Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

242 BRITAIN AT WORK. which, as in fancy weaving, the cards act and give to the warp threads the varying move- ments required by the pattern. Standing in front of such’a machine, one sees a long row of bobbins passing to and fro through the thousands of threads forming the warp with the regularity of a pendulum, the pattern appearing above after having mechanically undergone its wonderful transformation from mere thread. The machines are worked their whole length, lacing threads which are after- wards drawn out connecting the widths. Photo: Cassell & Co., Ltd. BLEACHING. While plain net is mostly made in the larger factories, fancy lace is popular with those manufac- furers who have only a small number of machines each. The Curtain machines are still more bewildering to watch, additional threads being used, and the Jacquard working from overhead instead of, as in the Levers, from the end of the machine. The large firms, too, have their own special mechanisms, the secrets of which they guard most jealously. From the machines the fabric is handed over to the finishers, mostly women and girls, whose work is, as we have noted, generally carried on in separate establish- ments managed by different firms. The first process is that of bleaching, the feature of which is the interesting way in which the superfluous moisture is removed. The mechan- ism consists of a cylindrical vessel of wire gauze in which the lace is placed, the water being driven off by the rapidity with which the machine revolves. Hence it is taken in huge baskets to the “ piece-room,” where the required shade and colour is indicated by a ticket fastened to the bundle of the fabric. In the “ dipping-room ” it is placed in a mixture of gum, starch, size, and colouring materials, being afterwards squeezed between wooden rollers. Sometimes, however, the web is at once fastened on a frame and the “ dress ” put on the edge and spread over with brushes, this being done by a class of young workers known as “wetters.” Owing to the extremely delicate nature of the fabric it has to be handled with very great care. The next process takes place in what is variously known as the stretching, drying, or dressing room. It is of very great length, from 200 to 400 feet, and is occupied by two parallel horizontal frames, with an ingenious arrangement of fans overhead. The frames consist of two rails, between which the lace is pulled and fastened by girls, who are re- markably expert at the work. By means of a winch-handle they gently stretch out the web until all the meshes are open, delicately re-adjusting the rails from time to time, as, in the case of lace made from cotton thread, the net “ swags,” or stretches, in drying. Ladies’ veils, eighty yards long and six or seven yards wide, beautifully designed curtains, and narrow lace for neck and under- wear are here seen extending the whole length of the room, the threads which divide them up into the familiar patterns being just traceable.