Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

22 BRITAIN AT WORK. IRONING DEPARTMENT. millions of these teeth garnish a single machine, and the rough, unkempt fibres which pass in at one end may be traced through their progress between these scarifiers, and then through between fluted rollers until they emerge first into a narrow, and after- wards in a broad, glossy, even lop of softish fibre. This sheet or sliver is gathered up, forced through narrow apertures in a roving frame which draws it out and twists the fibres together by means of a flyer and spindle into what is called a rove, at the same time winding it upon wooden bobbins. These bobbins are then placed on pins on the spinning frame, and in this process the flax is passed through the rollers of one drawing machine after another, grows longer and longer, and the fibres lie more and more closely together. Then a final passage through boiling water is given, when the fibres are tightly twisted into perfect yarn or thread. This yarn is now reeled into hanks, dried, so that it may recover its natural elasticity of temper after its ordeal, as it were, and made into bundles of 60,000 yards ready to be taken to the market and to the weavers. The spinning room in a large mill is not a place for nervous or irritable people. The great frames clack, clatter, and whirr as they move to and fro, spindles go whirring round so swiftly as to blur their outline, and the noise is very great. The temperature is high, the moisture considerable, and husky fragments of rough flax float about. Yet it is not an unhealthy class of work, and the workers look robust and strong enough. The humidity of the atmosphere is an important factor in spinning. In order to spin very fine linen yarn the threads of flax must be kept moist. Continental manu- facturers have tried to manage this problem by providing artificial moisture in the factories, but here Dame Nature steps in to compensate the “ distressful land,” for nothing quite equals the natural dampness of the Irish air. But to revert again to our handkerchief: we have only reached the half-way—the yarn— stage in its story. Examine a handkerchief closely, and you will observe how it is made up of countless fine threads crossing one another, and always at right angles. Originally these threads were of the raw greyish colour of the yarn, as we have seen it leave the spinning mill in hanks. How the threads of yarn were woven together into cloth is our next step of interest. To see the weaving process properly one must go to the home of the handkerchief and linens of all classes, so the photographs illustrating this article, of machinery in actual work in the great power-loom factories of Messrs. Robinson and Cleaver, will give a better idea of the various stages than chapters of words. It must not be supposed, however, that power-loom weaving has entirely super- seded the hand loom. Even in this day of almost perfected machinery the finest linen weaving is done on hand looms in the cottage homes of the weavers.