[4] See _The 'Romance' of Sea-Life_, No. 414 of the Journal.
[5] We must explain that the _working_-songs of seamen--or such as
they sing when heaving at the pawl-windlass, catting the anchor, and
other heavy pieces of work--are of a different class altogether, and
consist chiefly of a variety of appropriate choruses to lively and
inspiriting tunes. These songs sound well, and are worth anything on
shipboard, for they stimulate the men far more than grog would do with
only a dead, silent heave or haul.
'SEWED MUSLINS.'
Under the above technical name is produced in Glasgow a manufacture
little known beyond the sphere of those immediately engaged in the
business, the importance of which, however, as a means of employment
to the poorer Scotch and Irish peasantry, renders it deserving of more
attention than it has hitherto received. Sewed muslins include all
those articles which are composed of muslin with a pattern embroidered
on it by the hand--such as collars, sleeves, chemisettes, &c. together
with the long strips of embroidery used, like laces, for trimming
dresses, petticoats, &c. and called, technically, trimmings. The
manufacture of these articles in the form in which they are now used
was for a long period peculiar to France, and that country alone
supplied all the rest of the world with the limited quantities which
the high cost permitted to be consumed. An embroidered collar,
thirty-five years ago, was an article of luxury only attainable by the
rich, while the far greater part either dispensed with it altogether,
or contented themselves with one of plain muslin or cheap net. Soon
after that period, the rudiments of the manufacture began to be
established at Glasgow, where for some time it made but moderate
progress, and was confined to the production of a very low class of
goods, leaving still to the French all the finer and more tasteful
departments of the trade. During the last ten years, however, the
progress has been very rapid; and now it supplies abundantly, with
cheap and good embroidery, the whole British and American demand, to
the almost total exclusion of both French and Swiss work.
The process by which a perfect piece of embroidery, delicately worked
in a graceful pattern, and as white as snow, is produced, is far more
complicated than might be imagined. The simple plan by which
industrious ladies work a single collar on a traced pattern, with
clean hands in a pure atmosphere, will not do when hundreds of
thousands of collars are to be made, at the lowest rate, by poor
children, in smoky hovels. In order to understand the matter clearly,
it may be as well to transport ourselves to one of the large
establishments in Glasgow, in whose extensive, well-lighted lofts the
whole mechanism of the manufacture may be seen at work.
In the highest room, where the best light is obtained, we find a
number of men, seated at small tables at the windows, engaged in
drawing patterns. These are the designers, whose business it is to
produce a constant and rapid succession of new patterns, either
original or adapted from the French designs, which lie scattered on
their tables. They are a very intelligent class, possessing
considerable originality, and, what is even more important, thoroughly
understanding the art of practical adaptation of costly designs to
the necessities of the manufacture, without which the ingenious
sketches of the French would be valueless. It is proper to add, that
their powers of invention are steadily increasing year after year, and
that the time is probably not remote when they will be independent of
the Parisian designers.
The patterns sketched by them are transferred by the ordinary process
to lithographic stones; and on entering the adjoining room, we find a
large number of lithographic presses at work, some of great size. The
unbleached muslin here receives the impression of the outline pattern,
as paper is printed in the ordinary press; and the substitution of
stones for the wooden blocks formerly used, has greatly cheapened and
facilitated this process. The carved blocks were expensive to cut, and
useless when the pattern was finished: the pattern is now put on the
stone with great economy, and, the requisite number being struck off,
is erased to make room for another.
The printed webs are now carried from the press-room to the floor
below, where the green warehouse is situated--the common receptacle of
the unbleached muslin going out to the working, and of the sewed goods
coming in. The former are now made up into parcels, and sent off to
the agents who are employed in the working districts to give out the
work to the sewers, from whom they are again returned into the same
department when sewed. We see them lying heaped in every direction, so
saturated with dirt, that the pattern is hardly distinguishable from
the muslin, looking and smelling as if no purative process could ever
render them clean and sweet. The interval which elapses between the
goods leaving the green warehouse and returning to it varies, with the
nature of the goods, from a fortnight to six months; although
occasionally pieces remain out much longer, and sometimes drop in
after the lapse of years; while a per-centage are never returned at
all, a loss which constitutes an item in the cost of the remainder.
About three-quarters, at least, of all the embroidery is worked in
Ireland; the remaining quarter being sewed in the south-western
counties of Scotland. In Ireland, the sewing districts, at first
confined to a very limited space in the neighbourhood of Donaghadee,
have gradually spread, until the whole north, and even a portion of
the western wilds of Connaught, have been covered with the agents of
the Scotch and Irish manufacturers. There is every prospect that their
extension will not stop here. It is requisite that the work should be
performed at a very small cost; and from the position and habits of
the Irish, they are able to work cheaper than the Scotch. The nature
of the employment is also peculiarly fitted to them. It can be
performed in their own cottages at leisure times, or by children, not
otherwise useful. No cleanliness is required, as it matters not how
dirty the piece is when finished; and the payments are prompt and in
ready money. The remuneration is small, especially to children
learning, and varies, according to the skill and industry of the
worker, from 6d. to 5s. a week; but this is paid in cash immediately
on the completion of the piece. It is easy to see what an important
addition may thus be made to the means of a poor cotter, by the labour
of the young children and girls, who would probably otherwise have no
employment whatever.
The goods being fairly back in the green warehouse, the next process
is to discharge the load of dirt contracted in the smoky mud-hovel,
and restore the original snowy hue of the cotton. For this purpose
they are sent out to what is termed a bleachfield, although those who
should visit such a place in hopes of seeing a verdant lawn, strewn
with the white folds of muslin waving in the summer breeze, would be
grievously disappointed. A bleachfield is simply a huge steam
wash-house, with red brick walls and a tall chimney vomiting smoke,
with not a particle of turf about it. Here, amidst volumes of steam,
and the unceasing splash of water, the mirky mass is subjected to
repeated agitations in hot and cold solutions, by means of revolving
hollow wheels, inside of which the embroidery is tossed and tumbled
for many days. A little chlorine is at last used, with much care, to
complete the bleaching; and after a term, varying from ten days to
three weeks, the goods are once more returned to the manufacturer, of
a pure white, starched and dressed as may be required. We shall find
them by walking from the green warehouse into the darning and ironing
rooms where the final process of examination and finishing goes on,
and whence they are turned out in a complete state into the saleroom,
on the lowest floor of the establishment, to be disposed on long
mahogany polished counters for sale. The extreme economy and method of
this long process may be imagined when we are shewn very pretty
collars, the entire cost of which--designing, sewing, muslin,
bleaching, and profit--only amounts to 3d., yet including a rather
elaborate pattern; while a yard of good serviceable edging is produced
for 2-1/4d.
The entire amount of the manufacture must of course be conjectural,
but it has been estimated at about three-quarters of a million
sterling a year. The principal part is sold in Glasgow, but a part of
the Irish production is disposed of in Belfast. If we take, as the
price of the work, two-thirds of the gross sum, the remaining third
being cost of muslin, expenses, charges, and profit, we shall have
L.500,000 as the sum annually distributed, in ready money, in small
sums over the south of Scotland and the north of Ireland--a most
important addition to the resources of the rural population of those
districts. In addition to this, a large class of workers, male and
female, are employed in Glasgow in the preparation and in the
finishing of the goods--as designers, lithographers, weavers, clerks,
darners, ironers, and patterners. These are all well paid--some very
highly; and the young women composing the three latter classes are a
remarkably well-to-do, prosperous class.
The growth of the manufacture has been much accelerated by the
export-trade to the United States, where its superior cheapness and
intrinsic excellence have induced a large consumption. Could we
prevail on the French government to relax the prohibition which now
bars its entrance into that country, a new and wide field would be
opened for its extension, even at a pretty high duty; as the French
manufacture, in its present state, is quite inadequate to supply the
demand for cheap embroidery there. Even as it is, a good deal is
smuggled in, and may be recognised by the experienced eye adorning the
windows of the shops in Paris. An increased demand must tell
immediately in favour of Ireland, the only place affording an
increased supply of labour; and on this account, the prosperity and
extension of the trade in sewed muslins must be an object of interest
to all who desire the amelioration of the condition of the Irish
peasant.