242 The 'Book of the Goat. 



MOHAIR AND ITS USE IN COMMERCE. Mohair, the 

 name by which the fine silky hair of the Angora is known 

 in the trade, must be regarded commercially as the most 

 important product of the goat, employing as it does in this 

 and other countries many thousands of persons in its 

 manufacture. 



" Mohair first became an article of commerce in 1749, 

 when a branch of the Levant Company, consisting of a 

 few Dutch and English merchants, settled in or near the 

 town of Angora, and commenced buying mohair and 

 spinning yarns for export; the export of the article 

 in its raw and unmanufactured state being then pro- 

 hibited by the Turkish Government." (The Field, 

 lyth May, 1879). 



Tournefort, writing on the Angora goat in 1655, says 

 that at this early period mohair yarn was spun into textures 

 at Brussels, and in England was used in the making up of 

 periwigs. Goods made of mohair were not known com- 

 mercially in England, however, until early in the eight- 

 eenth century. It was about the year 1836 that the 

 spinning of mohair became an industry in this country. 

 The story goes that " a young man wandering about the 

 docks at Liverpool was attracted by a quantity of long- 

 fibred, frowsy stuff, the like of which he had never seen 

 and the use of which nobody seemed to know. It had 

 come from South America, 300 bales of it, and had been 

 lying in the warehouse for months without a purchaser. 

 The next day he returned and offered is. 6d. per Ib. for 

 the whole lot, an offer which was accepted with alacrity. 

 The stuff was alpaca, and the young man afterwards 

 became Sir Titus Salt." This gave the idea of spinning 

 mohair, which for some years was classed commercially 

 with the produce of the alpaca and the Cashmere goat as 

 " goats' wool." The industry rapidly developed, and in 

 1853 Titus Salt began erecting the extensive works at 



