50 Transactions. 



occupation of the handloom weaver is gone, the click of the 

 shuttle and the thud of the beam are no longer heard in Colvend, 

 and with the cessation of handloom weaving there has ceased 

 contemporaneously the occupation and art of spinning, the 

 one art and occupation being dependent on the other. Fifty 

 years ago there were several spinning wheels in the parish, the 

 big wheel for spinning wool, the small for flax or hemp. The 

 big wheel was kept in motion by the spinner advancing and 

 receding, but always on foot ; the small wheel by the spinner 

 sitting and keeping the wheel in niotion by one foot on a pedal, the 

 hands being employed meanwhile in pulling down the tow from the 

 distaff and guiding the thread. The big wlieel I have frequently 

 seen in operation in the parish, but not the less. Yet, doubtless, 

 the little wheel must have been in operation in the parish 

 within the specified period, for both yarn of wool, and thread of 

 flax were required in weaving some of the kinds of cloth made by 

 the handloom, such as drugget, a coarse kind of cloth consisting 

 of wool or worsted and hemp woven together, and linsey-woolsey, 

 a finer cloth, made up, as the name implies, of flax and wool 

 combined. But, whether the distaflf and spindle were in use in 

 the parish within the last fifty years or not, they doubtless were 

 in other parts of Scotland. I myself have seen the little wheel 

 in common use in a parish farther removed than Colvend from 

 the advancing civilization, and also the distafi' and spindle, a 

 method of spinning more primitive than either big or little wheel. 

 But neither big nor little wheel is now known in Colvend. 



At one time a shoemaker and tuilor were to be found in every 

 hamlet or little group of houses. At this moment there is not a 

 shoemaker in the parish, and only one tailor, and he is only 

 partially employed. Formerly there were four tailors in the 

 parish who took in work to be done in their own houses at slated 

 rates, or perambulated the country making and mending in the 

 cottages and farm houses, getting their food and a small payment. 

 Is 6d or 2s for the day's Avork. Now there is but one tailor, 

 and he only partially employed. 



There are two trades in tlie parish, however, which, mid all the 

 changes which have taken place and are still taking place, hold 

 their ground unchanged and undiminished — the trades of joiner 

 and blacksmith. There were four or five joiners' shops in the 

 parish, and four smithies, fifty years ago ; each with its head and 

 one or two apprentices, and thei'e is tlie same number still, and 



