MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 77 



goods, or for the common kinds of blankets, while the dark colored 

 shoddy is worked into all kinds of coarse cloths, carpets, &c., which 

 are dyed any dark color, so as to hide the various colors of the old 

 fabrics. It is mixed in with new wool in such proportion as its quality 

 will permit without deteriorating the sale of the material. 



The mungo is used in nearly all the Yorkshire superfine cloths, and 

 in some very extensively. It produces a cloth somewhat inferior, of 

 course, to the West of England goods in durability, but for finish and 

 appearance, when first made up, the inferiority would only be per- 

 ceived by a good judge of cloth. 



The great English slop-sellers, Moses and Hyam, are among the 

 largest purchasers of Yorkshire broadcloths. 



The effect of shoddy in the cloth of an overcoat in the wear, is to 

 rub out of the cloth and accumulate between it and the lining. We 

 have seen a gentleman take a handful of this short wool from the 

 corners of his coat. 



The grounds on which this shoddy and mungo business can be jus- 

 tified, are the cheapening of cloth, and the turning to a useful pur- 

 pose what would be otherwise almost useless. The business in York- 

 shire is dignified by the title of the " Dewsbury trade." And to it 

 Dewsbury certainly owes its wealth, and we might also say its exist- 

 ence. In twenty years it has grown from a village to a town of some 

 30,000 inhabitants, and some immense fortunes have been made by 

 this extraordinary transformation of old garments into new. 



Considerable quantities of white shoddy have been sent from Eng- 

 land and Scotland to this country, and a machinist informed us that 

 he had sent several of his rag machines, so that the trade is not entire- 

 ly unknown here, and it is probable, there will one day arise a Dews- 

 bury in the New-England States, which will render it unnecessary to 

 send old woolens to England, to be pulled into wool, and then return- 

 ed here again at a cost of some 300 per cent, above the price given for 

 the woolen rags. 



The Dewsbury trade is somewhat fluctuating, being affected very 

 much by the state of the wool market. So great is the competition in 

 the English markets, that as soon as a rise takes place in the price of 

 new wool, the small manufacturers, instead of raising their prices, com- 

 monly regulate their expenditure by using a larger proportion of the 

 old material, and they are thus enabled to compete, in prices at least, 

 with the larger manufacturers, who can lay in a large stock of new 

 wool when the prices are low. 



MACHINE FOR CLEANSING VAULTS AND CESSPOOLS. 



The Pneumatic Draining Company, of New York, have in their 

 employ an ingenious arrangement for the cleaning of vaults, &c., with- 

 out creating the effluvia nuisance usually accompanying such opera- 

 tions. 



The apparatus consists of a strong iron cylinder, with all the appur- 

 tenances of valves and stop-cocks mounted on four wagon wheels. 



