We had just taken that delightful ride down the rapids of the St.
Lawrence, and experienced the thrill of mingled pleasure and fear which
everyone has at the moment when the vessel is dashing at a furious rate
directly towards a great rock, and we were sure that someone had made
a mistake for once, and no power could save us from being dashed in
pieces, when a sudden whirling current of the stream picked the ship
out of the way of the rock and carried her safely through the boiling
foam into a place of comparative safety.
As we stood among the seagoing shipping of the port of Montreal we
could easily understand why there should be such a great city there.
We took but little stock in what had been said of the great business
enterprise of the early settlers of that town and how they built up
the place till it became a great seaport and an important commercial
center. No doubt they were able and enterprising men, but Montreal was
made by nature the greatest and most important seaport of Canada by the
peaceful deep river and its formidable rapids. Since no ships can sail
up those rapids the boats that came from Europe and all over the earth
were obliged to tie up there and discharge their cargoes.
Wherever there is a ledge of rock to stop the coming up of vessels from
the sea there is always an important town to receive what those ships
bring and to distribute it over the country round about.
We went aboard a ship that had just come in from France loaded with
cases of wines. As the wines were being carried ashore at some of the
gangways loads of something else were being brought aboard at others.
This stuff was done up in sacks longer than a man and very heavy. It
took several men to handle a sack. They were so careless about it that
we wondered that they did not fear breaking the contents of the sacks.
Then we wondered more what sort of stuff could be shipped to Europe in
such sacks and in such great quantities. We inquired; and it took some
little time to make the inquiry, for the men who did the work spoke
something that sounded like French, but our school French did not suit
them. We could find no one at hand who spoke English. We learned that
the sacks contained oilcake.
Linen has been woven since records of what man has done have been
kept. Some historians claim that cotton is the oldest fabric, and give
instances of old records of its use in India and China. Others claim
woolen goods to be the oldest, and yet others claim the honor for
linen. Whoever looks into the matter extensively will be inclined to
give the credit to whichever fabric he studies most, but it is likely
that the figleaf will be credited with the greatest age as a fabric by
most people.
The seed of flax is ground fine, either roasted or raw, and placed
under heavy hydraulic pressure. This brings out the oil, which is a
very important article called linseed oil. The cake is valuable for
feeding cattle and the oil is used in all kinds of painting where the
painted surface has to stand against the weather. Most of the flax
raised in America is cultivated for the seed mainly. In Ohio three
pecks of seed are sown to the acre and from six to twelve bushels are
harvested. There is also a ton or two of straw to the acre, which is
used at the rope-walks and paper-mills. Linen paper is peculiarly
valuable.
The mummies of Egypt were swathed in linen, and much of this cloth
is now in an excellent state of preservation although at least four
thousand years have sped since its manufacture. While Joseph was in
bondage cloth was woven which is still in existence.
There was once some question as to whether certain mummy cloth was of
cotton or linen. But that has been definitely settled by the use of
powerful lenses. The microscope shows that a fiber of cotton is flat
and curly like a ribbon somewhat crinkled, and, like a fine ribbon,
has a beautiful border which differs from the rest of the fiber. A
fiber of flax has a glassy luster and is not flat like cotton, but
rather like an extremely fine bamboo rod, cylindrical and jointed.
When these facts were learned regarding the two fibers the cloth under
suspicion was placed under the glass and showed unmistakably that it
was round, transparent, and jointed. So there could no longer be any
doubt that the ancient coverings of the dead in Egypt were all of linen
with no mixture of cotton even when cotton was well-known.
The dead could not be buried in cerements of wool because there was a
strict law against it, the wool being supposed to invite worms. The
remarkable preservation of the cloth is largely due to the fact that it
was well smeared with wax and asphaltum. But the fibers of flax resist
decay to such an extent that in the ordinary process of preparing flax
for spinning it is moistened and left exposed to such an extent that if
it were as easy to decay as cotton it would become rotten before the
time for spinning.
The earliest records of the business of preparing this useful fabric
are those of the Egyptians as cut in stone on their ancient monuments.
In their hieroglyphics and illustrations they have left us a complete
representation of all their arts, and the processes of gathering flax,
rotting off the bark and coatings of the fibers, cleaning the material
by striking with clubs or whipping it against stones, straightening
the fibers, twisting them into threads, and weaving cloth, are all
beautifully pictured and described.
When William the Conqueror invaded England his wife Matilda made a
record of the principal events of his life by embroidering upon a
linen strip twenty inches wide and two hundred and fourteen feet long
figures of the men, boats, animals, weapons, and other interesting
objects, using woolen thread and depicting all with great clearness
and accuracy. The Bishop of Odo assisted her husband at the battle of
Hastings, and in remembrance of his kindness Matilda presented the work
to the cathedral of Bayeaux. It is now preserved in the public library
of that city.
Two hundred years ago there were spinning schools in Germany. The
teacher sat with a wand in her hand and tapped the children near her
when they lapsed into idleness, and when she noticed any of those
at some distance from her not at work she rang a little bell for an
attendant to enter and take the offenders out of the room for the
purpose of punishment.
The old Dutch settlers in New York made what was called linsey-woolsey.
This was a sort of cloth made with linen warp filled in with woolen
woof. It was better than all-wool goods because it held its shape
better and was stronger. This material was much worn by the early
inhabitants of America, Abraham Lincoln being one of those who were
well-satisfied with home-made garments of this fabric. Irving, in
his "Knickerbocker's History of New York," claimed that some of the
Dutchmen whose names ended in broeck were so-called because of some
peculiarity pertaining to their breeches. For instance, Tenbroeck took
his name from the rare distinction of his possessing and wearing at the
same time ten pairs of linsey-woolsey breeches.
When people began to show their prosperity by purchasing cloth made
up more beautifully than the product of the homestead loom they had
to endure the remarks of others who affected to despise the man who
was so extravagant as to care to dress in "store cloth." So recent is
the use of this old-fashioned material that we find in one of Louisa
Alcott's essays to girls the statement that "Modesty is as sweet in
linsey-woolsey as in linen."
The greatest country in the world for the production of linen of the
best quality is Ireland. Flax there reaches a height often exceeding
two feet and the soil and climate seem to be the very best for maturing
the fiber and manipulating it when gathered. In traveling through the
country I saw a great deal of what at first glance seemed to be some
sort of grain lying on the ground spoiling in the rain. I soon realized
that this was flax and that it was left out on the ground purposely to
give the pulp and bark a chance to rot away from the fiber.
Dew-retting is letting the flax lie in the heavy dews of Ireland till
the work is done. Soil on which flax is raised is rapidly made poor
unless the richness that is taken from it in the flax is restored to
it in some way. Most of this richness is in the seed and the part of
the stalk that is removed in the retting. Where this gets back to the
soil there is little else to be added. Sometimes the flax is retted
in small pools and the water saved to put upon the ground, though the
flax is more discolored by this process than where the work is done in
running water. Recently steam heat and vapor have been used to soften
the stalks, and then the air pump draws the pulp away from the fiber,
so that what once took several weeks to do is now done in a few hours.
By the old process the fiber was sometimes left stacked dry for years
with constant improvement in quality.
The Irish people, who are so proud of their island, point with
additional pride to what some of their linen towns have done. As we
were riding past the little village of Bessbrook a clergyman took pains
to point out to us the evidences of thrift. He said that town lacked
three p's that are very troublesome to other towns all over the world.
They were the pawnshop, the public house, and the police. The good
character of the people made these entirely unnecessary for their town.
But these good qualities are not universal there, for in some of the
larger places intemperance is remarkably bad.
We saw the work in all its stages at Belfast. Queen Victoria gets her
table linen from that city, and we saw several pieces in the loom that
had the royal arms upon them. To get the finest fabric the fiber is
kept moist in both spinning and weaving. Nothing can be more beautiful
than the silky, transparent stuffs made there. Dry spinning is done
where a coarse and heavy grade of goods is desired. American visitors
in Ireland, especially the gentlemen, plan to bring home as large a
quantity of linen collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs as the customs
officers will allow to pass at New York free of duty.
The finest linen goods are called lawns, and this name is a
modification of the French word _linon_, which sounds much like lawn
when spoken properly. The French make many fine articles from all sorts
of fibers, and seem to have recovered from the blow to their industries
which came on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Some writers claim
that nearly half a million skilled workers in fabrics left that country
in the years around 1688.
While the battle of Waterloo was raging near Brussels and the people
of rank were so strongly affected by the thunder of the guns of all
Europe there were thousands of women, young and old, in that city and
within hearing of the great contest who kept right on with their work,
making laces. They knew somebody would win the day, and there would be
a market for all sorts of finery, and the linen laces of Belgium were
of much importance to society. There are many kinds of laces made in
Brussels, but the kind you most see as you pass along the streets is
that being made on little cushions by women sitting before their shops
and houses with one eye upon their work and the other on those who are
passing, hoping to get an American to pay a large price for something
that he thinks he has seen made. It is not an unheard-of thing for an
American to buy of one of these attractive lace-makers lace that came
from the machines of Nottingham, England, for machine-made lace is much
cheaper than that made by hand.
Pillow lace was probably invented by Barbara Uttmann, in the middle of
the sixteenth century. She lived in St. Annaberg, Germany, and was a
woman of great natural ability. She was highly honored by the Saxons,
who state with pride that when she died, at the age of sixty, she had
seen sixty-four of her own children and grand-children.
Point lace of the old sort was the highest form of needle art. Holy
men of old gave their lives to architecture, believing they could give
glory to God by work in stone beautifully carved and set in the walls
of monasteries and cathedrals; so it happened that in the thirteenth
century the works of their hands reached the highest point in
architecture. So beautiful is their work even now that those who have
studied the subject but little know the date of a building when they
see its windows. But a century later the nuns had done something of the
same sort. They had produced from the fine fibers of flax marvelous
designs of fleecy lace fabrics that were the wonder of Christendom.
Their art was buried with them. A point lace is made to-day, but it
is far from the excellence of the original work, which was a constant
prayer of those who gave their lives to the making of it.
A Yankee boy of twenty, Erastus Bigelow, thought it would be a good
thing to try to invent a way of making coachlace by machinery. In
forty days he was producing lace at three cents a yard which had cost
twenty-two cents. Then he invented a loom for ingrain carpets; this
made eight yards a day instead of three that the looms of the time
made. In making Brussels carpet he made his chief triumph. Seven yards
a day was considered a good day's work, but he made a machine that
produced twenty-five yards of much better quality in the same time.
He received one hundred thousand dollars for his patents. The body of
Brussels carpet is built on a foundation of linen.