Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

DRYING WOOL AND YARN ON its row of huge coppers, and the wooden screw-presses in which the finished material is “ milled.” Beyond this is a much dis- coloured plot of ground, scattered with the ashes of many fires, broken pots, and wooden spoons, where the dyeing is done in huge cauldrons over earth ovens. The winding machine and pattern board are usually kept inside the cottage for the leisure hours of the female workers. Often every available space in the picturesque kitchen is crowded with “ prins,” “ spools,” and skeined yarn. Sometimes they even encroach on the parlour, usually kept sacred to “ the Book,” Sundays, and funerals, until the busy housewife has time to store them in the big wall cupboard by the settle, where she keeps her patterns and order-books. The wool is bought direct from the farmers, the price paid being usually about ninepence a pound. It is sorted fine and coarse, and carefully washed by the cottage weavers, who then send it to a local factory to be spun. Spinning factories are now usually worked by water power, and are separate from the weaving factories, though some weavers own small yarning machines. The picturesque spinning-wheel of old has de- generated into lumber, unless it has been bought and promoted to the high estate of a boudoir curio. Carding, too, is often now performed WORK. by machinery. Machines called the “ tucker,” “ scribbler,” and “ carder ” are in general use. But for specially fine kinds of material the wool is carded by hand, on account of the softer finish obtained. The same friendly torrent that moves the great spinning machine does the winding and skeining for the cottage spinner, who is also responsible for the cleansing of the yarn from the oil he mixed with it in its manufacture, and sometimes for the dyeing of it ; but the BUSHES. . ’ , superior dress goods are usually dyed after they are woven. Spinners receive from threepence to four- pence-halfpenny a pound for the spinning. With a machine carder they can work ninety or a hundred pounds of wool in two days, work- ing fifteen hours a day ; they thus earn £2 to ^3 a week, allowing for working expenses. The dyeing is now the chief problem the Welsh cottage weaver has to face. His looms have been improved, and his taste in patterns has been educate^ ; he has learned to thoroughly wash the oil and grease from his wool, to spin it so that it shall be light and soft, as well as strong and durable, to apply power where desirable while retaining the excellence of his hand finish, and to admire his product without that hard and shining- surface from over “milling” that was so clear to his ancestors ; but to obtain the delicate, fashionable colours remains with him a technical difficulty, and he is often obliged to send his dress materials to the great dyeworks of England and Scotland. So far in this matter he has no sort of com- bination, and must pa.y for his dyeing, carriage, etc., at the ordinary retail rate ; the natural result being that, as he finds this class of goods gives him more trouble and less profit than flannels, tweeds, petticoats, and shawls, he deserts it for them. Yet it is in the finer hand-finished stuffs that he is so capable of excelling.