Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BRITAIN AT WORK. COTTAGE HAND-LOOM. on the former. Recently, however, partly owing to the spread- of education, but chiefly to the efforts of the Welsh Industries Association in bringing up the cottage products to the requirements of to-day, in regard to texture, pattern, and width, the domestic weavers have more than held their own ; they have, in fact, considerably extended their market. There is much in the weaver’s art that is admittedly clone better by hand than by machine. The sympa- thetic fingers can help a tender place in the yarn where the machine would break it, causing a defect unnoticeable in the “milled” cloth, but very quickly discernible when the fabric is in use.; the hand-woven material does not shrink, because never stretched to the unnatural tension of the machine-made goods, and the hand-“ carded ” wool has a softer finish. When motor power is desirable, the Welsh weaver has an easily accessible and ideal one in the many strong streams that intersect his country, and provide also pure, soft water for bleaching and other finishing operations, and it is by a happy combination of hand labour with water power that the cottage eavers of this generation are succeeding. 1 hese neighbourly currents were first em- ployed to work spinning and carding machines, but their usefulness is being- rapidly extended to other processes. You may still see in remote districts many a lonely weaver working his antique hand- loom in the laborious production of an undeniably durable (for it does not show wear under three generations), but other- wise unattractive material—the same that caused a traveller to complain that he found it impossible to sleep in a room with a Welsh petticoat! The wool is not properly cleansed, and the natural oil, though rendering it water- proof, also renders it offensive. The designs are conservatism incarnate, and the material too narrow, closely woven, and highly milled for modern degenerates, who desire joy to the eyes, and distrust stuff heirlooms. However, these faults still endear it to the country papulation, who regard every- thing not macle by the Flemings’ receipt as “ shoddy.” So the unambitious weaver still earns a precarious livelihood by producing SPOOLING MACHINE.