220 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



about 200,000 tons of paper annually. It has been 

 computed that of the 1,300 milhons of human beings 

 inhabiting the globe, 360 millions have no paper or 

 writing materials of any kind. 500 millions of the 

 Mongolian race use a paper made from the stalks and 

 leaves of plants ; 10 millions use for graphic purposes 

 tablets of wood ; 130 millions (Persians, Hindoos, Arme- 

 nians, and Syrians) have paper made from cotton, whilst 

 the remaining 300 millions use the ordinary staple. The 

 annual consumption of this latter number is estimated at 

 one million tons, or an average of 6 lbs. per person. To 

 produce this paper 10 million tons of woollen rags, 

 besides large quantities of linen rags, straw, wood, and 

 other materials are yearly consumed. The paper is manu- 

 factured in 3,960 paper mills, employing 90,000 male and 

 180,000 female labourers ; and be it remembered this 

 great and invaluable industry feeds chiefly on wa.ste, and 

 on what would be otherwise unemployed products. 



It was imagined that in the opening of the China trade 

 large supplies of cotton refuse would be obtainable from 

 the teeming population of that country : but it was soon 

 found out that all old rags, in this most provident empire, 

 were used up in making the thick soles of boots. 



In this utilizing age it cannot reasonably be expected 

 that a waste product such as rags, which have been 

 proved to possess a length of staple, when broken up, 

 sufiicient for the spinning of common-stuff, will be much 

 longer permitted to find its way exclusively to the paper 

 mill. Like flock and shoddy, linen and cotton rags will be 

 taken more and more from the paper makers, and raw 

 vegetable fibre will have to be sought for and cultivated. 

 Moreover too the demand for paper is ever rapidly 

 increasing, partly from the larger consumption of writing 

 paper, more so from the extraordinary development of 

 the cheap literature of the country, and the enormous 

 augmentation in the issue and sale of newspapers ; paper 



