CORRESP ONDENCE, 



409 



WHERE FLAX IS GROWN AND MANU- 

 FACTURED. 



From The Irish Textile Journal. 



Under this heading a correspondent in 

 Boston sends us for verification the follow- 

 ing cutting from a magazine article of recent 

 date : 



" The finest flax grown in the north of 

 Ireland, in order to attain its highest qual- 

 ity, must be sent to Belgium to be steeped 

 in the water of a certain river. Returning 

 from there, it is spun into superfine yarns 

 by the best machinery and in the naturally 

 adapted moist climate of Belfast. At that 

 stage the product is again sent back to Bel- 

 gium, where it is woven into gossamer-like 

 fabrics, in low, damp cellars, under condi- 

 tions that would not be agreeable to the 

 north of Ireland, and the work of the Bel- 

 gian hand-loom weaver must then be carried 

 back to be bleached under the dripping skies 

 of the Green Isle." 



The writer of the foregoing is a little 

 mixed in his ideas. The finest flax comes 

 to us from the Courtrai district, and the 

 " certain river " in which it is steeped is the 

 Lys, but no flax is sent from Ireland to be 

 steeped there. Courtrai flax is used by our 

 spinners for the finer counts of their yarns, 

 chiefly for hand-loom linens ; but these goods 

 are not necessarily woven in low, damp cel- 

 lars on the Continent any more than in the 

 north of Ireland, where the finest goods can 

 be made. Some descriptions of " gossamer- 

 like " lace are made in damp cellars in France, 

 and from hand-spun flax of the very finest 

 quality, worth £180 to £200 per ton. Of 

 course, we claim for Ireland that it possesses 

 the best climate in the world for bleaching, 

 but only a small quantity of foreign linen 

 is sent here to be finished. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : In reply to your esteemed f avor of 

 the 10th, received this morning, I have to say 

 that while the object of the remarks quoted 

 from the Irish Textile Journal apparently 

 is to discredit or belittle the statements 

 in the extract given from The Popular 

 Science Monthly, it is the fact that these 

 statements are only confirmed thereby in 

 quite a remarkable manner. While, for 

 instance, there may appear to be a con- 

 tradiction in the point made by the Irish 

 authority when he says that "no flax is 

 sent from Ireland to be steeped" in Bel- 

 gium — that is, at the present time — an ex- 

 amination of the text of The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly will show that no statement on 

 that subject is contained therein, and that it 

 was not necessary to the argument. If the 

 critic in question had been able to say that 

 no Irish flax had ever been sent to Belgium 

 for the specified purpose, or that no benefit 

 would have been derived therefrom, then his 

 remarks would have possessed a measure 

 of weight and of justification that the mere 

 vol. xxxvii. — 30 



fact of its being apparently for the moment, 

 for undefined reasons, more advantageous to 

 employ Belgian-grown flax does not confer 

 upon them. The other comments made by 

 the same journal require absolutely no reply, 

 when it is borne in mind that the statements 

 of The Popular Science Monthly article have 

 reference only to the accomplishment of the 

 highest possible excellence in a certain lim- 

 ited industry at a given period, and by no 

 means can be held to apply to the produc- 

 tion of Irish fine linen generally or perma- 

 nently, or to other similar fabrics that may 

 be produced in different parts of the world. 

 Yours very truly, 



J. J. Menzies. 



220 South Hill Street, Los Angeles, Cal., ) 

 April 17, 1690. J 



A CENSUS OF HALLUCINATIONS. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : May I ask for the publicity of your 

 pages to aid me in procuring co-operation 

 in a scientific investigation for which I am 

 responsible ? I refer to the Census of Hal- 

 lucinations, which was begun several years 

 ago by the Society for Psychical Research, 

 and of which the International Congress of 

 Experimental Psychology at Paris, last sum- 

 mer, assumed the future responsibility, nam- 

 ing a committee in each country to carry on 

 the work. 



The object of the inquiry is twofold : (1) 

 To get a mass of facts about hallucinations 

 which may serve as a basis for a scientific 

 study of these phenomena ; and (2) to ascer- 

 tain approximately the proportion of persons 

 who have had such experiences. Until the 

 average frequency of hallucinations in the 

 community is known, it can never be decided 

 whether the so-called " veridical " hallucina- 

 tions (visions or other "warnings" of the 

 death, etc., of people at a distance), which 

 are so frequently reported, are accidental 

 coincidences or something more. 



Some eight thousand or more persons in 

 England, France, and the United States have 

 already returned answers to the question 

 which heads the census sheets, and which 

 runs as follows : 



" Have you ever, when completely atoake, 

 had a vivid impression of seeing or being 

 touched by a living being or inanimate object, 

 or of hearing a voice ; which impression, so 

 far as you could discover, was not due to any 

 external physical cause ? " 



The Congress hopes that at its next 

 meeting, in England in 1892, as many as 

 fifty thousand answers may have been col- 

 lected. It is obvious that, for the purely 

 statistical inquiry, the answer " No " is as im- 

 portant as the answer " Yes.'''' 



I ha^e been appointed to superintend the 

 census in America, and I most earnestly be- 

 speak the co-operation of any among your 

 readers who may be actively interested in 



