VILLAGE INDUSTRIES 287 



cotton it triumphantly shares the ground occupied on equal terms 

 with its power rival. 



In the briskly manufacturing district of Northern Bohemia, 

 as M. Kostka, Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce in 

 Reichenberg, recently reported to a Middle Class Congress 

 held at Vienna, every fifth person among those entered on the 

 Register as being " industrially employed " is engaged in very 

 small industry — and, if you make the true reckoning, counting 

 every person that actually works, not only those who take out 

 working licenses, every third. With what remarkable pliancy and 

 resourcefulness small industry knows how to wind its way through 

 difficulties coming to obstruct it, and to adapt itself to altering 

 circumstances, is well shown in France, which country is under our 

 present aspect one of the most interesting to study. Of course the 

 old hand-weaving has had to yield ground to factory work over a 

 wide area ; but, nevertheless, it maintains its hold very successfully 

 over certain specialities. Thus the silk weaving of Lyons and the 

 silk ribbon weaving of Saint Etienne and its environs virtually hold 

 their own as distinctively rural industries. In the district of Lyons 

 there are some 60,000 hand-weavers, about 55,000 of whom belong 

 to the rural class. The district of Tarare likewise keeps its head 

 aloft with its muslins and tarlatans. And there is much cotton hand- 

 weaving still in Anjou, more particularly at Cholet and its surround- 

 ing more than 200 villages. Lace-making has deserted its historic 

 strongholds of Valenciennes and Chantilly, but has, in return, spread 

 out a little in the Velay and the Vosges district. On the other 

 hand, manual making of household linen and underclothing, both of 

 linen and cotton, has extended considerably. It is particularly 

 strong in the Centre, more particularly in Berry and the Orleanais. 

 The same as in parts of Austria and Switzerland, in some French 

 towns, such as Vierzon, Issoudun, Romorantin, Blois — there are 

 more — central workshops have been set up, to which workers from 

 the neighbourhood may come, take their places in them and work, 

 every one for him or herself. Nancy likewise has a good deal of such 

 work doing in its surroundings. The Lorrains are capital hands at 

 all this small industrial work. The making of cambric (batiste) 

 continues to nourish in the country of Cambrai. Trimming work 

 (passementerie) and hosiery also hold the field triumphantly, the 

 former generally combined with embroidery — which seems the 

 queen industry in respect of remunerativeness for country 

 districts. Luneville, which furnished the historic, much-talked -of 

 christening veil for the " King of the Romans," is topmost in this 



