not coloured. There must have been a recognized width for cloth long before this, for in 1218 the citizens of London paid Henry III. the sum of forty marks, that they might not be questioned for selling a certain sort of cloth that was not full two yards within the list. This Assize was re-enforced by a statute of 27 Edward III., but when it was found that the seizure threatened of defective cloths by a preliminary Act of 1352 had an injurious effect upon trade, the restriction was in the following year so far relaxed that cloths not of assize standard were allowed to be paid for in proportion according to actual measurement.

ATLAS. The German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, and Danish for satin is atlas, and Swedish atlash ; but a silk stuff wrought with threads of gold and silver, and known by this name, was at one time imported from India.

BAIZE. (Ger. bay, Du. baay, Sw. boj, Fr. bayetta, It. bajetta, Sp. bay eta, Port, bueta baetilha). A coarse woollen stuff now principally manufactured for linings, and generally made in scarlet and green. It was formerly, in a much thinner and finer material, much used for clothing. See Bay.

BALE. (Fr. balle, It. balla ; literally a ball of goods.) To sell under the bale or under the cords was once used in France to denote a bargain concluded in bulk, without any sample or pattern being shown.

BANDANNAS. Handkerchiefs of silk or cotton in which spots or figures are left in white or some bright colour upon a ground of red or blue. They were originally imported from India, where it has been customary to produce these patterns by tying up the parts of the material which were to remain light, and subject the whole to the necessary dye. During the time of heavy import duties on silk large

BAN ( 11 ) BAN

quantities were smuggled into this country. Mr . Huskisson, in a speech upon the tariff, said, ' ' I believe it is universally known that a large quantity of Bandanna handkerchiefs are sold every year for exportation by the East India Company. But does any gentleman suppose that these Bandannas are sent to the Continent for the purpose of remaining there? No such thing. They are sold at the Company's sales, to the number of about 800,000 or 1,000,000 a year, at about 4s. each ; they are immediately shipped off for Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Ostend, or Guernsey, and from thence they nearly all illicitly find their way back to this country. Mark then the effect of this beautiful system. These Bandannas, which had previously been sold for exportation at 4s., are finally distributed in retail to the people of England at about 8s. each ; and the result of this prohibition is to levy upon the consumer a tax, and to give those who live by evading your law a bounty of 4s. upon each handkerchief sold in this country ."

The extraordinary popularity of these goods induced English manu- facturers to try to imitate them. The first method was to print by the ordinary process of blocks, but this failed to produce the clear, clean, sharply-defined lines of the foreign makes. After a time the Indian method was discovered and practised. Many claims have been put forward for the honour of this introduction. The weight of evidence is in favour of Mr. Henry Monteith, of Glasgow, as the first Bandanna prints made in cloths for garments are known to have been produced at Glasgow, and this gentleman is generally admitted to have been the first to use this method in that city.

BANK. Generally derived from the Italian banco, a bench (Fr. Sp . banc, A.-S. borne), from the practice of the first money-changers — Jews, who were also money-lenders — to sit on benches in public markets waiting for custom, or because of a table before them on which they counted their money. The tables of the money-changers in the Temple being upset will afford ready testimony to this old custom. The earliest established bank on record is that of Venice, founded in 1171 ; but this was mainly an institution for the maintenance of the credit of the Re- public, and was founded to afford assistance to the Crusades. Bank- ing proper, as we understand it, was not started until the 17th century, when the Banks of Amsterdam (1609), Hamburg (1619), and England (1694), came into existence. An old tract, published in 1676, The Mystery of the New-fashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers Discovered, is quoted by Anderson (History of Commerce), and shows how the practice of banking originated here, recounting former systems of deposit which had been forsaken on account of their insecurity, as we may well believe when we are told that merchants, after Charles I. had forcibly borrowed £200,000 from the amount held in trust for them by the Mint autho- rities, commonly entrusted their cash to the keeping of their clerks and apprentices. When the civil war broke out these clerks and apprentices took to running off to the ranks, and naturally did not leave behind the money they held. Merchants then, about 1645, turned to the gold- smiths, who until then had only followed the business proper to their trade; but now, says the author, "this new banking business soon grew very considerable. It happened in those times of civil commo- tion that the Parliament, out of the plate and from the old coin brought into the Mint, coined seven millions into half-crowns ; and there being

BAN ( 12 ) BAN

no mills then in use at the Mint this new money was of very unequal weight, sometimes twopence and threepence difference in an ounce ; and most of it was, it seems, heavier than it ought to have been in proportion to the value in foreign parts. Of this the goldsmiths made naturally the advantage usual in such cases by picking out or culling the heaviest and melting them down and exporting them. It happened, also, that our gold coins were too weighty, and of these also they took the like advantage. Moreover, such merchants' servants as still kept their masters' running cash had fallen into a way of clandestinely lend- ing the same to the goldsmith at fourpence per cent, per diem, who, by these and such like means, were enabled to lend out great quantities of cash to necessitous merchants and others, weekly and monthly, at high interest ; and also began to discount the merchants' bills at the like or a higher rate of interest. Much about the same time they began to receive the rents of gentlemen's estates remitted to town, and to allow them and others who put cash into their hands some interest for it if it remained but for a single month in their hands or even a lesser time. This was a great allurement for people to put their money into their hands, which would bear interest till the day they wanted it. And they could also draw it out by one hundred pounds or fifty pounds, &c, at a time as they wanted, with infinitely less trouble than if they had lent it out on either real or personal security. The consequence was that it quickly brought a great quantity of cash into their hands, so that the chief or the greatest of them were now enabled to supply Cromwell with money in advance on his revenues, as his occasions required, upon great advantages to themselves." It will be readily recognized that banking in these days of its infancy was very similar to its present growth.

From Bank we derive

BANKRUPT, i.e., one whose bank, bench, or place of business is broken up. Its etymology, however, has been variously construed, The generally-accepted derivation is through Bank and L. ruptus, broken. But it has also been given from Bank and rotto, rotten, and from Bank and route, vestigium, trace, implying that all trace of the bankrupt's place of business had disappeared, as the bankrupt in olden times did in person if he were wise. The tender mercies of creditors are some- times cruel, and in barbarous times defaulters were barbarously treated. An old Eoman law allowed them to be cut in pieces and divided pro rata between creditors, but no record of this punishment having been carried into effect is known. Selling the debtor, and sometimes his wife and family, to obtain a dividend is an expedient of more modern times, known in Kussia and some parts of Asia. Bankrupts in this country formerly liquidated their debts by an imprisonment of idle- ness. This foolish law was only repealed in 1S69. The "Act for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt " then passed remained, and still remains, practically inoperative.

The first law dealing with bankrupts in England was passed in 1543, and enacted that "The Lord Chancellor, Treasurer, &c., shall take order with bankrupts' bodies, lands, and goods, for the payment of their debts." In the thirteenth year of Elizabeth's reign another law ex- plained who were to be deemed bankrupts, and complained of the great increase in their number at that time ; but it was considered quite an

BAN ( 13 ) BAXJ

alarming circumstance when the number of bankruptcies reached 200 in 1713, the average for many years prior to that date having been forty.

BANKERS OF VERDURE. An item relating to stuffs found in ancient tariffs. Jamieson supposes Bankers to be a corruption of banck- were, Teutonic for tapestry, and quotes Cotgrave, "Fr., banquier, a bench cloth, or a carpet for a forme or bench." Those in question would probably be of a green colour. They were undoubtedly some description of tapestry for hanging in halls, for in 1382 Richard II. allowed, among many other articles of household furniture, "two blue bancals of tapestry work," and "two great bancals for a hall," to be shipped at Bristol, free of all customs dues, for the use of the Pope.

BARRAS. A coarse kind of cloth ; sack-cloth (Wright). A coarse linen fabric originally imported from Holland. Dutch Barras is men- tioned in a charter of 1640 granted by Charles II. to the City to secure the rates of Scavage, Paccage, and Balliage, which ' ' our well-beloved the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London" had previously exercised and enjoyed.

BARREGE. An open fabric resembling gauze, but more open in texture and stouter in thread. It was made of various materials, but is best known as made of silk warp and worsted weft. When it became fashionable it was imitated in all-wool, and subsequently cotton warps were used. The stuff " takes its name from the district in which it was first manufactured, the especial locality being a little village named Aroson3, in the beautiful valley of Barreges. It was first employed as an ornament for the head, especially for sacred ceremonies, as baptism and marriage. Paris subsequently became celebrated for its barreges " (Ure).

BASTARD. A cloth presumably imitating a more expensive mate- rial made in this country in the time of Richard III. Thus a bastard sword had "the edge and point rebated," i.e., turned back. "Basterfc fringes " are also mentioned : fringes of copper or gilt parchment cut in stripeSi copying gold fringe. To a lace of this description Butler alludes in Hudibras —

" Not with a counterfeited pass Of golden bough, but true gold lace."

BAUDEKIN", Baldakin, Baudkyn. A very rich silk woven with gold (Du Cange). A rich cloth, now called brocade. The name is said to have been;derived from Baldacus, Babylon, whence it was origi- nally brought (Blount).

This was at one time a widely-known fabric, and mention of it is frequently made by mediseval writers. That it was at first woven with a warp of gold thread is indisputable ; but the name came afterwards to be applied to rich shot silks, and finally even to plain silken webs. Baldak, from which the name comes, was Bagdad, in Mesopotamia (not Babylon, as given by Blount), a city once pre-eminent for its manufacr tures and dyes. It was introduced here in the 13th century ; but, in the opinion of Strutt, "was probably known upon the Continent before it was introduced into this kingdom, for Henry III. appears to have been the first English monarch that used the cloth of baudekin for his ves- ture. " The occasion on which it first appears in history was when that

BAY ( 14 ) BAY

monarch knighted William of Valence, in 1247. In 1259 "the master of Sherborn Hospital in the north bequeathed to that house a cope made of the like stuff: l de panno ad aurum scilicet baudekin.' " Dr. Rock, who quotes this entry, calls attention to the fact that textiles of golden threads were usually termed cklatoun throughout Western Europe, and that by this name and baudekin such fabrics were indis- criminately known until the term cklatoun dropped out of use. Remem- bering this, the reader will more readily understand several otherwise puzzling passages in our old writers, as well as in the inventories of royal furniture and church vestments {Textile Fabrics). From this word is said to come baldaccJiino, a canopy used in Italian churches, origi- nally made of baudekin, or stuff of Baldak. In the Lay b: Freine, a poem translated into English in the time of Henry VI. , is

" She took a rich baudekine,

That her lord brought from Constantine, And lapped the little maiden therein ;"

and in the Romance of King Alexander, another early poem, the mate- rial is shown as a hanging :

" All the city was by-hong Of rich baudekins."

"A piece of baudekyn of purple silk" is valued at 33s. in an inven- tory of the Wardrobe of Henry V., and another piece of "white baudekyn of gold" is priced at 20s. the yard. By an Act of 12 and 14 Edward IV. it was ordered that cloths of baudkyn, with other rich stuffs then being in the kingdom, and offered for sale, should be sealed with the seals of the collectors of the subsidy of tonnage and poundage. This shows that the material by this time was getting into more general wear. In the inventory of the effects of the same monarch, baudekyns of silk are valued at 33s. 4d. the piece. Probably the manufacture was afterwards started in Europe, for amongst the apparel of Henry VIII. is " green baudekin of Venice gold," as well as " blue, white, green, and crimson baudekyns with flowers of gold," and it had now become a considerable article of commerce, for an Act of 1512 (4 Henry VIII.) which regulates the sealing or stamping at the Custom House of cloths of gold and silver, of bawdekin, velvet, damask, satin, sarcenet, tartron, camblet, and every other cloth of silk and gold, states that sometimes 3,000 or 4,000 pieces of these materials were imported in one cargo. After this period the stuff is not distinctly mentioned, but is merged in the generic term of cloth of gold.

BAYS. Once an article of considerable importance in our manufac- tures very similar to the baize now made, but slighter. Bays, bayze, and baize are all used in records as pertaining to this material, which was first introduced here in 1561. Hasted in his History of Kent, 1797, says, '* Those of the Walloon 'strangers' who came over to England and were workers on serges, baize, and flannel fixed themselves at Sand- wich, at the mouth of a haven, where they could have an easy com- munication with the metropolis and other parts of the kingdom. The Queen, in her third year, 1561, caused letters patent to be passed under her great seal, directed to the mayor, &c, of Sandwich to give liberty to certain of them to inhabit that town for the purpose of exercising their manufactures, which had not before been used in England." The

"BAY ( 15 ) BAY

cruelties of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands drove a number of weavers to this country, as is related in the History of Britain,* 1670. " The Queen (Elizabeth) gave a courteous reception to such of the French, as were forc'd, on the score of religion, to fly their country. The same she did to the Netherlanders, who flock'd to England in vast multitudes (in 1568) ; as a retreat from the storm of the Duke of Alva's cruelties practis'd against 'em ; she gave them the liberty of settling themselves at Norwich, Colchester, Sandwich, Maidstone, and Southamp- ton, which turned to the great advantage of England, for they were the first that brought into the nation the art of making those slight stuffs call'd Bays and Says and other Linnen and Woollen-cloths of the same kind." This manufacture principally settled at Colchester and its vicinity, and for a long period flourished exceedingly. Camden, in his Brittania, 1610, says of Sudbury, " Neither would it take it well at this daie to bee counted much inferior to the townes adjoyning, for it is populous and wealthy by reason of clothing there."

Another immigration of weavers, driven to England through the sack of Antwerp in 1585, gave afresh stimulus to this manufacture. About a third part of the manufacturers and merchants who wrought and dealt in silks, damasks, taffeties, bayes, sayes, serges, stockings, &c, accord- ing to Anderson {History of Commerce) settled here, though it is, as far as the bay manufacture is concerned, erroneously added, ' ' because England was then ignorant of those manufactures." A dispute occurred in the following reign as to whether bays with other stuffs were liable to duty, and the judges gave their decision in a certificate (June 24, 1605), which is by Lord Coke in his 4th Institute, "We are resolved that all new-made drapery, made wholly of wool, as frizadoes, bays, northern dozens, northern cottons, cloth rash, and other like drapery, of what new name soever, for the use of man's body, are to yield subsidy and alnage." The use of the phrase " new-made drapery " is deemed sufficient by Mr. Planche to conclude that bays were then still con- sidered a novelty, but new drapery and old drapery for long after this period were applied to classes of stuffsf , and rather marked the different textiles known respectively before and after the irruption of the

* A composite history to which Milton contributed a portion.

f Indeed, although the phrases " new drapery" and "old drapery" often occur it is hard to give an exact definition of either. Lewis Roberts, in the Treasure of Traffihe, 1641, mentions " Sarges, Perpetuanoes, Bayes, and sundry other sorts comprehended under the name of new drapery," while Misselden, another writer of the same period, in a tract entitled the Circle of Commerce, says, " By the old (draperies), are understood- broadcloths, bayes, and kersies ; by the new perpetuanoes, serges, says, and other manufactures of wool."

During the controversy which culminated in this case a document was presented to the Privy Council by the weavers of Norwich, which affords much curious information as to the manner of weaving and characteristics of stuffs, and is well worthy a place here. The reader could not get a more com- prehensive view of early stuffs, but must be warned against placing too much belief in ex parte statements, which are not invariably consistent, although undoubtedly very valuable. The MS., which is still preserved in the British Museum, is thus entitled : Allegations on behalf of the worsted weavers that the stuffs called new draperies, or of new invention, are worsted cloths, and ought to be contained within the government of 7 Edw. IV., chap. I.

" That the stuffs of new invention do not vary from the materials of the

BAY ( 16 ) BAY

Flemings. Anderson says, "This manufacture of bayes, together with those of sayes, and other slight woollen goods, are what is usually called the new drapery, as being introduced into England so much later than the old drapery of broad cloth, kersies, &c." Shortly after the manufacture was considerable enough to make a part of the export trade, for in 1634 the Company of Merchant Adventurers prevailed on Charles I. to issue a proclamation, forbidding the exportation of "any white cloths, coloured cloths, cloths dyed and dressed out of the whites, Spanish cloths, baizes, kerseys, perpetuanoes, stockings, or any other English woollen commodities" to any towns in Germany or the Netherlands but those where a staple of this company was fixed. Bays are mentioned in the Map of Commerce, 163S, as forming an export with nearly every trading company then in existence. A manuscript preserved in the Lansdown Collection, and dated 1592, gives particulars of what manner of fabrics these early bays were, and their estimated value.

Bayes, double, poize (weight) about 32 lbs., valued at . . . . ..£400

Bayes, middle or 60 Bayes, about 30 lbs. None entered by that name

in the Custom House. Bayes, single, poize, about 26 lbs., valued at . . . . . . ..200

worsteds, nor from the texture, but varying according to tbe will and art of the workman, sometime in one kind and sometime in another, as most other trades manual do, to make the same more vendible, and to that purpose do also give thereunto new names ; yet, that variance of art and appellation doth not disaffirm, hut that it still remains as a species of this genus, one of the kinds thereof, and so worsted cloth.

" In demonstration thereof, a buffyn, a catalowne, and the pearl of beauty, are all one cloth ; a peropus and paragon all one ; a saye and pyramides all one ; the same cloths bearing other names in times past. The paragon, peropus, and philiselles may be affirmed to he double chambletts ; the difference being only the one was double in the warp, and the other in the weft. Buffyn, catalowne, and pearl of beauty, &c, may be affirmed single chambletts, differing only in the breadth. The say and pyramides may also be affirmed to be that ancient cloth mentioned in the same statute, called a bed; the difference only consist- ing in the breadth and fineness.

"For further demonstration the cloth denominated the worsted, and the cloth called the bed, for the fashion and working were all one, being both of the same draught in the hevill, and both alike wrought with four treadles, yet the one was a fine and thick cloth, and the other a coarse and thin, and differed as much in vein as a coarse buffyn from a fine pyramides.

" To make of this worsted a stamin was but to make it thinner and narrower in the stay ; to make the bed a say which served for apparel was to make the same much narrower and finer ; this cloth hath continued its name and fashion till this day ; but now lately by putting the same into colours, and twisting one-third of one colour with another colour, being made narrow, it is now called pyramides.

"From worsted are derived, in another line, other cloths. A worsted was wrought with four treadles ; to make thereof a bustian is to weave with three of the same treadles ; to make it single is to use the two left-foot treadles ; to make this a philiselle, a peropus, a paragon, or a buffyn is but to alter the breadth, and to make them double, treble, or single in the striken ; and to make this buffyn a catalowne is to twist a thread of one colour with a thread of another colour, and strike it with another colour; to make the same a pearl of beauty is to make it striped, by colours in the warp, and tufted in the striken."

BEA ( 17 ) BEA

In the Booh of Rates of Charles II., compiled in 1671, " as a guide in estimating the value of the articles and rating them accordingly," Bays of Florence are shown at £1 5s. per yard under "Merchandise In- wards." Among the exports are the following items, which afford some idea of the relative qualities of foreign and home manufactures :

" Bays, Barnstaple, coarse, of 20 lbs. weight and under, the Bay .. £0 12 6 Bays, Manchester or Barnstaple, fine, and all other single Bays, not

exceeding 34 lbs. weight, the piece 100

Double Bays, the piece, in weight from 34 lbs. weight to 60 lbs.

weight 2 0 0

Minikin Bays, containing in weight from 60 lbs. weight to 90 lbs.

weight, to pay as three single Bays .. .. .. . ■ ..300

And if they contain above 90 lbs. weight and not above 112 lbs., to

pay all duties as for single Bayes, and no more."

As showing the retail value of the material, we find in 1578 7f yards of " blewe and blacke bayse " costing 15s. 4d. ; in 1622, "three yards of scarlet bayse" 18s. ; and two years later an entry of " six yards of ash- coloured bayes " 15s. This latter price — half-a-crown a yard, appear- ing in the Household Books oj Lord William Howard, was the average value of ordinary bays ; the other item of scarlet bays, from the same source, would bear so long a price because of its colour. "Double bays " are also shown in the same accounts at 4s. 6d. the yard.

" He (Sir Thomas Clifford) in our going, talked much of the plain habit of the Spaniards, how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak of Col- chester bayze, and the ladies' mantles in cold weather of white flannell, and that the endeavours frequently of setting up the manufactory of making these stuffs there have only been prevented by the Inquisition." Pepys : Diary, February 24, 1666-7.

What the manufacture became in the following century, as well as the channels of its trade, is fully shown by Chambers in his Cyclopaedia, 1741 :

" Bay, a kind of coarse open woollen stuff having a long nap, sometimes frized on one side, and sometimes not frized, according to the uses it is intended for. It is made chiefly in Colchester, where there is a hall called the Dutch Bay Hall or Raw Hall.

" None shall weave in Colchester any hay known by the names of four-and- fifties, sixties, sixty-eights, eighties, or hundred bays, but within two days after weaving shall carry it to the Dutch Bay Hall, to be viewed and searched, that it may appear whether it be well and substantially wrought before it be carried to be scoured and thicked : no fuller or thicker to receive such bay before it have been stamped or marked at the said hall. 12 Car. 2, c. 22.

" Formerly the French as well as Italians were furnished with bays from Eng- land ; but of late the French workmen have undertaken to counterfeit them, and set up manufactures of their own ; and that with success, especially at Nismes, Montpellier, &c.

" The export of bays is very considerable to Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Their chief use is for linings, especially in the army ; the looking-glass makers also use them behind their glasses, to preserve the tin or quicksilver ; and the case makers to line their cases."

BEAD. See Bugle.

BEARER. An ancient form of " dress improver," or bustle. Randal Holmes, in his Academy of Armoury, 1688, includes bearers amongst

c

BEA ( 18 ) ^^ BEA

other " things made purposely to put under the skirts of gowns at their, setting or at the bodies, which raise up the skirt at that place to what breadth the wearer pleaseth, and as the fashion is." Something of the kind was, however, found necessary even at an earlier period. The Monk of Glastonbury, writing in the reign of Edward I., says, " They wered such strait clothes, that they had long fox tails sewed within their garments to holde them forth."

BEARING CLOTH. The prototype of our christening robe; a cloth or mantle, often richly embroidered, with which an infant was covered when taken to church to be baptized.

" Here's a sight for thee ; look thee, a bearing cloth for a squire's child ! Look thee here ! Take up, boy." A Winter's Tale.

In 1623, " 5 yeards of damaske to make a bearing cloth " is bought at a cost of £3 6s. 6d.; and in addition "for taffetie to lyne it," 328.; and for lace to it, eleven ounces, 57s. 6d.

BEAUPERS. A stuff under this denomination is shown among the imports in the Book of Rates of Charles II., 1675, and there valued at £1 5s. for "the peece containing 24 or 25 yards," but no other men- tion of such a material can be found.

BEAVER. (A-S. be/or, beofer ; Ger. biber ; Dan. baever ; L. biber). A beautiful fur once used exclusively in the manufacture of hats, and now having a limited sale for articles of dress. Two kinds of hair cover the original felt ; the outer one hard and rigid, of a grey colour, with reddish brown ends ; and the other soft, delicate, and of a silvery hue. The first is plucked out, and the skin then shorn and dressed for use ; the fur, when finished and ready for sale, much resembling that of the expensive South Sea otter. About forty years ago its employment in hat making received a severe check, owing to the introduction of silk for the purpose ; and with the decline in the value of this, its staple trade, the tide of the prosperity of the Hudson's Bay Company began to ebb.

Beaver hats have been worn by both sexes, but most commonly by men, with whom the fashion of wearing them began. In an inventory of the effects of Sir John Fastolfe, 1459, is shown "a hatte of bever, lined with damaske." In the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer (1328-1400), the merchant wears

11 On his head a Flaundrish bever hat." Philip Stubbes, the satirist of fashions in the days of Elizabeth, men- tions hats " of a certain kind of fine hair ; these they call bever hats, of twenty, thirty, and forty shillings apiece, fetched from beyond the sea, whence a great sort of other vaneties do come." (The Anatomie of Abuses, 1585.) In 1633 we find "one beaver hatt for my ladie" (William Howard) cost three pounds.

Beaver was also applied to a helmet, but more generally to the movable face-guard attached to it. Shakespeare uses the word in both senses :

*' I saw young Harry with his beaver on." Ilenry IV. , Part I.

" Their beavers down, " Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel." Ilenry IV., Tart II.

See Castob.

BEN" ( 19 ) Bill

. , i , i *-

BENGAL STRIPES. Striped ginghams, so called from having been originally brought from Bengal, and first manufactured in this country at Paisley.

BERGAMO T. A common tapestry, made of ox and goats' hair with cotton or hemp, believed to derive its name from having been first produced at Bergamo, in Italy.

BERLIN WOOL. Known also as German wool, which sufficiently indi- cates the source whence we derive it. A material for working in needlework a kind of improved sampler. For some time after its intro- duction it was wonderfully popular, although it was at first ' ' con- sidered by many connected with the trade that the expense attending the , preparation and dyeing would render it of too high a price to be brought into common use, but the perseverance of a few wholesale houses progressively overcame the difficulty, and, for several years past, the quantity consumed in private families in the production of various articles for useful and ornamental purposes, has been immense, at the same time giving employment to very many industrious females." (Per- kins on Haberdashery.)

BIGGON, Biggin. A kind of skull cap with ears. It was once in common wear for men. In Pierce Pennilesse's Supplication to the Devil, a severe social satire by Thomas Nash, published in 1592, we find one of the characters — a usurer — wearing upon his head "a filthy coarse biggin, and next it a garnish of nightcaps, with a sage button cap." It came afterwards to be exclusively used for children, principally with the idea that it assisted nature in closing the sutures of the skull. In 1639 a masque, entitled Salmacida Spolia, was acted at Whitehall, in which appeared "a nurse and three children in long coats with bibs, biggins, and muckenders." Shakespeare appears to use the word for any kind of nightcap, and we may assume that it was once in some form a dis- tinguishing part of the costume of a barrister, for in Jasper Mayne's City Match, 1639, there is mentioned —

" One whom the good Old man his uncle kept to inns of court, And would in time ha' made him barrister, And raised to the sattin cap and biggon."

BILL, literally a sealed paper, from low Latin bulla, a seal.

BIRRUS, Burreau, Burellas. A coarse species of thick rough woollen cloth used by the poorer classes in the middle ages for cloaks and exter- nal clothing Strtjtt. The Exchequer records lor 1272 contain a notice of a theft having occurred at Winchester in the preceding reign of some Irish cloth, some cloth of Abingdon, and some cloth of London, called burrell. In a ballad against the Scots, of the time of Edward II., mention is made of " a curtel of burel." Ritson, in whose collection of Ancient Songs the ballad is printed, defines burel as " coarse cloth of a brown colour." From an entry in the Statutes of the order of Cluny (twelfth century), by which the monks of the order were forbidden to wear "pretiosos burellos" with other stuff, Mr. Planche infers that a finer quality had formerly been made. M. le Due states that tablecovers were made of it ; whence the word bureau.

c 2

BLA ( 20 ) BLA

Bureau, bare, dark brown, and that from the Latin burrus, dark red. Thus, too, a cloak anciently made of red wool is said to have been called birrus on that account.

BLANKET. A woollen cover, soft and loosely woven, spread com- monly upon a bed over the linen sheets for the procurement of warmth. Johnson.

The name of this material, now commonly applied to the articles made from it, is generally supposed to be derived from its maker, one Thomas Blacket, or Blanket, of Bristol. This view is still occasionally given with " all the pomp of circumstance." It was so put forward in a little book entitled Words and Places, by Isaac Taylor, 1846 ; but a notice of this work in the Quarterly Review of that year — a notice which must have made Mr. Taylor feel very uncomfortable — contemptuously regards this tradition, declaring that —

" If this be so, Mr. Blacket must have lived a good while ago, and his goods must have early acquired an extensive foreign sale. Richelet tells ns, Onpaioit autrefois les JRegens de V Universite moitie en argent, et moitie en etoffe de laine blanche dont Us faisoient des chemisettes, que Von appelloit ' blanchet.'

" The word occurs, too, among the names of stuffs which the nuns of Fon- tevraud were permitted to wear. The form ' blanketus ' meets us exactly in its present sense in a license or Order in Council to the officers (oddly enough) of the Port of Bristol, permitting the Pope's collector to export certain house- hold goods in the year 1382 ; among these are enumerated * quinque paria linthia minnm et duos blanketos pro uno lecto ; ' and again, ' quatuor strictas tunicas de blanketo.'' One of the quotations given by Ducange is from a mo- nastic rule of the date of 1152, where certain clothing is ordered to be made ' de blancheto.' In Palsgrave's curious ' Esclarcissement de la langue Fran- caise,' composed in the time of Henry VHL, 'blanket cloth ' is represented in French by ' Blanchet.' The name evidently came from the absence of colour."

In this sense, through the Fr. blanchette, the derivation is generally accepted, and in truth is old enough to have prevented any other ren- dering. Cotgrave has " Fr. blanchet, a blanket for a bed, also white woollen cloth. Blanchet, whitish." In The Adventures of Arthur at the Tamewathelan, a romance of the fourteenth century, published by the Camden Society, a lady is described as wearing a belt

" Beten (inlaid) with besants, and buckled full bene (well). Of blenketswith birks full bold."

The editor of this gives blanket as "plunket, a white cloth or stuff," which Mr. Fairholt, who quotes the poem very fully, apparently accepts. Mr. Planche" also pleads for plunket being derived from, and similar to blanket, a conjecture certainly not warranted by circum- stances. (See Plunkett.)

Another mention of blanket occurs in an Act of 37 Edward III., which forbids " plowmen, carters, shepherds, and such like, not having forty shillings value in goods and chattels," from wearing any " sort of cloth but blanket and russet lawn of twelve pence, and shall wear girdles or belts ; and they shall only eat and drink suitable to their .stations."

So much for the one theory. On the other side it may be stated that a Thomas Blanket, one of three Flemish brothers who early promoted the making of cloth in Bristol, was in 1340 ordered by a local court to pay

BLE ( 21 ) BLE

-a heavy fine "for having caused various machines for weaving and making woollen cloths to be set up in his houses, and for having hired weavers and other workmen for this purpose." It is also to the point that Bristol was not only a thriving port in the fourteenth eentury, but had also considerable textile manufactures.

In old wills are found many items of interest relating to bed furni- ture, in which blankets appear prominently. In 1533 " two pair of blanketts " are valued in the will of William Pennyngton, Kt., at 5s. 4d. and eight mattresses at 21s. 4d. Three "hangyngs for bedds of silk" (£3), " a testern and a hanging of sey" (6s. 8d.), "a pare of fustian blanketts " (5s.), ix pylloys of dawne [pillows of down] (7s. 4d.), give us from the same document a very complete picture of the upholstery of a good house in olden times. Blankets of fustian appear to have been common. In the will of Roger Peles, Parson of Dalton-in-Furness, the last Abbot of Furness, a "paire of fustian blanketts " appear priced at 10s. 8d., and sey again appears for bed hangings. We have also here a whyte qwhylte (quilt), iij pyllowbers, ij mattresses, ij cover- letts," vij shetts of lynne cloth, and ij paire of coarse shets, one bowster, one doble shete, and one course shete, to show us how conser- vative we are not only in the appurtenances of our bed-rooms, but in the terms applied to them. Blankets, as we know them, were also anciently in use, for a sum of 20d. was paid in 1618 for " fulling 20 yards of blankstting. " A pair of Spanish blankets cost 27s. about the same time.

" Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark to cry, Hold ! hold ! "

Macbeth. " The abilities of man must fall short on one side or other like too scanty a blanket when you are abed : if you pull it upon your shoulders you leave your feet bare ; if you thrust it down upon your feet your shoulders are uncovered." Tehple.

" Himself among the storied chiefs he spies, As from the blanket high in air he flies.'' Pope : Dunciad*

u Insomuch that I fancy had Tully himself pronounced one of his orations with a blanket about his shoulders, more people would have laughed at his dress than have admired his eloquence." Spectator, No. 150. " The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost."

Dkyden : MacFlechnoe.

BLEACHING, from the Fr. blanchir, to whiten. The term was anciently in use. Autolycus, in the Winter's Tale, sings —

" The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,

With heigh ! the sweet birds, 0, how they sing ! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king."

But at the same time the process was known as whiting. We find " whiting time " spoken of in Shakespeare; and in the Merry Wives oj Windsor allusion is made to the " whitsters " on Datchet Mead. At this time the work of bleaching could only be carried on in the open air in the manner followed from time immemorial, and consequently the summer months alone were available, the operations, if the weather happened to be unfavourable, not being always completed during the time at command. The exposure led to a practice of stealing linen, for preventing which several severe laws were passed from time to time.

BLO ( 22 ) BOB

For instance, one of 18 George II. enacted that " every person who shall, by day or night, feloniously steal any linen, fustian, calico, or cotton cloth ; or cloth worked, woven, or made of any cotton or linen yarn mixed ; or any thread, linen, or cotton yarn ; linen^or cotton tape, incle, filleting, laces, or any other linen, fustian, or cotton goods, laid to be printed, whitened, bowked, bleached, or dried, to the value of 10s., or shall knowingly buy or receive any such wares stolen, shall be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy." Felony of this degree was at that period punishable with death. Holland early acquired a reputa- tion for bleaching, and it was an ordinary practice to send linens there in the spring and have them returned in the autumn. The first bleachfield known in this country was founded in Haddingtonshire in 1749, after which the industry became firmly established here. The tedious character of the necessary operations, when the manufacture of cotton goods in- creased so vastly through the introduction of successive mechanical im- provements, caused attention to be directed to chlorine, a substance pre- viously discovered in 1774 by Scheele, and first proposed as a bleaching agent by Berthollet in 1786. This was first simply used in solution, bat in 1798 Mr. Tennant, of St. Rollox, Glasgow, produced and patented his bleaching powder by impregnating lime with chlorine, commonly known as chloride of lime. It is a curious commentary on this fact to note that in 1639 a Scotch Act was passed forbidding the use of lime in bleach- ing. Bleaching by chloride is still in extensive use, and allows the buyer of the cheapest calicoes a whiter material than his ancestors- could obtain in costly linens after months of laborious operations. The old system of crofting, as it is called, is yet sometimes followed for fine linens, particularly in the North of Ireland.

BLONDE LACE. Blonde laces were first made in 1745, and being produced from unbleached silk, were known as ' ' Nankins " or '"Blondes."

BOA. A long serpent-like piece of fur worn round the neck by ladies. A genus of serpents which includes the largest species of serpent, the Boa constrictor.

BOBBIN. A reel or spool (Ger. spitzeiikloppel, Du. Mossen, Da. Jcniple-stoJcke, Sw. l-nopelpmnert Fr. fuseanx, It. mazette, trafusole, Sp. bolillos, Port, bilros, Russ. JtokUnschJci). Also, a fine cord in haber- dashery, in which sense the word is very ancient. In 1578 we find " Skotish bobin sylke," and "bobbing" appearing in an inventory of that date in conjunction with twine and thread, plainly denoting its character.

BOBBIN-NET is so called from bobbins entering largely into the construction of the machine from which it is produced. The use of machinery for making lace is said to have been first successfully car- ried out by an idle dissipated frame-work knitter of Nottingham, named Hammond. Being once in difficulties, the idea occurred to him, while looking at the broad lace on his wife's cap, that the stocking frame might be so modified as to produce a similar article. He suc- ceeded in making an inferior description of lace, imitating that known as Brussels ground, which he called Valenciennes lace, although it had none of the characteristics of that fabric. This was not the first machine-

BOB { 23 ) BOB

made imitation of net. Felkin, in his Hosiery and Lace {British Manic- facturing Industries), says —

"By making the loops and then the open work, frame-looped net was pro- duced by Frost in 1764. Next a sjpoon tickler (points acting on needles), to cover two needles and remove two loops, was employed by Frost in 1769 making figured net. The twilling machine was among the first on which these and still further modifications were made for producing net, between 1760 and 1780, by Crane, Harvey, and Else in London, and Hammond, Lindley, Holmes, and Frost in Nottingham. It has been said that Hammond first made bobbin-net and an imitation of cushion-lace after seeing some on his wife's cap. By shifting loops variously he made looped net, but nothing more."

Hammond's invention is ascribed to 1768. In 1770 a machine was brought from London to Nottingham by Else and Harvey, described as a pin machine, for making single press point net, but not proving suc- cessful was taken to France, where, after undergoing many modifications, it was used in the tulle manufacture. This was the age of experiments, and workmen in their leisure hours employed themselves in forming new meshes on the hand, in the hope of perfecting a complete hexagon, which had hitherto eluded all their efforts to discover. In 1782 the warp-frame was introduced, which is still in use for making warp lace. (McCulloch : Dictionary of Commerce.) This, like the bobbin-net, describes in its name the essential feature of manufacture. The inven- tion of .this machine is ascribed to a Dutchman, named Vandyke, two gentlemen of London, Clare and Marsh, and to Mr. Morris, of Notting- ham. Even with these machines, producing only inferior laces, Not- tingham became, as it still continues, the centre of machine-made lace. In McCulloch's first edition of his invaluable Dictionary it is said that the first attempt to make bobbin-net by machinery was made in 1799 ; that many alterations took place in the construction of the ma- chines, until at length, in 1809, Mr. Heathcote, of Tiverton,* succeeded in discovering the correct principle of the bobbin-net frame, and obtained a patent for fourteen years for his invention ; but in the next edition this is admitted to be an error, and Mr. Heathcote allowed the credit of being the original inventor of this machine. In proof of this, the evidence of Brunei, the engineer, given in a trial in March, 1816, is adduced, where he stated that when Mr. Heathcote had separated one-half of the threads and placed them on a beam as warp threads, and made the bobbin which carried the other half of the warp threads act between those warp threads, so as to produce Buckinghamshire or pillow lace, the lace machine was invented. Heathcote's machines were destroyed by a Nottingham mob in 1816, cansing him to remove to Tiverton. Steam power was applied to the manufacture about this time, but did not come into general use till 1820. On the expiry of the original patent in 1823, when bobbin-net manufacture became quite a mania, all Nottingham began to make lace. McCulloch says, " A temporary prosperity shone

* An exceedingly mteresting account of the struggles and progress of this remarkable man, who raised himself by his wonderful inventive power and indomitable perseverance from a lowly estate to a position of wealth and honour, will be found in the little volume of British Manufacturing Industries before cited. This work may also be studied to gain a knowledge of progressive im- provements in machine-made lace.

BOD ( 24 ) BOD

upon the trade ; and numerous individuals — clergymen, lawyers, doc- tors, and others — readily embarked capital in so tempting a speculation. Prices fell in proportion as production increased ; * but the demand was immense ; and the Nottingham lace frame became the organ of general supply, rivalling and supplanting in plain nets the most finished pro- ductions in France." Fabulous wages were earned during this period. Dr. Ure remarks, • ' that it was no uncommon thing for an artisan to leave his usual calling, and betaking himself to a lace frame, of which he was part proprietor, realize by working upon it 20s., 30s., nay, even 40s. per day. In consequence of such wonderful gains, Nottingham, the birthplace of this new art, with Loughborough and the adjoining vil- lages, became the scene of an epidemic mania ; many, though nearly devoid of mechanical genius or the constructive talent, tormented them- selves night and day with projects of bobbins, pushers, lockers, point- bars, and needles of every various form, till their minds got permanently bewildered. Several lost their senses altogether ; and some, after cherishing visions of wealth, as in the old time of alchemy, finding their schemes abortive, sank into despair and committed suicide."

Many improvements have been made on the original machine, which was so complex that sixty movements were required to complete one hole, but its principle remains the same. " Up to the year 1831 little else than plain net and plain quillings had been produced. Means were about this time discovered to purl and brellet-hole the edge of narrow laces, finishing them afterwards with a gimp (or linen thread) by hand. Machines were also invented for spotting, and the ingenuity of man having been applied most indefatigably, means were in 1839 discovered to adapt processes to produce various patterns on the net, which pro- cesses were greatly improved in 1841, so that every description of pattern can be produced. " (Perkins on Haberdashery. )

BODICE. "A pair of bodies " is mentioned in the fifteenth century. Entries occur in the Household Books of Lord William Howard of

" 1612. To Mrs. Preston for a pair of French bodeyes for my Ladie, 6s. 6d. 1618. A pair of bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . 3s. Od.

1633. A. payre of boddies 2s. 6d."

We get here the derivation of bodice, stays which fit the body close. The term is not so applied in these days, but rather betokens an inner dress- body . In Notes from Black Fryers, 1617, is a notice of their use by men :

" He'll have an attractive lace, And whalebone bodies for the better grace."

See Corset : Stays.

* Progressive value of a square yard of plain cotton bobbin-net :

1842 £0 0 6

	. . . £5 0	0			8 0
		0		... 0	4 0
	... 1 10	0	1830 . . .	... 0	2 0
1818...	... 1 0	0	1833 . . .	... 0	1 4
1821 . . .	... 0 12	0	1836 . . .	... 0	0 10

1850 0 0 4

1856 0 0 3

1862 0 0 3

Wages of journeymen :

1812 £6 to £13 weekly.

1815 £6 to £8 weekly.

1818 £8 weekly.

1824 £2 weekly.

BOD ( 25 ) BOD

BODKIN. This word has been derived from bodikin, the diminutive of body, on account of its slenderness, or from the Fr. bouter, to push, and the diminutive hin. It is said to have been originally a small dagger, but the earliest notices we find of it, while certainly allowing the assumption, yet at the same time show it to have been used as a hair-pin, and as the "eyed instrument," as Bailey calls it, with which the name is now alone associated. To give three examples of the same period in differing employment —

"You turne the point of your owne bodkin into your bosom." Eup7tv.es and Ms England. 1582.

" Hoods, frontlets, wires, cauls, curling-irons, perriwigs, bodkins, fillets, hair." Lyly : Midas, 1592.

" In the beginning of the Empire his manner was to retire himself daily into a secret place for one hour, and then doe notbing else but catch flies, and with the sharp point of a bodkin, or writing steel, prick them through ; in so much as when one inquired whether anybodie were with Csesar within, Vibius Crispus made answer not impertinently, 'No; not so much as a flie.' " Holland (1551-1636) : translation of Suetonius.

The use of bodkins for warlike purposes seems incongruous enough, but allusions to its use in that manner leave no doubt of its efficacy. The murder of Julius Caesar is particularly mentioned as having been effected by bodkins, —

" At last with bodkins dub'd and doust to death, And all his glorie banisb't with his breath."

Gascoigne : The Fruites of Warre, 1589. " With bodkins was Caesar Julius Murdered at Rome of Brutus Cassius."

The Serpent of Division, 1590. " Since I read Of Julius Caesar's death I durst not venture Into a tailor's shop for fear of bodkins."

Randolph : Muses' Loolcing Glass, 1638.

And other notices of its bloodthirsty use occur in Sidney, where he says, ' ' Each of them had bodkins in their hands, wherewith continually they pricked him ;" and in Chaucer's Eeve's Tale — " But if he wold be slain of Simekin With pavade, or with knife, or bodkin."

Its use as a weapon was continued to comparatively recent times, for the 508th number of the Spectator contains the following illustration : " If I had struck him with my bodkin, and behaved myself like a man, since he won't treat me like a woman, I had, I think, served him right." So Pope, in hia Bape of the Lock, 1712, makes Belinda attack the baron, drawing

" A deadly bodkin from her side ; " And then gives a genealogical account of it —

" The same, his ancient personage to deck, Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck, In three seal-rings, which after melted down, Formed a vast buckle for his widow's gown ; Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew ; Then in a bodkin graced her mother's hairs, Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears."

BOM ( 26 ) BO&

This was plainly of silver, and as such had many a precedent. Lady William Howard, in 1618, paid lSd. for a silver bodkin, and in D'Urfey's

Wit and Mirth ; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, is —

11 My high commode, my damask gown, My laced shoes of Spanish leather ; A silver hodkin in my head, And a dainty plume of feather."

While another form in which they were expensive enough to be aold for presents is found instanced in an old black letter ballad of 1658, entitled The Sorrowful Lamentation of the Pedlars :

" Here's garters for hose, and cotton for shoes, And there's a guilt bodkin which none would refuse. This bodkin let John give sweet mistress Jane, And then of unkindness he shall not complain.

Then Maidens and Men, come, see ichat you lack, And buy the fine toys that I have in my pack."

It is possible that bodkins were originally what are now known as stilettos, and Bailey, in his explanations, seems to bear out this view. Besides its use as an eyed instrument already given, he has also, "A long sort of pin, on which women used to roll their hair," and "A sharp pointed instrument with a handle, to make holes in hard things."

BOMBASIN, Bombazin. A sort of slight silken stuff for mourning ; also a crossed stuff of cotton. Bailey. A word, as Vossius thinks, of Eastern origin. Any soft or delicate wool adapted for weaving garments. Richardson. A twilled fabric of silk and worsted. Donald. (Fr., L. , bombycina, silk garments ; Gr. bombyx, the silk- worm. ) The name bombycina represents one of the oldest fabrics known, but in that sense denotes a stuff wholly of silk. The derivation of the modern bombazine frombombyx, the silk- worm, is certainly most worthy of credence, though the word has been shown from " bombax " or "bombix," the ancient name for cotton. Strutt describes bombax as "a sort of fine silk or cotton cloth, well known upon the Continent during the thirteenth century ; but whether it was used so early in this kingdom I cannot take upon me to determine." Bailey, usually trustworthy to a degree, also shows two distinct fabrics under the same title, as above, and in the Voyages, collected and printed by Hackluyt (1582-15S9), occurs a very significant passage : " There ia planted on the one side of the Casigins house a faire garden, with all herbes growing in it, and at the lower end a well of fresh water, and round about it are trees set, whereon bombasin cotton groweth after this manner." There can thus be little doubt that in more recent times two distinct kinds of bombazine have been made. Early bombycines were as certainly of silk. In the 6th century the use of ornaments in silk or bombycine was, under heavy ecclesiastical pains and penalties in case of disobedience, expressly for- bidden by Saint Csesarius, Bishop of Aries, especially in nunneries. The stuff is described by Tibullus as being "lighter than the wind, clearer than glass." Pliny is indignant at its being used as a summer garment, doubtless on account of its unseemly transparency ; and Juvenal does not fail to aim the shaft of his satire against those etFeminate Romans and courtesans who Bhowed a special fondness for this gossamer fabric (DuroNT-AuBLRViLLE : Ornamental Textile Fabrics) . Seneca condemns

BOM ( 27 ) BOM

those " silken garments, if garments they can be called, which are a protection neither for the body nor for shame," and later, Solinus says, " This is silk, in which at first women, but now even men, have been led, by their cravings after luxury, to show rather than clothe their bodies." This mass of evidence leaves no doubt as to the material of which the original bombycines were composed, a further passage in Pliny being even more precise in detail : ' ' In six months after come the silke worms (bombyces). Siike-worms spin and weave webs like to those of the spiders, and all to please our dainty dames, who thereof make their fine silkes and velvets, form their costly garments and superfluous apparell, which are called bombycina." It is admitted that the manufacture of these materials was first practised in the island of Cos, on the coast of Asia Minor, by Pamphila, the daughter of Plates, but it is not certain whence the silk was obtained. Aristotle declares that " bombykia" was produced by first unweaving the thick stuffs imported to Cos from the East, while Pliny asserts that the bombyx was reared and fostered in the island. However this may be, there is no doubt that we have a more interesting question decided in the identification of the first manufacture of silk in Europe. l

Bombazines were first produced in this country in the reign of Elizabeth. We are told, in a History of Norwich by Blomefield, 1768, that "in 1575 the Dutch Elders presented in Court a new work called Bombazines, praying to have the search and seal of them to their use, exclusive of the Walloons, who insisted that all white works belonged to them ; but the Dutch, as the first inventors, had their petition granted." These early bombazines are said to have been of silk and cotton, but the use of cotton in manufactures was not begun until the reign of Charles I. , all previous mention of cotton indicating the employment of wool, so that the modern bombazines of silk warp and worsted weft in all probability closely resembled those of the sixteenth century. In 1800 they are described as spun from wefts of fine Norfolk and Kent wool, the worsted being thrown upon the right side. They were made in two widths of 60 yards each, the narrow about 18 or 19 inches wide being made for the home trade, and the broad, from 40 to 50 inches wide, principally exported. For a long period they were only used in black and for mourning purposes, but were afterwards sold in colours. They were woven gray, that is with silk of the natural colour and afterwards dyed, which would probably explain the claim of the Walloons to a monopoly of their manufacture on account of their being a "white work. " McCulloch says they were first produced at Milan, but gives no authorities in support of the assertion.

" Up, and put on a new summer black bombazin suit." Pepys : Diary, May 30, 1668.

BOMBAST, Bumbast. Derived from Latin bombax, cotton. A stuffing for garments, which Skinner says was of linen sewed together, with flax between, but apparently used in loose lumps of cotton flock. Phillips, in A New World of Words, 1720, gives Bombast, the cotton plant growing in Asia. The term is used figuratively as signify- ing words of more sound than sense, inflated language, and is thus used by Shakespeare in Love's Labours Lost :

BON ( 28 ) BON

" We have received your letters, full of love ; Your favours, the ambassadors of love ; And, in our maiden council, rated them At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy, As bombast, and as lining to the time."

The use of this stuffing was once carried to a ridiculous excess, and excited the wrath of Stubbes, who in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, ex- presses an opinion that "there was never any kind of apparel that could more disproportionate the body of a man than these doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pound of bombast at the least." Holme, in his Notes on Dress (Harl, 4375),* says, "About the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the slops or trunk-hose with-pease-cod-bellied doublets were much esteemed, which young men used to stuffe with rags and other like things, to extend them in compasse with as great eagerness as women did take pleasure to weare great and stately verdingales ; for this was the same in effect, being a kind of verdingall-breeches. And so excessive were they herein, that a law was made against such as did so stuffe their breeches to make them stand out ; whereas when a certain prisoner (in these tymes) was accused for wearing such breeches contrary to law, he began to excuse himself of the offence, and endeavoured by little and little to dis- charge himself of that which he did weare within them ; he drew out of his breeches a pair of sheets, two table-cloaths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glasse, a combe, and night-caps, with other things of use, saying, Your lordship may understand that because I have no safer a storehouse, these pockets do serve for a roomefor to lay my goods in ; and though it be a straight prison, yet it is a storehouse big enough for them, for I have many things more yet of value within them. And so his discharge was accepted and well laughed at."

" Thy bodies bolstered out,

With bumbast and with bagges, Thy roales, thy ruffs, thy cauls, thy coifes Thy jerkins and thy jagges." George Gascoigne : The Story of Ferdinando Jeronimi, 1589.

BONE-LACE. From bone and lace; the bobbins with which lace is woven frequently being made of bones. Flaxen lace, such as women wear on their linen. Johnson. Bone-lace or bone- worked lace is lace worked, made, or manufactured upon bones. Richardson. Lace worked on bobbins or bones. Halliwell.

Fuller in his Worthies of England, 1662, says that much bone-lace " is made in and about Honytoun, and weekly returned to London. . . . Modern is the use thereof in England and not exceeding the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Let it not be condemned for a superfluous wearing because it doth neither hide, nor heat, seeing it doth adorn. Besides, though private persons pay for it, it stands the state in nothing ; not expensive of bullion like other lace, costing nothing save a little thread, descanted on by art and industry. Hereby many chil- dren who otherwise would be burthensome to the parish prove beneficial to their parents. Yea, many lame in their limbs and impotent in

* Quoted by Fairbolt.

BON ( 29 ) BON

their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelihood thereby ; not to say that it saveth some thousands of pounds yearly formerly sent over seas to fetch lace from Flanders."

Every respect must be paid to chroniclers who spake of what they knew, but on the same score the date of the introduction of bone-lace, or bone-work, as it was styled in Elizabeth's time, may be assigned to an earlier period than the middle of her reign, since Stow (1525-1605) says that Sir Thomas Wyat, who departed this life in 1541, on one occa- sion had on ' ' a shirt of maile, and on his head a faire hat of velvet, with broad bone-worke lace about it." The making of bone-lace was estab- lished in Honiton even earlier than Fuller's time, for Westcote, who wrote about 1620, says of "Honitoun," "Here is made abundance of bone- lace, a pretty toy now greatly in request." In 1626 we are told that Sir Henry Borlase founded and endowed the free school at Great Marlow, for 24 boys to read, write, and cast accounts, and for 24 girls to knit, spin, and make bone-lace. This, besides proving that there was in those days no question as to where woman's " sphere " was to be found, shows that this manufacture was widely known ; of which another proof is afforded by the purchase, in 1612, of "four yardes of bone-lace for my Ladie (William Howard) " at a cost of 5s. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 1601, mention is made of

" The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their threads with bones."

and in the City Match of Jasper Mayne, 1639,

" You taught her to make shirts and bone lace."

The question has arisen as to what sort of bones were used in the production of this lace. Fuller explains that sheep's trotters were used for bobbins, and that thus the name came into use ; but Mrs. Bury Palliser, in her valuable History of Lace, says that the Devon- shire lace-makers, " deriving their knowledge from tradition, declare that when lace-making was first introduced into their country, pins, so indis- pensable to their art, being then sold at a price far beyond their means, the lace-makers, mostly the wives of fishermen living along the coast, adopted the bones of fish, which, pared and cut into regular lengths fully answered as a substitute." This view is substantiated by another entry, in Lord Howard's Household Boohs, of 2s. 8d. being paid for " herring-bone lace for my ladie's gown."

The import of foreign bone-lace was prohibited in the reign of Charles II., a restriction not repealed till the time of William III. In 1851 a patriotic effort was made to stimulate home manufactures. The Gentle- mail's Magazine for that year records that Lord Carpenter, grand president, held a quarterly committee of the several Associations of Antigallicans, when it was agreed to give a premium of ten guineas for the best piece of English bone- lace proper for men's ruffles, and five guineas for the second best ; also a premium of ten guineas to the drawer of the best pattern for brocade weaving, and five guineas for the second best, both which premiums are to be determined in their next quarterly committee.

" The things you follow, and make songs on now should be sent to knit, or sit down to bobbins or bone-lace." Tatler. " We destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly contrive to call

BON ( 30 ) BON

off the eye from great and real beauties to childish gewgaws, ribbands, and bone-lace." Spectator, No. 99.

BONGrRA.CE. A sort of front, standing erect round the face, attached to the hood which was once the ordinary wear of both sexes? One " bon- grace and a mufier of black velvet " are left in the will of Mistress Jane Fullthropp, of Hipswell, in 1566. John Heywood, in his Mery play between the Pardoner and Frere, 1533, says :

" Here is of our lady a relic fall good, Her bongrace which she wore with her French hood ; "

and in his Proverbs, newlie and pleasantlie contrived, 1546,

" For a boon-grace, Some well-favoured visor on her ill-favored face." Fitzgeffery in his Satyres, 1617, asks,

" Tell me precisely what availes it weare, A bongrace bonnet, eye-brow, shorter hair."

BONNET. Originally applied to the flat caps worn by men in the time of the Tudors, in which sense the word is still current in Scotland. Its literal signification is top-dress or head-dress, from the Gaelic bonaid- beaun, the top, eide, dress. Bonnets, such as women now wear, have only been known during the present century. A curious letter is printed in Ellis's Original Letters, sent by Edward IV. when Earl of March, and his brother, the Earl of Rutland, to their father, in which they thank his " noblesse and good fadurhood " for the green gowns he had sent them, and then ask him that they may have "summe fyne bonetts sente on to us by the next seure messengere, for necessite so requireth." Strutt shows bonnets to have been worn by women as well as by men. They were usually made of cloth, sometimes richly trimmed with feathers, jewels, and ornaments of gold. In 1480 the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV. contain entries of " Bonetts " from 2s. 6d. to 3s. "every pece." The following items appear under date 1503 in the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, consort of Henry VII. :

" Item, to Maistres Lokke, silkewoman, in partie of payement of a bill signed with hande of the Quenes grace, conteyning the somme of lxa yj' vd to hur due for certain frontlettes, bonettes, and other stuf of hure occupacion by hure delivered to the Quenes use as it appereth by the said Bill, xxH.

" Item, for a bonette, xvid.

"Item, payed for a bonnet for the yong Lord Henry Courtney, xxd."

"Bonetts " appear pretty frequently in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., from which the following items are given :

" January, 1530. Certain bonetts for the king's grace and otherwise at his commandement.

"July, 1530. Paid to Xpofer, mylloner, forbonnetts for the king's grace and the boys of his pryvat chambre, as apperithby his bill, lij»iiijd.

" December, 1530. Item, paied to Xpofer, mylloner, for divers bonetts as well as Eyding bonnetts as other, trymmed and untryinmed, vu xj» ijd."

A sumptuary law of this period enacted that " if any temporal person of full age, whose wife not being divorced, nor willingly absenting her- self from him, doth wear .... any French hood or bonet of velvet, with any habiliment, paste, or edge of gold, pearl, or stone .... shall

BOH ( 31 ) BBI

lose £10 for every three months " during which the law was dis- obeyed. Shortly after hats came in, and this shape became the pro- perty and distinguishing mark of apprentices and citizens.

BORATTO. Described as derived from the Belgic borat, ' ' a certain light stuff of silk and fine wool." Sewell. A similar stuff to Bom- bazine, or merely another name for some quality of that material. A charter of King Charles I., granted to the City, 1640, permitted a rate on import of 2s. to be levied on " Boratto's, narrow, the single piece, qt. 15 yards," and 3s. on "Bombassins, broad, the single piece, qt. 15 yards," and in the Booh of Rates of Charles II., Bombazines or Bora- toes, broad, the single piece, not above 15 yards," are valued at £7 the piece. They had been long previously worn, for in the stock of James Backhouse, of Kirbye in Lonsdaile, are the following relative items :

" ix yards of borato at ijs vjd a yard, xxij yards \ boratons, £3 15s.

Sylke borato, vip vjd the yard."

BORSLEYS. A stuff made of combing wool, included among others of that description in Observations on Wool and the Woollen Manufac- ture, 1739.

BOUFFON. An extravagant neckerchief of fine linen worn by ladies in 1780, causing them to resemble pouter pigeons. It was accompanied by a corresponding excrescence at the back below the waist. The word is derived from the Fr. bouffir, to puff or swell.

BOULTING CLOTH. A thin woollen, but more recently linen, stuff, through which flour was sifted after being ground. Bolter, a sieve.

" He now had boulted all the floure." Spensek, Faerie Queene.

BRACES. {Bretetles, Fr. ; Hosentrager, Ger.) Too well known to need description. Formerly called Gallowses, under which Bailey gives " Contrivances made of cloth and hooks and eyes, worn over their shoulders by men to keep their breeches up," showing perfectly the manner of things they were before the introduction of india-rubber, and its manufacture into fibre, gave us the improved article now commonly worn.

BRAID. A woven string, cord, or other texture, not properly solely applicable to the fillet or binding which the name now represents (A.-S. bredan, bregdan; Ice. bregda ; Dan. bragde, to weave.)

Once used in the sense of deceitful, as the clown in the Winter's Tale asks the pedlar if he has any " unbraided " wares. Upbraid is literally to weave a reproach .

BRANDEUM. Planche says this was a costly manufacture of silk or cloth. Fairholt that it was probably of silk, with which Ducange concurs. Used in palls, mitres, girdles, &c.

BRIDGEWATER. A kind of cloth which took its name from the town where it was originally manufactured. Mentioned in an Act of 1553, 6 Edward IV., and again in the charter granted to the City by Charles I., 1640.

BRO ( 32 ) BRQ

BROCADE. A fabric with a pattern of raised figures (It. broccato ; Fr. brocart, from It. broccare ; Fr. brocher, to prick, to emboss ; pro- bably from Celtic brog, an awl [Donald]; Ger. brokat j Da., Sw. brokade; Du. brocade ; Sp., Port, broccado).

It is supposed that this manufacture first came from China. We are frequently told that the word brocade was first only applied to stuff's of gold or silver threads, or of both in combination, but all mention occurring of brocades in early accounts is of cloths broched or em- broidered upon coloured grounds. Thus in the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV. we have "blue clothe of silver broched uppon satyn ground," and " clothe of golde broched uppon satyn ground," both cost- ing 24s. the yard. Hall describes a cloak worn by Henry VIII. at his meeting with Francis I. of France in the Vale of Ardres as being made of ' ' broched satin with gold and purple colours, wrapped about his body traverse." Strutt describes it as composed of silk interwoven with threads of gold and silver, and Du Cange cites an old inventory which includes a clerical vestment which was brocaded with gold upon a red ground, and enriched with the representations of Hons and other animals. Fairholt considers brocade to have been exceedingly rare on the Continent even in the fourteenth century, and that it was probably not known at all in England as early as the thirteenth. "White and gold brocade" at £2 3s. 6d. the yard and " colure-du-prince brocade" at £2 3s. the yard are mentioned in an inventory of the wardrobe of Charles II., taken in 1679. That the word afterwards came to be applied particularly to metallic tissues there can be no doubt. The threads of which it was then composed were of silk dyed as near to the colour of the metal employed as possible, round which flattened wires were woven, the particular merit being so to pro- duce this that the fabric when finished should show an unbroken sur- face of bullion. The manufacture of these threads, and of imitations of them, is thus particularly described by Mr. Porter in his work on the Silk Manufacture (included in Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia). " At the time when the weaving of these golden tissues was encouraged by public taste, the manufacture of the threads whence they were produced had arrived at a high degree of excellence. At Milan there was a con- siderable manufactory, in which, by a secret process, flatted wire was made, having only one side covered with gilding. Threads of an inferior description were also made, chiefly at Nuremberg, by spinning gilt copper wire either upon threads of flax or hemp ; and the Chinese, still more economical, used slips of gilt paper, which they twisted upon silk, and sometimes even introduced into their stuffs without thus giving to the paper any fibrous support. But these productions could have boasted at best only an evanescent beauty ; and, accordingly, we learn from Du Halde, the historian of China, that golden tissues were rarely used in that country except for tapestries or other ornamental substances which were but little exposed to view, and could be effectually protected from moisture."

By degrees silk was introduced into this manufacture as a ground for ornaments of gold or silver threads, for which the name of brocade was still retained, and, again, silk was afterwards wholly employed, so that the name came to apply to any material having a raised pattern. These silken brocades are those alluded to by writers of the last century :

BRO ( 33 ) BTJC

" Or stain her honour or her new brocade." Pope : Rape of the Lock. " A brocade waistcoat or petticoat, are standing topics of conversation." Spectator.

And were at that time very much worn, at which time it was in part a home manufacture. It is said to be one among the many fabrics intro- duced here by the refugees who fled from France on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The last brocades woven in this country are believed to have been some very elegant pieces woven at Spitaltields, to be used in the upholstering of some chairs for Carlton House, when occupied by George IV.

BROCATEL, or Brocadel. A coarse brocade, chiefly used for tapestry. Uncyclopcedia Brittanica, 1842.

BROELLA. A coarse cloth in common wear in mediaeval times.

BUCK, or Bowk, to soak or steep in lye, a process in bleaching ; lye in which clothes are bleached (Ger. beuchen, buchen ; Dan. bygo ; Gael, bog, to steep) ; also given from the Ger. biiche, the beech, because lye was made of the ashes of the beech. Donald.

" Falstaff. They conveyed me in a buck-basket : rammed me in with foul sheets and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins ; that, master Brook, there wa£ the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril." Merry Wives of Windsor.

BUCKLES (Fr. boucle, Ger. schnalle) were first generally worn in the reign of Charles II.

(" This day I began to put on buckles to my shoes." Pepys: Diary, Jan. 22, 1659-60),

and soon became fashionable. They were then made of very expensive materials. Buckles for shoes are mentioned much earlier than this, and are forbidden to be imported by an Act of 1483 ; but at that early date were only attached to little straps to keep the shoe on the foot. Others of a very elaborate kind were used by knights for their sword belts. The fashion of wearing buckles reached its height in the reign of Georgft II., during which period they were frequently made of silver or set with diamonds. In Monsieur A-la-Mode, a sarcastic poem of 1753, the eaumeration of the articles which went to make a beau include buckles like diamonds, which must glitter and shine :

" Should they cost fifty pounds they would not be too fine."

They, and buttons, were shortly after worn of such size as to occasion the issue of a caricature, entitled " Buckles and Buttons, or I'm the thing, deme ! " but in 1791 they suddenly went out of fashion, occasioning much distress amongst the buckle makers, who tried in vain to Btem the tide of favour in which shoe-strings were held, by means of a petition. This change of fashion followed upon George III. going to St. Paul's, to return thanks for recovery from "a severe illness " in strings, whereupon buckles went down, and Walsall was nearly ruined. The intervention of the Prince of Wales was solicited by the manufacturers, and obtained, but in this instance even Royalty failed in attempting to affect fashion.

BXJC ( 34 ) BTJF

BUCKRAM, (Fr. bougran ; Ger. schettre, steife lemwand ; It. bucherame, tela collata o gommata; Russ. hleanka ; Sp. bucaran.) The word is given by etymologists from buca, a hole, from the fabric being woven loosely and open, and afterwards gummed, calendered, and dyed. But it is also said to have taken its title from the place of its original manufacture, Bokhara, or Boukhara, in Tartary. Planche indeed traces the course of the manufacture westward, through Armenia and the Island of Cyprus in the 14th century, and later into Spain, but no authorities are quoted to verify the statement. Buck- ram was originally a very different material to that now known by the name. Strutt describes it as "a fine thin cloth," ranking with the richest silks. It was in use as early as 1327 for church vestments and furniture, a conclusive testimony to its costly character. At the same time, and for long subsequently, it was used for wearing apparel.

" Fdlstaff. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me." King Henry IV.

There can, however, be no doubt, that buckram of a common descrip- tion was early applied to a coarse lining.

In 1529 two yards of "buckeram to lyne the upper sieves of a night gowne" cost Is. (Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII.), and prior to that, in 1502, there is an entry of a yard of black buckram, 8d., in the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, and in September of the same year eight yards of buckram are charged 5d. a yard, " and for his costes riding for the same stuf from Berkeley to Bristowe by the space of ij dayes, xxd." These prices do not show a fine material, so that the character of buckram must have undergone a complete change even at that period, more so than it has done since, for in the Household Boohs of Lord William Howard, * ' a quarter of buckram for stifning " is charged 3d., with "a quarter of serge for stayes." This was in 1618, and four years later there is another entry in the same books of "a yard of buckram for Mrs. Mary," Is. In 1577 two pieces of "buckeron" are respectively valued at 8d. and lOd. a yard. " Buckromes of France " and " Buckromes of Germany" are mentioned in the charter granted to the City in 1640.

BUDGE. Lambskin with the fur dressed outwards ; formerly used to border the gowns of scholars, and still employed to trim the gowns of City liveries. "The dressed fur of lambs, a material no doubt supplied by the pastoral nations of Slavonic race, with whom it is still much in use" (Wedgwood). The trade of preparing these skins gave its name to Budge-roio, in the City : a street, says Stow, "so called of the Budge furre, and of skinners dwelling there."

BUFFINES.

"A coarse stuff used for the gowns of the middle classes of females in the time of James I., and during the earlier half of the 17th century." Planche. " Aland of coarse cloth." Halliwell. " Used for some coarse mate- rial; whether literally huff-leather or coarse stuff of that colour does not appear." Nares.

These conjectures can in some measure be cleared up. A MS. in the Lansdowne Collection in the British Museum (quoted by James) contains the following entry :

BUG ( 35 ) BT7Q

" Grograms, broad or narrow, called Buffines, poize (weight) 4 lbs. one with another."

They are there valued at £1 per piece. The date of this MS., 1592, shows the stuff to have been introduced prior to the reign of James I. In the Charter of Charles II. to the City, 1640, among stuffs on which a duty of scavage — a kind of toll or custom exacted formerly by mayors or municipal authorities from merchant strangers for the privilege of showing their wares, or offering them for sale within the liberties — could be levied, are included.

" Buffins, Liles, and Morcadoes, narrow, the single Piece of Fifteen yards. Buffins, Liles, Morcadoes, broad, the single Piece of Fifteen yards;"

and Buffines again were charged with a Paccage Bate outwards. In the Booh of Rates, 1675, buffins are valued at £4 5s. the piece, not above 15 yards.

" Do you wear your quoif with a London licket, your stamel petticoat with two guards, the buffin gown with the tuft-taffety cap, and the velvet lace. I must be a lady, and I will be a lady." Eastward Hoe, 1605.

11 My young ladies in buffin gowns and green aprons ! Tear them off." Mas- singer : City Madam, 1669.

BUGLE. This word is connected with bugle-horn, which is literally a buffleK or buffalo, an instrument made from buffalo horn. Bugle is properly applicable only to long black beads, but is the earliest term in use for beads. Bead properly signifies something bid or prayed, and comes from the A.-S. bead, gebed, a prayer — bidden, to bid, to pray (Donald) ; thus bead-roll was a list of persons to be prayed for, and beadsman one who prayed for others. In this sense beads compose rosaries, and derive some of their foreign equivalents : Fr. rosaires, Ger. rosenJcranze, Du. paternosters, It. cor one, Sp. coronas.

The manufacture of glass into beads is very ancient, but in Europe was first practised by the Venetians, from whom we derived our supply until the repeal of the duty on glass afforded an opportunity of the industry being successfully prosecuted here. The fashion of wearing them as ornaments began in the reign of Elizabeth, when they were profusely used in head-dresses. Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses, vigorously condemns the manner of wearing the hair then current, " which of force must be curled, frisled, and crisped, laid out in wreathes and borders from one ear to another," and "thus wreathed and crested, is hung with bugles ; I dare not say babies." Beads were also employed in other ways. Spenser, in the Shepheard's Calendar, makes Cuddie say,

" But Phyllis is mine for many dayes : I won her with a gyrdle of gelt, Embost with buegle about the belt."

Autolycus, in the Winter's Tale, enumerates —

11 Bugle-bracelet, necklace amber. Perfume for a lady's chamber."

The use of bugles continued in the following reign. In the Household Books of Lord William Howard, 1612-40, is an entry of 3s. 6d. for 1 ' 20,000 of white bugles, and 100 nedles xijd."

d 2

BUR ( 36 ) BUS

BUR. The prickly head of some plants, which adheres to clothes like a flock of wool, from which the word is derived (Fr. bourre, flocks of wool ; It. borra, any kind of stuffing ; low Latin, hurra, a flock of wool, Donald). The word burr, a peculiarity of speech, comes from the same source, and literally means to speak as if a flock of wool were in the throat.

BUREL. (See Birrus.) A coarse cloth of native manufacture. Henry III. exempted the citizens of London from all prosecutions on account of Burels or Listed Cloth not made according to a standard imposed by him a short while previous.

BURL. To pick the burrs or burls from the surface of woollen cloths.

" Soon the clothier's shears And burler's thistle skim the surface sheen." Dyer : TJie Fleece.

BURNET, Burnetta. As in the case of russet, it remains an open ques- tion whether a cloth of this distinctive title was ever in use, or whether the word was only used as an adjective denoting in this instance cloth of a brown colour. King John gives a warrant for making two robes for the queen, each of them to consist of five ells of cloth, one of them to be of green, and one of burnet. This would be strong evidence in favour of the latter view, which is again supported by a passage in Chaucer's Rommint of the Rose.

" A burnette coat hung there withal Y-furred with no miniveere ; But 'with a furre rough of hair Of lamb skynnes, hevy and black." BUSK.

"A sort of stick of whalebone, iron, wood, etc., worn formerly by women to keep down their stomachers, and stiffen their stays." Bailey. " Made of wood or wbalebone. A plaited or quDted thing to keep the body straight." Minsheu. " Fr. busque or buste. The long, small, or sharp-pointed and hard quilted belly of a doublet. Also a piece of steel to keep the dress of the body firm to- the shape." Richardsox.

The date of its introduction is generally settled by a reference to William Warner's Albion's England, a work first published in 1586 :

" But heard you named Till now of late, busks, perriwigs, Masks, plumes of feathers framed."

In the same work is another passage alluding to this article :

" Her face was masked, her locks were curl'd, Her body pent with buske, And, which was needless, she more sweet, Her raiment scented musk."

In common with stays, busks have at times been worn by effeminate men. Hall in his Satires, 159S, when dealing with dandies speaks of

those who

" Wear curl'd periwigs and chalk tkeir face, And still are poring on their pockct-^lass, Tir'd with pinn'd raft, and fans and partial strips, And busks and verdingales about their hips."

BUS ( 37 ) BUT

An entry in the Wardrobe Accounts of Edwdrd IV. is of a payment of 6d. for "washing of divers old peces of busk and of a paillet." Nicolas, in editing these accounts, thinks that busk was "a sort of linen cloth, and apparently of a coarse and common description, as it was used for pallets, lining of vallances, &c." But it by no means fol- lows that because it was used in bed furniture at that period that it was a paltry material. It is also thought by this eminent antiquarian that busk "appears to have been the article called bustian ; " but this is pure conjecture. Bustian is far more likely to have been a coarse kind of fustian, the more so from its use for pallets, as the use of fustian, not then considered common for bed furnishings, was frequent in the Middle Ages.* See Bustian.

BUSSIN. A linen cap or hood worn by old women, in the opinion of

Jamieson probably derived from Gr. bussus, fine linen.

BUSTIAN, in the Book of Rates, 1675, is valued at £2 the single piece, not above 15 yaids.

A stroDg presumption in favour of bustian having been a description of fustian is found in the fact that both are given in company in old inventories. For instance, in the stock of James Backhouse, of Kirby- in-Lonsdale, taken 20th September, 1578, the entries applicable stand

thus

And again,

" viij yeards and a quarter of bustion, 9s. 6d. vj yeards dim (a half) of wyrsytt, 8s. 8d. v yeards whit holmes fustian, 5s. 5d."

" Jeanes fustian xliii. yeards, 27s. xij £ yeards white holmes, 12s. 6d. Doble bustian, 2s. 4d. per yard." BUTTON.

" The noun is applied to — The bud of a plant, that which is thrust forth from the stem or shoot ; to anything placed upon something else, and projecting or protruding from it, as a coat button, a door button, by which the door or coat is fastened or closed. Richardson. (Fr. bouton, from bouter, to push ; Gael. putan, a button — put, to push. Donald. Welsh, bottom ; G-er. Tcnopfe ; It. bottoni ; Sp. botones ; Port, botons.) In England pimples were formerly called pushes, and small mushrooms are known as buttons."

Buttons first began to be worn in the time of Edward I. In a MS. poem quoted in Knight's History of British Costume, said to be cer- tainly not of later date than 1390, mention is made of this fashion :

" His robe was all of gold beganne With chrislike maked I understande ; Botones azurd (azure) everilke ane (every one) From his elboth to his hande."

Upon the introduction of points and laces the use of buttons in the 15th century declined, but in the next century we find frequent mention of them. In a will dated 1573, the testator leaves " unto John Woodzyle my doublet of fruite canvas and my hose with fryze bryches ; also I give unto Strowde my frize jerkin with silke buttons ;

* The fifteenth-century document quoted as a note to Bay leaves no doubt that bustian at any rate was not made of linen.

BUT ( 38 ) BUT

also I give Symonde Bisshoppe, the smyth, my other frize jerkin with stone buttons.'' Gascoigne, in his Woodmanship, speaks of

" a bonet buttoned with gold His comelie cape begarded all with gay, His bumbast hose with linings manifold."

During this period we find in an inventory

" v grosse of sylke buttons, 8s. 3d. iiij sylke buttons, 20d. iiij grose of sylke buttons, 5s. 8d. Quick sylver and brase buttons, 6d. iij grose of sylke buttons, 4s. 6d. half grose of glasse buttons, 7d."

And the mention of ' ' button-mooles " denotes the manner in which the covered buttons were made.

In 1640 mention occurs of buttons manufactured of brass, steel, cop- per, latten, hair, silk, and Hired, about which time their importation from abroad was forbidden, a prohibition which continued in force until the reign of George IV. Buttons, however, continued to be generally worn. An effort to supersede them is thus noticed in the 175th Spec- tator : "At the same time we have a set of gentlemen who take the liberty to appear in all public places without any buttons on their coats, which they supply with little silver hasps, tho' our freshest advices from London make no mention of any such fashion." George III. amused himself with a turning lathe, and when it became known, in 1770, that the Royal mechanic had succeeded in producing a button he was caricatured in a production called The Button Maker's Jest Book. Hutton, in his History of Birmingham, published about this time, gives a good account of their varieties. "This beautiful ornament appears with infinite variation ; and though the original date is rather uncer- tain, yet we well remember the long coats of our grandfathers ornamented with a horn button nearly the size of a crown piece, a watch, or John apple, curiously wrought, as having passed through the Birmingham press. Though the common round button keeps in with the steady pace of the day, yet we sometimes see the oval, the square, the pea, and the pyramid flash into existence. In some branches of traffic the wearer calls loudly for new fashions ; but in this the fashions tread upon each other and crowd upon the wearer. The consumption of this article is astonishing, and the value from 3d. a gross to 140 guineas. There seem to be hidden treasures couched within this magic circle known only to a few, who extract prodigious fortunes out of this useful toy, whilst a far greater number submit to the statute of bankruptcy.'* The addition to this account of Fairholt's reminiscences will afford a very complete view of the varieties in which this little article has at different times appeared. "Buttons were made sometimes like a picture, the back of the button being dark, upon which, in various degrees of relief, were placed, in ivory or bone, trees, figures, and flowers ; some I have seen an inch and three-quarters across. Others were arranged in elegant patterns in white metal upon a gilt ground, and an immense variety of most tasteful form may still be seen on old Court suits. Sometimes they were made of mother-of-pearl or ivory cut into forms on the surface or edges by the workman, the centres being em-

BYS ( 39 ) BYS

bellished with patterns in gilt metal. Double buttons for the cloak may be seen in Brayley's Graphic Illustrator. Sleeve-buttons and shirt- buttons of similar construction, and of many fanciful forms, were also manufactured. The heads of military heroes were placed on them, as "William Duke of Brunswick, the Duke of Cumberland, &c. The button of the Blue- coat boys has the bust of Edward VI. ; and indeed it may be said that the livery button of the present day assumes the place of the badge of the middle ages ; and thus, as Crof ton Croker felicitously observes, ' buttons are the medals of heraldry.' "

In the reign of George I. an effort was made to foster the manufacture of metal buttons by providing (4 Geo. I., c. 7) that no person shall make, sell, or set upon any clothes or wearing garments whatsoever, any buttons made of cloth, serge, drugget, frieze, camblet, or any other stuff of which clothes or wearing garments are made, or any buttons made of wood only and turned in imitation of other buttons, on pain of forfeit- ing 40s. per dozen for all such buttons. This was supplemented three years later by provisions that

" No tailor shall set on any buttons or button-holes of serge, drugget, &c, under penalty of 40s. for every dozen of buttons or button-holes so made or set on. No person shall use or wear on any clothes, garments, or apparel whatso- ever, except velvet, any buttons or button-holes made of or bound with cloth, &c, on penalty of forfeiting 40s. per dozen."

BYSSINE. Three mantles of byssine lined with fur were ordered by King John for his queen in 1201.

BYSSUS. The beard of the Pinna, or wing shell, a bivalve found in great numbers on the coast of Sicily, and known as the silkworm or caterpillar of the sea, from its power of spinning at will the delicate silky filaments which it puts forth to maintain ifself in favourable positions. These filament?, after being washed, are spun in the ordinary manner, and made into various articles of apparel, such as caps, gloves, hand- kerchiefs, stockings, &c. This manufacture was well known to the ancients, and is mentioned by Pliny and Aristotle. It continues very limited from the small quantity obtained from each shell — barely half a drachm — and the cost of the articles is necessarily great, stockings fetching about eleven shillings and gloves six shillings per pair ; but in some respects these goods are said to be preferable to silk. Their colour is brilliant, and ranges from a beautiful golden yellow to a rich brown j they are also very durable, imperfect conductors of heat, and have been recommended for rheumatic affections. They are, indeed, too warm for ordinary wear, although the fabric is so thin that a pair of stockings may be put in an ordinary-sized snuff-box. Specimens of the manufacture were shown in the Exhibitions of 1851 and 1878.

The use of this term by ancient writers, as indicating some sort of textile, has afforded a fruitful theme for much fruitless discussion. Learned men wrote treatises upon they knew not what ; other learned men naturally held contrary views, which they expounded at length. These voluminous arguments upon an unknown quantity were finally and conclusively stopped by the result of a microscopical investigation of mummy cloths ; these again could be taken as a test by reason of it having been clearly stated that mummies were enwrapped in byssus. The paper which embodied this discovery was read before the Royal

CAD ( 40 ) CAF

Society, and can be found by the anxious inquirer in an appendix to the History of the Cotton Manvfacture of Baines, but the general reader may take it for granted that the result was too decisive to be doubted. The summary with which the historian of cotton introduces the subject may, however, be reproduced here with advantage :

11 There is a passage in Herodotus which has been understood as showing that the Egyptians manufactured cotton, and used cotton cloth as wrappings for their mummies. In his description of the mode of embalming (book ii. c. 86) that author says, the body was closely wrapped in bandages of cloth, the quality of which he indicates by the words sindonos bussines. These words are rendered by the translators (Larcher and Beloe) " cotton; " several other writers have given the same meaning to bussos, or byssus; yet the meaning of this word is, at best, very doubtful. Isidore (Orig. 1. xix. c. 27) says distinctly that it was an exceedingly white and soft kind of flax. Julius Pollux (lib. vii. 12) says that it denotes the finest flax, cotton, and the silky beard of the pinna marina. Pausanias states (In Eliacis 1. 1) that byssus grew in Egypt, Judea, India, and Elis; which is true of flax, but cotton certainly did not at that time grow in any part of Greece. There has been much controversy on this word, and it has even been doubted whether byssus belonged to the vegetable, animal, or mineral kingdom. In all probability Herodotus, by sindonos bussines, meant linen made of a fine and peculiar kind of flax, or a cloth of delicate texture, without reference to the material of which it was made. That bussos meant cotton is rendered highly improbable by the fact that no mummy cover- ings have yet been found which are made of this material, but all of linen.

" I had intended to discuss this question more at length, but am spared that labour by the successful investigations of Mr. Thomson, of Clitheroe, who has lately set at rest this vexata questio, by a discovery which reduces a great deal of the learning that has been expended upon it to the character of old lumber. The difficulty of ascertaining whether the mummy cloths (of which the speci- mens are exceedingly numerous) were made of linen or cotton has at length been overcome ; and though no chemical test could be found out to settle the question, it has been decided by that important aid to scientific scrutiny, the microscope."

CADDIS, Caddas. " Caddas or cruel ribbons, the Dozen Pieces of 26 yards each." Charter of Charles I., 1640. " Caddas or cruel ribbon." Book of Rates, 1675. "Caddas or cruel sayette." Palsgrave, 1530. Doubtless a kind of yarn used, like "cruel" or crewel, for embroidery, or in making narrow fancy fabrics. The sumptuary law of the third year of Edward IV. states that the king "hath ordained and stablished that no yeoman, nor none other person under the same degree from the said Feast of S. Peter, called ad vincula, which shall be in the year of our Lord MCCCCLXV., shall use nor wear in array for his body, any bolsters nor stuffing of wool, cotton, nor cadas, nor any other stuffing in his doublet, but only lining, according to the same, upon pain to forfeit to the king's use for every such default 6s. 8d." This "cadas " obviously must have been some kind of flock, and some writers have taken caddis simply to denote cotton. Both renderings are reconcile- able, if we can take "caddas or crull " to have been spun from the yarn which was at one time used for stuffing.

CAFFA. A rich mediaeval stuff, probably of silk. In the Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VIII. there is a payment on the 18th of May, 15,31, of £6 7s. Od. to " hugh Naylinghurst, for xviij yardes and one quarter of white caffa for the Kingea grace." And in the Privy Purse Expenses of

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the Princess Mary, his daughter, " a yerde of crimsen caffa " is charged 12s. It is conjectured by Madden, the editor of these latter accounts, that it was only a distinctive material by reason of some peculiar preparation in the loom, because an inventory of silks and velvets taken at this period {Cotton MS.) makes mention of white, black, and russet caffa damask, and crimson caffa diaper. In Caven- dish's Negotiations of Thomas Woolsey (pub. 1641) is a description of a gallery, where "there was set divers tables, whereupon a great number of rich stuffs of silk in whole pieces of all colours, as velvet, satin, damask, caffa, taffeta, grograine, sarcenet, and of others not in my remembrance." The weaving of Caffa and weaving of darnick are tableaux in a pageant provided for the reception of Queen Elizabeth in 1579.

CALASH (Fr. caleche; It. calesso, wheel), a light carriage with a moveable hood, in imitation of which a hood was worn (first in 1765) by ladies attached to their bonnets, having a string fastened to the hoops of whalebone, of which it was made, so that it could be pulled forward over the face at pleasure. It can still be seen worn by bathing-women at watering places.

This had been preceded ten years before by another adaptation of vehicles to fashion. Horace Walpole writes in 1755: All "we hear from France is that a new madness reigns there. This is the fureur des cabriolets, Anglice, one-horse chairs ; they not only universally go in them, but wear them ; that is, everything is to be en cabriolet ; the men paint them on their waistcoats, and have them embroidered for clocks to their stockings ; and the women, who have gone all the winter with- out anything on their heads, are now muffled up in great caps with round sides in the form of and scarcely less than the wheels of chaises." The fashion, which quickly was imported into England, was carried here to extravagant lengths, so that the wear of cabriolets was actually improved into fashions known as post-cliaises, chairs and chairmen, and broad-wheeled waggons.

CALENDERING. The process by which stuffs of various kinds are subjected to great pressure between rollers to make them smooth and finished. Chambers in his Cyclopaedia, 1741, states :

" The word is formed from the French calandre, or Spanish callandra, which signify the same; and which some derive further from the Latin cylindrus ; in regard the whole effect of the machine depends upon a cylinder. Borel derives the name from that of a little hird of the swallow kind ; in regard to the agreement between the feathers of the hird and the impression of the machine (when used for watering)."

The accepted modern origin of the word is through cylinder, from the Gr. kylindros — kylindb, to roll.

CALICO. (Fr. coton, toile de colon; Ger. kattun ; It. tela bambagina, tela di pinta ; Sp. tela de algodon ; Da. kattun; Du. katzen ; Sw. cattun.)

Authorities agree in ascribing the name of this material from Calicut, a city on the coast of Malabar, discovered by the Portuguese in 1498, from whence it was first imported. Anderson gives the date of its being originally brought here by the East India Company as 1631, which may be true as far as that Company is concerned ; but if, as we

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are led to suppose, the Company are to have the credit of first bringing it into the country, that is quite another thing. An inventory of 1578 contains the following items :

" iiij yards of Callaga, 6s. 4d. xij yards of Callaca, 12s."

In 1633 "15 yeards of purple callico " cost 22s. 6d. in Lord William Howard's Household Book ; and earlier entries of calico charged from 4d. to 6d. a yard can be found in the same accounts. Further, a rare tract published in 1621, entitled, A Discourse of Trade from England unto the East Indies "as touching the trade of callicoes of many sorts, into which the English lately made an entrance," says that,

u Although it cannot bee truly sayd that this commodity is profitable for the state of Christendome in generall (in respect they are the manufacture of In- fidells, and in great part the "wear of Christians), yet nevertheless this commo- ditie likewise is of singular vse, for this commonwealth in particular ; not only therewith to increase the trade into forraine parts ; but also thereby greatly to abate the excessive prices of Cambricks, Holland, and other sorts of Linen- cloath, -which daily are brought into this Kingdonie, for a very great summe of money."

A play of Dekker's, published in 1630, makes a haberdasher's apprentice named George, "a notable voluble-ton gued villain " thus push the trade : "I can fit you, gentlemeD, with fine calicoes, too, for your doublets ; the only sweet fashion now, most delicate and courtly, a meek gentle calico, cut upon two double affable taffetas. Ah ! most neat, feat, and unmatchable." Again, the first mention of any import or manufac- ture of cotton in England is commonly stated to be found in a tract entitled the Treasure of Traffike, 1641 ; but another pamphlet, published three years previous, by the same author, styled the Merchant 's Map of Commerce, makes mention of trade with India in the " late great traffic," and states that there is brought back from there "nutmegs, cottons, rice, callicoes of sundry sorts," with a long catalogue of other products of the country. The trade must have been very profitable. Sir Josiah Child, in his New Discourses of Trade, 1668, states that in his time our exports to India had been more than trebled, and he is particular in mentioning calicoes as being advantageous to trade. The Company, he states, then employed from thirty-five to forty sail of the most warlike mercantile ships of the kingdom, with from sixty to a hundred men on each ; and besides supplying the country with saltpetre, pepper, indigo, calicoes, and several useful drugs, to the value of between £150,000 and £1S0,000 yearly for home consumption, procured us calicoes, printed stuffs, and other merchandise for our trade. Turkey, France, Spain, Italy, and Guinea, most of which trades according to this author could not then be carried on with any considerable advantage but for those supplies (Craik). The authorship of another publication of 1677, entitled, The East India Trade a most profitable Trade to this Kingdom, is attributed to Sir Josiah Child. In this the average annual import of calicoes is put at £160,000, " which serve instead of the like quantity of French, Dutch, and Flemish linen, which would cost us thrice as much ; hereby £200,000 or £300,000 is yearly saved to the nation. And if the linen manufacture were settled in Ireland, so as to supply England, our calicoes might be transported to foreign markets." If these writers,

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dealing with figures which are but as a drop in a bucket when com- pared with the present production of calicos, could only be shown round a few factories in Lancashire ! If they could be given a survey of our cotton trade and be told that it is the growth of only a little over a century ! Indeed, more recent writers would be as greatly astounded. An estimate on which every dependence can be placed puts the value of all the manufactures of cotton in the kingdom in 1766 at £600,000 per annum.

All early calicoes had wefts only of cotton, the warps being composed of linen yarn imported for the purpose. Thus it comes that we find calico appearing as Callicoe-Lawn among the linens in a Charter of 1640, and from this arose a dispute between the E. I. Company and the farmer of the import duties, as related by Pepys in his Diary, February 27, 166f : "Sir Martin Noell told us the dispute between him, as farmer of the additional duty and the East India Company, whether callico be linnen or no, which he says it is, having been ever esteemed so. They say it is made of cotton-woole, and grows upon trees, not like flax or hemp ; but it was carried against the Company, though they stand out against the verdict. " These calicoes of linen and cotton continued in use until 1773. Prior to that time the consumption of the fabric had materially increased, so that the weavers had great difficulty in procur- ing sufficient weft for their work. About 1760 the Manchester mer- chants established a system of appointing agents in various centres who supplied the workmen around them with foreign or Irish linen yarn for warps, and raw cotton to be spun or carded by the members of the weaver's family ready for use. But the demand still increased, and though additional spinners were employed the weavers again found themselves hampered for want of weft, so that "it was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three or four miles in the morning and call on four or five spinners before he could collect weft to serve him for the remainder of the day."

These difficulties were obviated by the successive inventions of the spinning jenny in 1767 by James Hargreaves, a Blackburn carpenter, and of the spinning frame in 1769 by " Richard Arkwright, of Not- tingham, clockmaker," as the patent specifies. Still the yarns produced by these wonderful inventions were only partially successful. That of Hargreaves lacked the firmness and consistency necessary for warp- threads, and was only available for wefts, while that of Arkwright was too coarse for any but ordinary fabrics. This need for fine yarns led Samuel Crompton, a son of a small farmer and manufacturer, living in the neighbourhood of Bolton, to produce his spinning mule, so called from its combining the inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright, about 1775, by which yarns of any degree of fineness could be pro- duced. (See Cotton Spinning.) But to Arkwright belongs the credit of having first produced, in 1773, a calico entirely of cotton, at the suggestion of Mr. Strutt, who with Mr. Need, were at the time his partners in endeavouring to establish his invention. The first mill for the production of these stuffs was erected at Nottingham, to which place Arkwright had been driven with a double motive of avoiding the Lancashire mob, which had wrecked Hargreave's machines, and to seek pecuniary assistance in a centre where much cotton yarn was produced for hosiery. Horse-power was first applied, but proved too costly for

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profit, and subsequently water-power was derived from the Derwent at Belper. The introduction of these calicoes was only effected after a series of struggles. First the Lancashire calico weavers combined against them, from a short-sighted belief that hand spinning was more satisfactory, and with the idea that their trade would be destroyed. Arkwright has himself related the difficulties with which he had to con- tend. " It was not," he said, " till upwards of five years had elapsed after obtaining his first patent, and more than £12,000 had been expended in machinery and buildings, that any profit accrued to himself and partners." " The most excellent yarn or twist was produced ; not- withstanding which the proprietors found great difficulty to introduce it into public use. A very heavy and valuable stock, in consequence of these difficulties, lay upon their hands : inconveniences and disadvan- tages of no small consideration followed. Whatever were the motives which induced the rejection of it, they were thereby necessarily driven to attempt by their own strength and ability the manufacture of the yarn . Their first trial was in weaving it into stockings, which suc- ceeded, and soon established the manufacture of calicoes, which pro- mises to be one of the first manufactures in this kingdom. Another still more formidable difficulty arose ; the orders for goods which they had received, being considerable, were unexpectedly countermanded, the officers of excise refusing to let them pass at the usual duty of 3d. per yard, insisting on the additional duty of 3d. per yard, as being calicoes, though manufactured in England: besides, these calicoes, when printed, were prohibited. By this unforeseen obstruction a very considerable and very valuable stock of calicoes accumulated. An application to the Commissioners of Excise was attended with no success ; the proprietors, therefore, had no resource but to ask relief of the Legislature ; which, after much money expended, and against a strong opposition of tlie manu- facturers in Lancashire, they obtained. "

It became necessary to appeal to Parliament for a declaratory Act, enabling the authorities to recognize these as home products, which was granted in 1774, declaring the new industry to "be a lawful and laud- able manufacture." This Act (14 George III.), as being the first legis- lative recognition of an exclusively cotton fabric, is so important that it will be here proper, as Mr. Baines found, to extract the preamble and principal clauses :

11 An Act for ascertaining the duty on printed, painted, stained, or dyed stuffs, wholly made of cotton, and manufactured in Great Britain, and for allow- ing the use and wear thereof, under certain regulations. "I. Whereas a new manufacture of stuffs, wholly made of raw cotton wool (chiefly imported from the British plantations), hath been lately set up within this kingdom, in which manufacture many hundreds of poor persons are em- ployed ; and whereas the use and wear of printed, painted, stained or dyed stuffs, wholly made of Cotton, and manufactured in Great Britain, ought to be allowed under proper regulations ; and whereas doubts have arisen whether the said new manufactured stuffs ought to be considered as Callicoes, and as such, if printed, painted, stained, or dyed with any colour or colours (such as shall be dyed throughout of one colour only excepted) liable to the inland or exdM duties laid on Callicoes when printed, painted, stained, or dyed with any colour or colours (except as aforesaid) by the statutes made and now in force, concerning the same : whether the wearing or use of the said new manufac- tured stuffs when the same are printed, painted, staiued, or dyed, are not

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prohibited by an Act passed in the Seventh Year of the Keign of his late Majesty, King George the First, intitutled, An Act to preserve and encourage the Woollen and Silk Manufactures of this Kingdom, and for more effectually employing the Poor, by prohibiting the use and wear of all printed, painted, stained, or dyed Callicoes in Apparel, Household Stuff, Furniture, or otherwise, after the Twenty-fifth day of December One Thousand Seven Hundred and Twenty-two (except as therein is excepted) : For obviating all such doubts for the future, may it please your most excellent Majesty that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that no greater or higher duty than three pence for every yard in length reckoning yard wide, and after that rate for a greater or lesser quantity, shall be imposed, raised, levied, collected, or paid unto and for the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors, on the said new manufactured stuffs wholly made of cotton spun in Great Britain, when printed, stained, painted, or dyed with any colour or colours.

"II. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that it shall and may be lawful for any person or persons to use or wear, within the Kingdom of Great Britain, either as Apparel, Household Stuff, Furniture, or otherwise, any new manufactured stufi's wholly made of Cotton spun in Great Britain, when printed, stained, painted, or dyed with any colour or colours, any thing in the said recited Act of the Seventh Year of the Keign of His late Majesty King George the First, or any other Act or Acts of Parliament to the contrary hereof in any wise notwithstanding.

11 III. And to the end it may be known that such Stuffs were manufactured in Great Britain, be it further enacted, That in each piece of the said new manufactured stuffs, wholly made of Cotton Wool spun in Great Britain, there shall be wove in the warp in both selvages through the whole length thereof three blue Stripes, each Stripe of one thread only ; the first of which said Stripes shall be the first or outermost thread of the warp of each selvage ; the second of which said Stripes shall be the third thread ; and the third of which said Stripes shall be the fifth thread of the warp from each selvage ; and that each piece of the same stuffs, when printed, stained, painted, or dyed in Eng- land, Wales, or Berwick upon Tweed, be stamped at each end with a Stamp, to be provided for that purpose, by the Commissioners of Excise in England for the time being, or by the Officers employed or to be employed under them ; and instead of the Word Callico, which stands for foreign Callicoes, each piece may be marked with the words British Manufactory."

These conditions were also extended to Scotland. It was further pro- vided that persons exposing such stuffs for sale without the mark (unless for exportation) should forfeit the stuffs, and <£50 for every piece ; and persons importing such stuffs should be liable to lose the goods, and to forfeit £10 for each piece. The penalty of death was attached to the counterfeiting of the stamp, or the selling of the goods knowing them to have counterfeited stamps. (Baines : History of the Cotton Manufacture. )

The progress of the manufacture, both in extent and in improve- ments in production, has since that time been continuous, receiving a great stimulus when the result of actions tried in 1781 and 1785 set aside Arkwright's patent as invalid, in the first instance on the score of incomplete specification, and in the second on the whole question as to his right to be the original inventor of the spinning frame. The verdict still stands against him, and, in the opinion of most writers, the decision was correct. That a patent was taken out in 1738 which.

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practically anticipated his invention can be proved, and that Arkwright was aware of an effort having been made to practise cotton spinning by means of rollers he acknowledged, bat the credit still remains to him of establishing the process by which the greatest Industry in the kingdom attained its present magnitude.

CALICO, Printed. See Chintz : Prints.

CALIMANCO, Calmanco. (Du. kall^mink, kalinenk ; Fr. calmandet calmandre ; It. durante : Russ. kolomenka : Sp.calmaco; Sw. kalninak.) Mentioned in the play of Hidas, 1592, by John Lyly, as calamance. Johnson thinks the word may by some accident probably be derived from Lat. calamancus, which in the Middle Ages signified a hat. Richardson gives it as yet another stuff first made of camel's hair, but for this there is no foundation. It appears to have been a woollen material made plain, striped, checked, or figured, and glazed in finishing. At one time it was much used, particularly in the last century. In the Tatler, No. S5, it is said : "The habit of a draper, when he is at home is a light broad-cloth, with calamanco, or red waist- coat and breeches ; and 'tis remarkable that their wigs seldom hide the collars of their coats ; " and in the 96th number of the same periodical mention is made of a person " in bulk and stature larger than ordinary " who had on "a red coat, flung open to show a gay calamanco waistcoat." The stuff was made in the present century principally as a checked material, chequerei in the warp, so that the checks only appeared on one side. In the plain or striped varieties it was mainly used for skirting, and in upholstery.

CAMBRIC. (Ger. kammertach ; Du. kamerysdoek ; Fr. cambray batiste; It. cambraja ; Sp. cambrai ; Port, camhraia ; Russ. kamcrtug.)

Stow particularly states that cambrics "were first worn in England and accounted a great luxury in 15S0." This date for correctness might as well have its figures transposed and read 1S50, for in 157S, James Blackhouse, of Kirbye in Lonsdaile, had in stock M v elves iij quarters of canierycke " priced at 3'2s. The material must have been pretty well known throughout England when it reached a district so remote. But " honest John's " assertion can be even more conclusively confuted. On the 29th October, 1530, there appears in the Privy Purse Expenses of y VIII. an item, M paied to William Armerers wif for xxiij elles of cameryk for vj shirtes for the King at vjs. the elle." Sir Philip Sidney, in 1577-S, presented to Queen Elizabeth "a smock (chemise) of cameryke." Another gentleman, Sir Gawan Carew, gave her a like gar- ment" wrought with black work, and edged with bone-lace of gold." It may possibly have come into more general use at the date Stow gives, and mark the time when the great ruffs, at which Philip Stubbes is so very indignant, came to be commonly worn. Cambric was even thus early, if the satirist just named can be depended upon, so tine that the test thread was not so big as the smallest hair that is."

Bailey gives cambric from " Cambray, a city in the French Nether- lands, a large and well-built city, considerable for its linen manufactures, especially cambrics, which took their names from hence," an account of the origin of the fabric generally received as correct. An estimate made in 15SS computed the annual produce of that city at GO.OOO pieces. Evidence of its value in the 16th century is given above; in the

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Household Books of Lord William Howard, 1612-40, it is shown from 5s. 4d. to 12s. an ell, and to give again a representative price in the 18th century, the Custom House book of values for determining the duties to be levied in 1783 gave the average market value of cambrick at 6s. 8d. per yard.

The importation of cambrics was restricted in 1745, and again in 1748. These measures having proved ineffectual, a third was passed in 1759, enacting, For the more effectual preventing the fraudulent Importation of Cambrics and French Lawns :

1. That, from the first of August, 1759, none such shall be imported, unless they be packed in bales, cases, or boxes, covered with sackcloth or canvas, containing each 100 whole pieces ; otherwise to be forfeited.

2. Cambrics and French Lawns shall be imported for Exportation only, to be lodged in the King's Warehouses, and not to be delivered out but under the like security and restrictions as prohibited East India goods.

These shackles upon trade were increased by an Act passed in 1767, For effectually preventing the fraudulent importation, vending, and ■wearing of Cambricks and French Lawns, which provided, That no Cambrick or French Lawn should after the first day of July, 1767, be imported into any part of Great Britain, except into the Port of London only. Nor into the Port of London except in British ships, navigated according* to law ; nor without a licence under the hands of three or more of the Commissioners of his Majesty's Customs of England, which licence was to specify the quantity of such Cambricks or French Lawns, together with the marks of the packages and the name of the ship in which they were intended to be imported. Neglect of these requirements involved seizure of both ship and cargo. In 1786 these prohibitions were removed, but were afterwards again imposed. The following quotations not only give some particulars of the history of this material, but are intended, in common with other extracts adduced in this work, to illustrate the literature of our trade .

The application of the term to cotton fabrics, as is usual with French printed stuffs, is a palpable misnomer.

" Yon velvet, cambricke, silken-feathered toy."

Rowland : LooJce to it, or I'll stable ye ! 1604. " Come, I would your cambrick were sensible as your finger, That you might leave pricking it for pitie."

Shakespeare : Coriolanus (? 1607). " He hath ribbons of all the colours of the rainbow, inkles, caddas, cam- bricks, lawns." Id. : Winter's Tale, 1611.

" Rebecca had by the use of a looking-glass, and by the further use of cer- tain attire made of cambrick upon her head, attained to an evil art." Tatlcr, No. 110.

" H*re you might see the finest laces held up by the fairest hands, and these examined by the lustrous eyes of the buyers, delicate cambricks, muslins, and linens." Spectator, No. 552.

<; Guard well thy pocket, for these Syrens stand To aid the labours of the diving hand; Confederate in the cheat, they draw the throng, And cambric handkerchiefs reward the song."

Gay: Trivia, 1715.

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CAMELINE. A stuff mentioned by Chaucer in the Romaunt of the Rose.

" Anon dame Abstinence stremed Tooke on a robe of cameline."

An earlier passage relating to it —

" The clothe was ryche and ryght fyn,

The champe (field) it was of red camelyn " —

is quoted by Mr. Planche, who thinks it quite possible it may have been a manufacture similar to what we now call cashmere, and imported from the East. "M. le Due, however, contends that cameline was an inferior species of manufacture, of Phoenician origin, and quotes Joinville, who says ■ the King (Louis IX.) sent him to Portosa, and commissioned him to purchase for him over one hundred camelines of various colours to give to the Cordeliers when they returned to France.' He asserts also that it was always spoken of as a very common stuff, ( une etoffe tres-ordinaire, r in which he is certainly contradicted by the above quotation wherein it is described as 'rich and right fine.' He admits, however, that in the 13th century camelines were made at St. Quentin, and in the 14th at Amiens, Cambrai, Mechlin, Brussels, and Commercy , that they were of various qualities as well as colours, and that their prices differed accordingly, some costing only eleven or twelve sous per ell, and others twenty-four and twenty-eight sous." Cyclopaedia of Costume.

CAMLET, Camblet. (Ger., Du. Icamelot ; Fr. camelot ; It. ciam- bellotto ; Sp. camelotte ; Russ. kamlot.)

Perhaps no stuff has been so fruitful a subject of discussion as this. How etymological doctors have differed as to the root of the word may be seen from this passage in the Cydopcedia of E. Chambers.

"Menage derives the French word camelot (whence our camblet) from .cam - belotto, a Levantine term for stuffs made with the fine hair of a Turkish goat ; whence the word cymatilis for Turkish camelot. Others call it capcllota, from capelhan, she-goat. Bochart makes zambelot a corruption of the Arabic giam als a camel. Others fetch camblet from the bare Latin camelus, on which footing camblet should properly signify a stuff made of camel's bair."

The list of possible roots is not even here exhausted, for camlet is given through chamal, Arabic for fine, and again as coming from the river Camlet in Glamorganshire, where some theorists assert that the stuff' was first manufactured in this country, and so denominated. This latter hypothesis needs no second thought, for it would by inference establish a fine woollen manufacture here at a period long before the means or skill necessary to such an industry could be found in this country. Confusion is even worse confounded if we turn to the etymology of mohair in an endeavour to find a clue to the truth. Here we have mohair given as a stuff made of mohair, the hair of the Angora goat, a denomination undoubtedly accurate ; but in the foreign equivalents of the term we have another maze of contradictions : Fr. moire, old Fr. mohere ; It. cambeMotto (in common with camlet), i>nvn<) di pel* <li camello ; Ger. iii'ibr, hnarturh ; Sp. mul, mmclotc (again similar to camlet) ; Port. ehamaiote, mdania; Do. hemelthaar; Da. hameelyarn j Sw. moire, kamlott ; Itusa. morr. When we find this connexion between mohair,

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camlet, and camel's hair* so universal, it would appear better to let the question alone ; but setting aside the camel's-hair theory, as we may call it, and arguing only for the Angora goat, we shall find that the balance of doubt will turn in favour of belief in the latter. To this conclusion we are helped by Professor Archer in his Wool and its Applications, a con- tribution to a valuable little series on British Manufacturing Industries, recently published at a very moderate price.

Here, in tracing the early employment of wool, is noted its culture in the Greek colonies in Asia Miaor, which "gave an impetus to the manufacture of wool for ornamental as well as useful purposes, and the Ionian colony of Miletus was especially celebrated for its tine wool and its beautiful carpets ; and both of these were probably at first obtained from the Coraxi, a native race who are supposed to be now represented by the Circassians . The Milesians then became so famous for their fine wool that the palm was eventually conceded to them, and the Coraxi fell into the second rank. Still the latter retained pre-eminence for their shawls, which were so celebrated that they are mentioned in a poem by Hipponax, of Ephesus, 540 B.C. It is, however, moat likely that then, as now, the shawls of the ancestors of the Circassians, and probably too the carpets of Miletus, were made of goats' wool, which is the mate- rial of the Cashmerian shawls of modern times. This is the more likely, for some pf the ancient authors likened the Milesian fleeces to the wool of the camel, and every one who is familiar with the feeling of camel- hair or wool knows how strongly it resembles in that respect the wool of the Cashmere goat, of which the most beautiful shawls are made."

We have now distinct evidence of how the confusion of tongues ori- ginated. Curiously corroborative of the supposition that camlets first came from Angora wool, and that the disputed terms were once simul- taneously employed, is an entry in the Book of Bates, 1670 where among Merchandise In wards is shown " Yarne Camel, or Mohair Ynrue," valued at 28. 6d. the lb. Mohair was at that time a common article of com- merce. Prior to this period we had direct commerce to the Mediter- ranean, and imported camlets and mohair yarn. An old author (Munn : Discourse of Trade from England to East India, 1621) speaks of the profitable trade to Turkey, and says that England, of all other countries, drove the most profitable trade there. After giving statistics of the trade thither, it is stated, " And all these nations take of the Turks in return great quantities of camblets, grograms, raw silk, cottonwool, and yarn, galls, rlax, hemp, rice, hides, sheep's wool, wax, corn," &c. flakluyt's Voyages contain incidental mention of direct trade with the Levant in the early part of the 16th century, the return cargoes com- prising silks, camblets, rhubarb, malmsey, wines, oils, c >tton wool, Turkey carpets, &c. ; but the bulk of our trade with the East was then and for long afterwards only transacted at second hand through the Netherlands.

The earliest mention of home-made camlets is to be found in Camden's Brittania, 1610, where, speaking of Coventry, it is said, " Its wealth, arising in the last age from the woollen and camblet manufacture, made

* A statute of 12 and 14 Edward IV. includes " chamelet" with damask, satin, sarcenet, and every other cloth of silk • but this is undoubtedly on account of its being at the time a fabric as costly to purchase as others made of silk.

CAM ( 50 ) CAM

ic the only mart of this part." In the next century those of Brussels are said to exceed all other camlets for beauty and quality, those of England being reputed second.

Camlet appears first in an inventory of the wardrobe* of Henry IV. " Seven yards of red chamlett at 13s. 4d. the remnant." Camlets of divers colours are shown in the Wa rd robe A ceo un ts of Edward IV., 14S0, at 30s. the piece, and black camlet at 4s. the yard ; in 1502 black camlet appears at 2s. 4d. the yard ; in 157S red and purple chamlett are severally valued at 4s. 6cL the yard, and " blue and browne chamlett " at 9 yards and 3 quarters for 28s. 6d. In the Charter of 1640, before quoted, ''camlets," "moyhair," and " Turkey grograms" are shown in pieces of 15 yards each, and the Book of Rates, 1675, contains the following entries relative to the material :

s. d. Chamblettes, Unwatered or Mohairs, the yard. . ..30

Do. Watered, the vard 5 0

Do. Half-silk, half-hair, the yard . . . . 10 0 All other stuffs made of wool, or mixed with hair or

thread, the lb. weight . . . . . . . . ..14

At this period it was worn by gentlemen. Pepys writes in his Diary, Jane 1, 1664, " After dinner I put on my new camelott suit, the best that ever I wore in my life, the suit costing me above £24."

The entry above shows some descriptions of camlets to have been of mixed materials, characteristics ever since common to them, for in their production the changes have been rung with all materials in nearly every possible combination ; sometimes of wool, sometimes of silk, sometimes hair, sometimes of hair with wool or silk, at others of silk and wool warp and hair woof. These particulars are of camlets of the 18th century. Those of our day have had cotton and linen introduced into their com- position. They have been made plain and twilled, of single warp and weft, of double warp, and sometimes with double weft also with thicker yarn. Dr. Ure, with fine irony, concludes his account of them by saying that several fabrics of the same kind as camlet are now intro- duced under other names.

" Then came the Bride, the lovely Medua (Medway) came, Clad in a vesture of unknowen geare And uncouth fashion, yet her well became, That seemed like silver, sprinckled here and theare With glittering spangs that did like starres appeare, And wav'd upon like water Chamelot (watered camlet)."

Spenser: Faerie Qucene, 1590.

* Meantime the Pastor shears their hoary beards, And eases of their hair the loaden herds ; Their camelots warm in tents the soldiers hold, And shield the shiv'ring mariners from cold."

Dryden : Virgil, 1697.

CAMLETTO, Camletteen. A sort of fine worsted camlets or came- lots (Bailky). Described in 1739 as " a stuff of combing wool."

CAMMAKA, Cammaca, Camoca. A costly material in use in this country towards the end of the 14th century. Of its composition we know nothing, but it is considered as probably made of camel's

CAN ( 51 ) CAN

hair and silk, and of Eastern origin. It was used in ecclesiastical vest- ments, in the dress of royalty, but most frequently for draping state beds. The royal chapel of Windsor in 1385 had several vestments and altar cloths of white camoca. In the 17th Coventry Mystery, which represents the adoration of the Magi, fierod says :

" In kyrtle of cammaka, kinge am I cladd."

In its third application we find Edward the Black Prince bequeathing to his confessor " a large bed of red camoca with our arms embroidered at each corner," and in 1375 Edward Lord Despencer left to his wife 11 my great bed of blue camaka, with griffins, also another bed of camaka striped with white and black " (Dr. Rock).

CANVAS, from the Lat. cannabis, Gr. Jcannabis, hemp, is literally hempen cloth. (Fr. canevas, It. canavaccio, Ger. segeltuch, Sw. segelduh, Sp. , Port, lona.)

It was once used for outer clothing. " Striped canvas for doublets " (Dekker).

" Look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully."

King Henry IV., Pt. I.

Striped or tufted canvas with thread is mentioned in a charter of 1641, as well as Norman Canvas and Line, narrow Vandales or Vittry Canvas, Putch Barras and Hessen Canvas ; French Canvas and Line, ell aDd half-quarter broad or upwards, and Gutting or Spruce Canva3. These were coarse linens imported from France and the Netherlands, The following items can be found relative to canvas :

" 1567. 60 yeards of canves, at 4d. a yeard.

1577. 14 elves of canvas, 14s.

1578. 11 elves and a half of canves, 26s. lOd.

7 elves and three quarters of can vis, 26s. Id. Yellow canvis, white canvis, coarse can vis, 12d. an ell."

The difference in the prices i3 suggestive. In Lord William Howard's HousehoM Book (1612-40) canvas appears at 7d. the yard. The Book oj Rates shows "English tufted canvas" and "canvas of Shropshire making."

" Others say that those tumblers and common players which shewed sundry games and pastimes to win the favour of the people, were wont to cover that passage over with canvas cloths and vails." North: Plutarch, 1579. " Like main-yards with canvas lined." Spenser. " And clasping to the mast, endur'd a sea

That almost burst the deck, and from the lander-tackle Washed off a canvas-climber." Shakespeare : Pericles, 1609. ** His bounty ample as the wind that blew, Such barks for portage out of ev'ry bay In Holland, Zeeland, and in Flanders brings As spread the wide sleeve with their canvas wings."

Drayton : Battle of Agincourt, 1627. 44 The canvass castles up they quickly rear." Fairfax. 44 The mountain pines assume new forms, Spread canvas wings, and fly through storms, And ride o'er rocks, and dance on foaming waves."

Young : British Sailor's Exultation.

e 2

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M Should lie draw his hand over a picture, where all is smooth and uniform, he would never be able to imagine how the several prominences and depressions of the human body would be shewn on a piece of plain canvass that has in it no unevenness or irregularity." Spectator, No. 416.

" True poetry the painter's power displays, True painting emulates the poet's lays ; The rival sisters, fond of equal fame, Alternate change their office and their name ; Bid silent poetry the canvas warm, The tuneful page with sparkling pictures charm."

Mason : Art of Painting.

CAP. A generic term for head-coverings, which the word properly signifies. (A. -S. cceppe ; Fr . cape ; Ger. kappe ; Gr. skepo, to cover. ) For a descriptive and illustrated history of head-dresses the reader may be referred to the exhaustive article of Mr. Fairholt in the glossary attached to his Costume in England.

The earliest form of ladies' head-dress was the cover-chief, or head- handkerchief. Then came the hood, universally worn during the 14th century, a revival of an Anglo-Saxon head covering. The close-fitting cap is said to have originated in docking the corners of the hood for the sake of comfort and convenience. We are told by Chambers that 1 ' the sera of caps and hats is referred to the year 1449, the first seen in these parts of the world being at the entry of Charles VII. into Rouen ; from that time they began by little and little to take place of the hoods or chaperoons, that had been used till then. M. le Gendre, indeed, goes further back : they began, says he, under Charles V. to let fall the angles of the hood upon the shoulders, and to cover the head with a cap, or bonnet ; when this cap was of velvet they called it mortier;* when of wool simply bonnet; the first was laced, the latter had no ornament besides two horns raised to a moderate height, one of which served in covering or uncovering."

To attempt to trace the modern nondescript head-dress of ribbon, lace, muslin, or mixture of light materials is exceedingly difficult. Into the service of mediaeval and modern caps all kinds of fabrics have been pressed, and every age has shown diversity sufficient to fill a volume. We may find, perhaps, the clearest precedent in the last century. In the 36th number of the Connoisseur it is said, " But of all the branches of female dress, no one has undergone more alterations than that of the head. The long lappets, the horseshoe cap, the Brussels head, and the prudish mob pinned under the chin, have all of them had their day. The present mode has rooted out all these super- fluous excrescences, and in the room of a slip of cambrick or lace has planted a whimsical sprig of spangles or artificial flowrets." This was written in 1754, and some few years later caps of ribbons, laces, and feathers were used to cover the monstrous erections of hair and tow then fashionable, which we are told often added three feet to a lady's stature. These caps were equally remarkable with the coiffures for their extravagance, " rising high above the head and spreading out at the sides into a pile of ribbands and ornaments."

• Hence probably mortar-board, the schoolboy's slang term for his squaio collegiate cap.

CAP ( 53 ) CAP

11 The women in the reign of Charles VI. had their heads dressed in a high cap in the form of a sugarloaf ; a veil was tied to the top of this cap, and hung down more or less, according to the quality of the wearer. The veil of a trades- man's wife did not descend below the shoulder ; that of a knight's lady reached to the ground. In the reigns of Francis I. and Henry II. they wore little hats with feathers. From the time of Henry II. to the reign of Henry IV. they wore little caps with aigrettes." Town and Country Magazine, 1769.

CAP, City Flat. In 1571 a law was passed that if any person above seven years of age (except maidens, ladies, gentlewomen, nobles, knights, gentlemen of twenty mark by the year in lands, and their heirs, and such as have borne office of worship) have not worn upon the Sunday and holyday (except it be at the time of his travell out of the city, town, or hamlet where he dwelleth) upon his head one cap of wool, knit, thicked, and dressed in England, and only dressed and finished by some of the trade of cappers, shall be fined 3s. 4d. for each day's transgression." From this law came the term statute-cap, used by Rosalind in Love's Labour's Lost —

" Well better wits have worn plain statute -caps."

It was repealed in 1597, but the cap long after continued to be worn by artificers, apprentices, and citizens. In a play of Dekker's — the Honest Whore, 1630 — it is highly spoken of :

11 It's light for summer, and in cold it sits Close to the skull, a warm house for the wits ; It shows the whole face boldly, 'tis not made As if a man to look on't were afraid ; Nor like a draper' shop, with broad dark shed ; For he's no citizen that hides his head. Hats, caps, as proper are to city gowns, As to armour helmets, or to kings their crowns."

First worn by the nobility in the time of Henry VIII., it came after- wards into general use, and may still be seen occasionally on the heads of Bluecoat boys, whose whole dress is precisely similar to that common in the days of Edward VI., the founder of the school. "Blue coats were then the common habit of apprentices and serving-men, and yellow stockings were very generally worn at this period." Knight's Hist, Brit. Costume.

CAPE. Literally a covering. In an inventory of the wardrobe of Henry VIII., given by Strutt, half-a-yard of purple cloth of baudkyn for a cape to one of the king's gowns is mentioned ; as also a Spanish cape of crimson satin, embroidered with Venice gold tissue, lined with crim- son velvet, with five pair of large aglets of gold.

CAPUCHIN. A hooded cloak for women, worn about the middle of the 18th century, and so called from resembling those worn by the order of friars of that name. The 62nd number of the Connoisseur humor- ously deals with fashions supposed to have a religious tendency, and in- cludes this with other proselytizing modes : "The next part of our dress that I shall mention which savours of Popery is the Capuchin. This garment in truth has a near resemblance to that of the frier, whose name it bears. Our grandmothers had already adopted the hood ; their

CAR ( 54 ) CAR

daughters by a gradual advance introduced the rest ; but far greater im- provements were still in store for us. We all of us remember, for it is not above two years ago, how all colours were neglected for that of purple. In purple we glowed from the hat to the shoe ; and in such request were the ribbands and silks of that favourite colour, that neither the milliner, mercer, nor dyer himself could answer the demand."

A curious passage in Spenser's Faerie Queene leads to the belief that the fashion was known at a much earlier period. In the third book Doubt is clad

" In a discolour'd cote of straunge disguyse That at his back a brode Capuccio had."

CARD (Fr. cardes ; Ger. Jcardatschen, harden, wollkratzen; It. cardi; Sp. cardas), a toothed instrument for disentangling and laying parallel the fibres of wool or cotton preparatory to spinning. Upon the suc- cessful performance of this operation much of the beauty of the manu- factured material depends. Carding was once necessarily performed by hand, for which coarse wire brushes were used, the fibre being laid upon one and combed with the other. The next step was to use, in the woollen manufacture, stock-cards, one of which was fixed to a bench and the other suspended from the ceiling, enabling a much larger quantity to be treated with far more ease. The activity of the cotton trade in the early part of the last century led to more efficient means of working the raw material, and through successive improvements the present carding engine has been perfected. Cards used in this machine are made of buff leather, in wbich great numbers of hooks of the finest steel are fixed, the leather being highly distended to receive them. These cards, each of which would take up a week of hand-labour, can be turned out by machinery at the rate of 9,000 an hour. They are afterwards fixed on a revolving drum.

" With wiry teeth revolving cards release

The tangled knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece: Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine, Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line."

Erasmus Darwin.

" The inventor of the carding engine is not known with certainty. It appears, however, that in 1748 Lewis Paul patented two different machines for carding, in one of which the cards were arranged on a flat surface, and in the other on a drum. . . . The invention of the crank and comb (improvements which admitted of continuous rolls of cotton being produced, instead of having to stop the machine every time a carding was finished, as in the original machine) has been given by some to Arkwright, by others to Hargreaves, the inventor of the jenny. Those who defend the claim of the former say that it was communicated to Hargreaves by one of Arkwright's workmen, who chalked out a sketch of it upon the table of a public house." (Tom- lin.son : Useful Arts and Manufactures.) It is, however, to Arkwright that the credit of establishing the process must be given.

The importation of foreign wool cards was forbidden by an Act of 31) Eliz., c. 14, and again in 1630 Charles I. issued a proclamation wherein he observes "that iron-wire is a manufacture long practiced in the realm, whereby many thousands of our subjects have long been em-

CAR ( 55 )N CAR

ployed : and that English wire is made of the toughest and best Osmond iron, a native commodity of this kingdom, and is much better than what comes from foreign parts, especially for the making of good wool-cards, without which no good cloth can be made. And whereas great com- plaints have been made by the wire-drawers of this kingdom, that by reason of the great quantities of foreign- wire lately imported, our said subjects cannot be set on work ; wherefore we prohibit the importation of foreign iron-wire, and wool-cards made thereof, as also hooks and eyes, and other manufactures made of foreign-wire. Neither shall any translate and trim up any old wool cards, nor sell the same either at home or abroad." These restrictions were renewed fourteen years later ; and again by 14 Chas. II., c. 19, it was enacted that " No forreign Wooll-cards, or forreign Card-wyer, or Iron wyer for making Wooll- cards shall be imported into England or Wales upon forfeiture of the same, or the value thereof."

In the Booh of Rates of Charles II. the following entries appear relative to cards :

" Stock Cards, the doz., £1 4s.

Tow Cards, new, the dozen, 5s.

Wooll ] new, the dozen, 10s.

Cards \ old, the dozen, 6s."

CARD A, Carduus. An inferior silk, supposed to have been made of the coarse outer filaments of cocoons, probably used for linings. Four- pence an ell was paid in 1278 for 119 ells of carda, for thirty-four surcoats to be used in a tournament.

CARDINAL. A short cloak, first worn with a scarlet hood, worn about the middle of the 18th century. The 62nd number of the Connoisseur includes this with other garments supposed to have a religious tendency (see Capuchin), and proposes that every one shall be obliged to practise the austerities of the sect they imitate ; so that, for example, the Cardinals shall be compelled to lead a single life, and the Capuchins to go barefoot. They seem to have been inconsistently diverse in colour. " As to those of gayer colours, you need not be told, that there are White and Grey Friers abroad as well as Black ; and as the English are so remarkable for improving on their originals, we shall not then be surprised at the variety of colours that appear among us."

CARDINAL WHITE. This stuff, together with Caltjeskin (calveskin), appears in Hakluyt's Voyages, but no other mention of either has been met with. Whites — that is, undyed cloths — are frequently enumerated, and this may have been only a quaintly-designated de- scription of superior quality.

CARPET.

(Ger. teppi'clie, Du. tapyten, vloer tapyten, Fr. tapis, It. tappeti, Sp. alfombras, alcatifas, tapetes), said to have been originally derived from Cairo, but more probably from the Lat. carpeta, woollen cloth, through carpere, to pluck wool.

Carpets have been quite diverted from their original use, which was in covering tables,* sideboards, or cupboards. At the Reformation there

* In this sense is derived the proverbial phrase, " On the carpet," that is, brought to the table for discussion.

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was a great " spoiling of the Egyptians ; " so that, as Fuller tells us in his Church History of Britain (1656), "Private men's halls were hung with altar cloths ; their tables and beds covered with copes instead of carpets aud coverlets," and Peter Heylin (1600-1662), in his History of the Reformation, refers to men considering whether copes might not " be handsomely converted into private uses, to serve as carpets for their t*ble*, coverlids to their beds, or cushions to their chairs and windows."

In 1577 the inventory attached to the will of Archbishop Parker, includes "one carpet of black velvet for the little bord, fringed with silver and gould, lyned with taffita ; " and Richard Bellasio, of Morton, Co. Durham, in 1596 bequeaths to his nephew, among other things, the " best Turquey corpett for the long taible, and other carpets for cobborts (cupboards) within the great chamber at Morton." These Turkey carpets, notices of which appear in the Hakluyt Voyages, as imported at the beginning of the 16th century, were much esteemed and very costly. Mr. Browne, in a letter to Sir Philip Sidney dated November 29, 1602, says, "I have bought a Turkey carpet for my Lord Bergavenny, seven Dutch ells long (about 16 feet) ; it cost £27 sterling, but is esteemed very fine and well worth the money." In 1608 Lady Elizabeth Askwith bequeaths to Robert Myers, then Lord Mayor of York, "a carpet cloth of crewells which is of divers colours, and in the middest and eyther eod wrought over with goulde." Lord William Howard's Household Booh (1612-40) contains an entry of " eight yeards of purple vellet in grane for two cobberd cloths," at 24s. a yard, and a more particular account of a carpet is given in the purchase of " five yards of crimson vellet for a carpet," £3 10s. 6d., with items as follows for trimming and making up :

" 4 yeards of fring, 21s.

Silver and embroidering it, 22s. Base (baize), silk, and making it, 9s."

Such carpets were too valuable to be trodden under foot. The early fashion of floor covering was to spread sweet rushes or straw over its surface, and it is only within modern times that fabrics have been used for that purpose. So late as 1741 a carpet is defined as "a sort of covering worked either with needle or on a loom, to be spread on a table or trunk, an estrade, or even a passage or floor." However, carpets in their recent application had place in great houses at an e irly period. The first mention of their being thus used is generally sated to be found in Stow's account of the Expenses of the Earl of Lancaster, who is there said to have had in 1314 " four clothes ray" (■itriped) for carpets in his hall ; but an earlier record can be found (quoted by Tomlinson) of Sinchius, Bishop of Toledo, in 1255, covering his fl »or with tapestry, a practice in which he was followed by Eleanor, Queen of Edward I, while further mention of bed-side carpets appears in 1301. Thf practice was at first looked upon with great disfavour as effeminate. Knights who received their title rather by favour than merit or service were dubbed Knight* of the Carpet, and in this senne Shakespeare speaks of " carpet consideration."

CAR ( 57 ) \ CAR

" On the morrow of her coronation the Queen (Mary) made Fourscore and Ten Knights of the Carpet. Dubb'd in her Chamber of Presence at West- minster, by the Earl of Arundel, who had Knighted before the Knights of the Bath."

Cotgrave defines a carpet-knight as " one that ever loves to be in women's chambers." Other authorities ascribe the title to those who were knighted for services in the cause of the arts and sciences.*

" In the 15th century, leather, decorated by gauffering, embossing, or stamping, came into use for the decoration of rooms as wall-hangings, and even as carpeting. Leathers for laying down in the rooms in sum- mer time ' was considered a refinement of luxury ' (vide inventories of the Duke of Burgundy). In 1416Isabeauof Bavaria ordered 'six leather carpets for the floor,' which was considered one of the ' delicate devices of the German coquette.' Down to the period of the Valois kings, as shown in many paintings, the practice was to strew the floors with rushes, hay, sweet-smelling herbs, flowers, and foliage. This custom prevailed until the time when the velvet-pile or Oriental carpets came into use, and the looms of the West succeeded in imitating them. The strewing of the floors then gave place to the velvet fabric. Touching the rush-covered floors, it was pronounced an unnecessary increase of expenditure on the part of Cardinal Wolsey when he caused the rushes at Hampton Court to be changed every day. Sir Thomas More (1483) describes Elizabeth, the widowed queen of Edward IV., when in the sanctuary at Westminster, as ' sitting alone amongst the rushes in her grief and distress.' Bradshaw, a.d. 1500, writes:

* All herbes and flowers fragrante, fayre, and swete, Were strewed in halls and layd under theyr fete.'

In 1495, in the Drapers' Hall, mats were placed in the Chequer Chamber, and rushes in the hall." (Mats and Coverings.^)

The manufacture of carpets, so-called, is traced back in the records of French monastic orders as far as the lObh and 11th centuries, but in all likelihood these were merely embroidered and not woven fabrics. The actual manufacture of carpets in Europe is assigned to the reign of Henry IV. of France, between 1589 and 1610, and is said to have been introduced there direct from Persia. But an earlier attempt had been made by an Englishman who earnestly promoted new discoveries and improvements. This was Mr. Richard Hakluyt, who, in his second volume of Voyages, directs Morgan Hubblethorne, a dyer, to proceed in 1579 to Persia, to learn there the arts of dyeing, and of making of carpets (Anderson). An artisan who had quitted France in disgust established the industry in England about 1750. The well-known Brussels carpets were first made at Wilton, where the manufacture was introduced from Tournai, in Belgium, rather more than a

* Knights of the Carpet or Carpet Knights are not military, but civil knights, such as iiiayors, lawyers, and so on, so called because they receive their knight- hood kneeling on a carpet, and not on a battle field. Dr. Brewer.

f A learned little treatise on these and cognate subjects, published by a well- known firm of dealers in such articles.

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century ago, and are now principally made at Kidderminster. Carpets may be described as migratory manufactures, In- almost every instance the industries after being successfully established in a town have been taken elsewhere, though still retaining the names denoting the place where they were first made. Thus, Axminster carpets are principally produced at Glasgow, Wilton, and Kilmarnock, Kidder- minster carpets in Scotland, and Wilton carpets in Yorkshire.

" With whom was Jhon Duke of Burbon, and the Cardinall his brother, a prelate more mete for a ladye's carpet than for an ecclesiastical pulpit." Eall : Edward 1 V.

" If before you return you could procure a singular good workman in the art of Turkish carpet -making, you should bring the art into this realme, and also thereby increase worke to youre company.'' Haklutt: Voyages, vol. i.t 1582.

" There's a carpet i' th' next room, put it on, with this scarfe over thy face, and a cushion o' thy head, and be ready when I call." Ben Jonson: The Silent Woman, 1609.

" What, are those desks fit now ? Set forth the table, The carpet and the chayre."

Id. : The Staple of Newes, 1625.

" There sat the fair, A glittering train on costly carpets rang'd, A group of beauties all in youthful prime, Of various features, and of various grace."

John Scott (1730-1783) : Amicell.

CARPMEAL. A kind of coarse cloth made in the North of England. Phillips : Nero World of Words, 1720.

CARRELLS, Currelles. Mentioned with bays, fustians, and mock- adoes, as " works mixed with silk, saietrie,* or linen yarn " in the Book of Drapery, 1570, belonging to the ball at Norwich. They appear in a 16th century MS. as in pieces of 4 lbs. weight, valued at £1 per piece. In the inventory of the stock of James Backhouse, of Kirbye in-Lons- dale, taken in September, 1578, carrell is priced at 14d. the yard. In the Booh oj Hates they are shown as of the value of £1 6s. 8d. per piece of 15 yards.

CASHMERE. A fine soft woollen fabric, first imported from Cash- mere. Shortly after an imitation under the name of Thibet cloth w.ns started in Yorkshire, and afterwards in 1824 at Paisley. Thet-e were twilled fabrics of fine worsted yarn made from prime wool, and scoured, raised, and cropped.

CASHMERK SHAWLS. These celebrated articles are made in the beautiful valley of Cashmere, in the north-west of India. Their bigfa price ia due to the slow and laborious process of manufacture, which is such that a fine shawl having a pattern over its entire surface is some- times a j ear on the looms, and even an ordinary shawl will take from sixteen to twenty weeks. It is said that although as much as £70l> sterling has been known to be paid for a single shawl, that very few of the finest of them find their way into Europe. The commonest qualitien

* Yarn of say — i.e., worsted.

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range in price as low as £10. The annual produce of the country ia estimated at 30,000 shawls, occupying about 16,000 looms, and near o0,000 workpeople. Under the Mogul emperors Cashmere found work for 30,000 looms. The fabric is principally woven in strips, which are afterwards ingeniously joined together ; the borders are worked in needlework by hand, each colour employed occupying a separate needle. No shawls are made except upon order, and according to patterns already approved.

The great excellence of these fabrics has never been equalled. The genuine wool has been imported into this country, and the greatest care exercised in working it up ; the manufacture has been established in the Punjaub and carried on by native Cashmerians ; but still all imitations remain imitations. For a long while it was believed that the water of the district used in the solution of rice starch, in which the wool is frequently washed before use, gave to it a peculiar suppleness, a belief the natives did not dispute. More recently it has been stated that the wool used for the genuine shawls is taken from the inner winter fleece of the Thibet yak, as well as the Cashmere goat — both in- habiting intensely cold and dry table lands from 14,000 to 16,000 feet above the sea level ; whereas the wool exported from the province was largely mixed with the hair of the common domesticated goat. It is, however, very probable that the unwearying patience and undoubted natural skill of the Oriental weavers form considerable factors in the result, while the particular attention paid to the preparation of the wool, which is most carefully cleansed, and so scrupulously sorted that scarce a third of the original bulk remains for spinning, would also have a proportionate influence. The French, in factories at Lyons, Nismes, and Paris, are believed to have been most successful in copying these fabrics, though very fair imitations have been produced at Paisley, Norwich, and Edinburgh. The industry was first started in Paisley, about 1802, and was carried on very successfully until the French, by importing Cashmere wool, brought into the market some superior shawls, and forced the Paisley manufacturers also to procure finer wool from the East, first raw, and afterwards in spun yarn. Cashmere shawls were first imported into this country in 1666.

Attempts have been made to naturalize the Cashmere goat in Europe, with more particular pertinacity in France ; but the results have not been favourable, the fleece, as might be expected, losing its luxuriance in a warmer climate, and its fineness when the animal was deprived of its natural food.

CASTOR. Properly an aromatic substance taken from bags in the inguinal region of the beaver, having in smell some resemblance to musk, whence through the Gr. kastor, connected with the Sanscrit kasturi, musk, the word comes. The name, however, is best known as applied to a hat, from hats of beaver-fur having once been fashionable, and is still met with in that sense in literature where a writer is at a loss for a synonym. It was also once applied to the fur of the beaver, and to the beaver itself. A curious paragraph in the Cyclopaedia of E. Cham- bers (1741) is sufficiently interesting to deserve quotation :

" Castor skin, the furr or slun of an amphibious animal called castor, or beaver, sometimes found in France, Germany, and Poland, but most abun-

CAT ( 60 ) CATX

dantly in the province of Canada in North America : formerly it appears also to have been found in England. But there is no such animal known among us now. Its chief use is in the composition of hats and furs. Besides this, in 1669 an attempt was made to employ it in other merchandizes. Accordingly, a manufacfactory was settled on the Fauxhourg S. Antoine, near Paris, where they made cloths, flannels, stockings, &c, of castor, with a mixture of wool. The manufacture flourished for a while, but soon decayed, it being found by experience that the stuffs lost their dye when wet, and when dry again they were harsh and stiff as felts."

" The merchants distinguish three kinds of castor, though all equally the spoils of the same animal : these are new castor, dry castor, and/ai castor : new castor, called also Winter castor and Muscovite castor, because ordinarily reserved to send into Muscovy, is that taken in the winter huntings. This is the best and most esteemed for rich furrs, as having lost none of its hair by moulting. Dry castor, or lean castor, is the result of the summer huntings, when the beast is moulted, and has lost part of its hair : this being much inferior to the former is little used in furrs, but mostly in hats. Fat castor, usually called Old-coat, is that which has contracted a certain fat, unctuous humour, by sweat exhaled from the bodies of the savages, who have worn it for some time : this, though better than the dry, is yet only used for hats."

In 1638 the manufacture of demi-castors, or hats not wholly made of beaver fur, was expressly forbidden by Charles I.

CATALAPHA. A silk stuff of this name is catalogued in Charles I.'s Charter of 1641. No other mention of it can be found.

CAT-SKINS have been used for a variety of purposes, but most fre- quently to be dyed in imitation of sable. It was once stated in a com- mittee of the House of Commons that it was a common practice in London to decoy the animal and kill it for the sake of the skin.

CAUL, also termed Creatine, Creton, Crespine, Crespinette, was a net- work of gold enclosing the hair, often set with jewels. It was worn first in the reign of Edward I. In a 14th century romance, called The King of Tars, the Soldan's daughter is arrayed

" In cloth of rich purple palle, And on her head a comely calle."

The quotations which follow sufficiently describe the article and its use, and need no comment :

u A fret of golde she had next her here."

Chaucer (1328-1400) : Legend of Good Women.

" And everich on her head A rich fret of golde, which withouten drede Was full of stately net stones set."

Id. : Tlic Floicre and tJic Leaf.

" What guyle is this, that those her golden tresses She doth attyre under a net of gold ; And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses That which is gold or heare, may scarce be told."

Spenser (1552-1599) : Sonnet xxiviii.

11 Ne spared they to strip her naked all

There when they hud detpoU'd her tire and caul, Such as she was, their eyes might her behold."

Id. : Faerie Qucent.

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1 —

" For I suppose that some of you have seen towels, napkins, nets, caules, kerchiefs and coifes woven of such thread, which would not burn or consume in the fire, but when they were foul or soiled with occupying, folk flung them into the fire and took them forth again clean and fair." Philemon Holland (1551-1636) : Plutarch.

" A quiver on her shoulders small he hanges with crooked bow In steade of golden caule, and mantel braue shulde hange below."

Phaer : Virgil's JStieidos, 1558.

" Some of our ancient ladies of the Court exercise their fingers in the needle, others in Cawlworke, diuerse in spinning of silke.,, Holinshed : Disc, of England, 1577.

" These glittering caules of golden plate,

Wherewith their heads are richly decked, Make them to seem an angel's mate In judgment of the simple sect."

Stephen Gosson: Pleasant Quizes for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen, 1596.

M After the manner of women he puts a cawle upon his head."

Prynne : Histriomastrix, 1633.

" Her head with ringlets of her hair is crown'd, And in a golden caul the curls are bound."

Dryden : Virgil, 1697.

C A VALLEYS. Dyed cotton cloths of considerable excellence, made by the Indians on the Isthmus of Panama, imported here in the 18 th century, and used for counterpanes and table-covers.

CELESTINES. A stuff mentioned in an Act of Parliament (1 Rich. III.) of 1483.

CENDAL, Sendall, Sandall. A silken fabric frequently mentioned in church inventories and early poems. The Doctor of Physick of Chaucer wears garments

" lined with taffata and sendelle."

In the Vision oj Piers Plowman, a poem presumably of the same period, is an address to

" ye lovely ladies With youre long fyngres, That ye have silk and sandal To sowe, whau tyme is ; "

and in Sir Thomas Malory's History of Prince Arthur, 1470, is a passage relating how " the old man made Sir Galahad unarm ; and he put on him a coat of red sendall with a mantel upon his shoulder furred with fine erminas." We have in Thynne's Animadversions on Speghfs Chaucer, 1598, a very valuable contemporary description of the material, leaving no doubt as to its composition. "Sendall you expoui.d by a thynne stuff lyke cypres ; but yet was a thynne stuff lyke sarcenett, and of a raw kynde of sylke or sarcenett, but coarser and narrower than the sarcenett now ys, as myselfe can remember."

CERE-CLOTH, Cerement. Waxed cloth in which to wrap dead bodies, from the L. cera, beeswax. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Hydrotaphia, 1658, describes a dead body "sound aud handsomely cere-clothed that after seventy-eight years was found incorrupted."

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CHALLIS. A fabric of silk and worsted introduced at Norwich abont 1832, when it speedily became fashionable. Mr. James speaks of it very highly ; in fact, he describes it as " the neatest, best, and most elegant silk and worsted article ever manufactured. It was made on a similar principle to the Norwich crape, only thinner and softer, composed of much finer materials, and instead of a glossy surface, as in Norwich crapes, the object was to produce it without gloss, and very pliable and clothy. The best quality of Challis when finished with designs and figures (either produced in the loom or printed) was truly a splendid fabric."* CHECK (Fr. echiquier, a chess-board) is derived from the ancient practice of the Court of Exchequer to settle accounts by means of coun- ters or tallies on a table covered with checkered cloth. This is the proper mode of rendering the counter-register used as a money security, now generally written Cheque.

CHEKLATON, Ciclatoun, Siglatoun, Sicklatoun. A rich fabric worn during the Middle Ages, supposed to have been first brought from Persia and to have been known there as ciclatoun, bright and shining. Chaucer in the Rime of Sir Thopas describing the knight's garments, says : " Of Brugges were his hosen broun, His robe was of ciclatoun; " and in an old inventory of the vestments in use in St. Paul's Cathedral is a cope made of cloth of gold, called ciclatoun. Spenser, in the Fa'erit Queene, shows a " Gyant monstruous " in

" a jacket, quilted richly rare, Upon checklaton, he was straungely dight." Strutt thinks this stuff to have been the same as checkiratus, a cloth of curiously- wrought chequer work worn by the Normans. There is, how- ever, nothing in these authorities, with the exception of the item quoted above from the ecclesiastical inventory, incompatible with the explicit description of Spenser in his Present State of Ireland, 1633, where, after describing certain garments, he says, " All these that I have rehearsed unto you be not Irish garments, but English ; for the quilted leather jacke is old English ; for it was the proper weede of the horseman, as ye may reade in Chaucer, where he describeth Sir Thopas his apparrell and armoure, when he went to fight agaynst the Gyant in his robe of shecklaton, which shecklaton is that kind of guilded leather with which they use to embroider theyr Irish jackes."

CHEMISE, Camus, Camis. The innermost garment of women ; anciently known as shift or smock. (Fr. chemise ; L. camisia, a night gown; Gaelic, caimis, a shirt. Donald.) Chaucer mentions smocks " embroidered before and behind with coal-black silk." Spenser gives a detailed description of an elaborate chemise in the account of the fight between Redagund and Artegall, when the Amazon was dressed " All in a Camis light of purple silke

Woven uppon with silver, subtly wrought, And quilted upon sattin white as milke, Trayled with ribbands diversely destraught, Like as the workeraan had their courses taught; Which was short tucked for light motion Up to her ham ; but when she list, it raught Down to her lowest heele."

• llisturif of the WortUd Manufacture.

CHE ( 63 ) CHI

^ __^______ >

Perfumed smocks, at three pounds a smock, are mentioned in East- ward Hoe, 1604.

CHEMISETTE. A diminutive of chemise ; a garment worn above the chemise.

CHENILLE. So called from its resembling a caterpillar in softness, from the chenille or cotton caterpillar, a great enemy of the cotton plant. Cotgrave, in giving a list of the taffiities known to him, gives "Taffeta, chenille stript (striped)."

CHINCHILLA.. The fur of a beautiful little animal found at great altitudes in various parts of South America, and closely resembling the rabbit. The delicate grey fur is used on the natural skin.

CHINTZ, Chints. A word of modern introduction from the Hin- dustanee (where it signifies spotted) written with z final, though s must be pronounced. Richardson. (Pers. chinz ; Fr. indiennes ; Ger. zitze; It. indiane ; Russ. siz ; Sp. chites, zaraza.) The importation of printed or stained calicoes appears to have been coeval with the estab- lishment of the East India Company. * The earliest manufacture of the kind in England was introduced about 1676 by a Frenchman, who established works for the purpose near Richmond. The rapid increase of the trade excited the jealousy and apprehension of the weavers of woollen and silken fabrics. In The Ancient Trades Decayed, Repaired Again, <£c, by a Country Tradesman, a pamphlet of 1678, it is said, "Instead of green sey that was wont to be used for children's frocks, is now used painted and India stained and striped calicoes, and instead of a perpetuana or shalloon to line men's coats with, is used sometimes a glazened calico, which in the whole is not above 12s. cheaper, and abundantly worse." To pacify the weavers — then, as ever, a turbulent body — an Act professedly "for the more effectual employing the poor, by encouraging the manufactures of this Kingdom" was passed in 1699 (11 Will. III., c. 10), prohibiting East India chintzes being worn here, and only allowing them admittance on condition of their being re- exported. Amsterdam and Rotterdam became the chief markets for these goods. Davenant, in an official report written in 1712, computes that Holland took from us in the four years from 1702 to 1705 inclusive near £95,000 worth annually of Indian wrought silk, Bengal mixed stuffs, and calicoes painted, dyed, printed, or stained in those parts. The effect of the Act of 1699 was to cause several print works to be established in and about London, and their productions, both by their cheapness and attractiveness, taking the public fancy, the weavers

* A proclamation by Charles I., in 1631, enumerated the goods which might be imported from or exported to the East Indies. The legalized exports were perpetuanoes and drapery, pewter, saffron, woollen stockings, silk stockings and garters, riband-roses edged with gold lace, beaver-hats with gold and tUver bands, felt hats, strong waters, knives, Spanish leather shoes, iron, and looking-glasses. The permitted imports were various spices and drugs, rich carpets of Persia and of Cambaya, quilts of satin, taffaty, painted callicoes, benjamin, dam*sks, satins and taff aties of China, quilts of China embroidered with gold, quilts of Pitania embroidered with silk, galls, worm-seeds, sugar- candy, China dishes, and puslanes (porcelains) of all sorts. History of Commerce..

CHI ( 64 ) CHI

quickly found themselves in as bad a case as before, so that great dis- tress prevailed amongst them. A play was produced for their benefit, to which Swift wrote a prologue, in which he says :

11 Chintzes are gaudy and engage our eyes Too much about the party-coloured dyes."

The Press also, with misdirected zeal, attempted to repress the cheaper goods in favour of those more expensive ones which were considered to be proportionately beneficial to trade. De Foe, in his Weekly Review dated January 31, 1708, gives an account of the popularity of chintzes, with valuable particulars as to their previous employment. He says ;

" The general fancy of the people runs upon East India goods to that degree that the chints and painted calicoes, which before were only made use of for carpets, quilts, &c, and to clothe children and ordinary people, because (in time previous to 1700) now the dress of our ladies ; and such is the power of a mode, as we saw some of our persons of quality dressed in Indian carpets, which a few years before their chambermaids would have thought too ordinary for them, the chints were advanced from lying upon their floors to their backs ; from the footcloth to the petticoat ; and even the queen herself from this time was pleased to appear in China and Japan, I mean China silks and calico. Nor was this all, but it crept into our houses, our closets, and bedchambers : cur- tains, cushions, chairs, and at last beds themselves, were nothing but calicoes and Indian stuffs, and in short almost everything that used to be made of wool or silk, relating rather to dress of tbe women or the furniture of our house, was supplied by the Indian trade."

Another print of the same period gives corroborative testimony :

11 The very weavers and sellers of calico will acknowledge that all the mean people, the maid servants, and indifferently poor persons who would otherwise clothe themselves, and were usually clothed in their women's stuffs manufac- tured at Norwich and London, or in cantaloons and crapes, &c, are now clothed in calico or printed linen ; moved to it as well for the cheapness as the lightness of the cloth and gaiety of the colours. The children universally whose frocks and coats were all either worked at Coventry, or of striped thin stuffs made at Spitalfields, appear now in printed calico or printed linen ; let any but cast their eyes among the meaner sort playing in the streets, or of the better sort at boarding schools, and in our families ; the truth is too plain to be denied."

Tinkering legislation was again resorted to. Another Bill, "for the Preservation and Encouragement of the Woollen and Silken Manufac- tures of this Kingdom," was sent by the Commons to the Upper House in 1712. As the occasion became memorable, we give an old account of it : "The Lords having heard Council, and examin'd several Persons for and against the said Bill, put off the further Consideration thereof for Six Weeks ; and in order to allay the Murmurings of the Weavers, on that Occasion, address'd the King, that he would be pleased to order the Commissioners of Trade, during the Recess of Parliament, to prepare a Scheme to be laid before them in the approaching Sessions, for the effectual Encouragement of the said Manufactures, by discouraging the Wear of Callicoes. The Weavers taking this to be a rejecting of the Bill, some Thousands of them, with their Wives and Children, repair'd in a tumultuous Manner from Spilil'ji, Ids to Wtttmkuttr, where croudin^ the Passages to the House of Lords, they demanded Justice of their Lordships as they pass'd : But Detachments of the Horse-Guards beiu^

CLO ( 65 ) ' CLO

sent to prevent their doing Mischief, the Mutineers return'd home, without doing other Damage than tearing a few Callicoe Gowns off the Back of divers Women they met ; and being arriv'd at their respective Habitation, Peace was preserv'd in that Neighbourhood by the Train'd- Bands of the Tower Hamlets for a few Days." This was the prelude to a more serious outbreak, which resulted in the committal of several of the rioters to prison. The agitation was, however, successful, in so far that an Act was passed shortly after, imposing a duty of 3d. per square yard on all printed calicoes, which was doubled in 1714. Even this measure was too mild, since white calicoes continued to be largely imported, and the continued clamour of the weavers caused the enact- ment in 1720 of a prohibition of all printed calico whatever, under a penalty of £5 on the wearer and £20 on the seller of each piece of such calico. Printed linens were still permitted. This law was modified in 1730, when calicoes of linen warp and cotton weft were allowed to be printed, subject to a duty of 6d. per square yard, which was again altered in 1774, to admit the all-cotton calicoes of Arkwright. The duty was at the same time reduced to 3d. a yard, raised in 1806 to 3|d. The duty was wholly repealed