422 FLAX 



hackle. From 100 pounds of well-cleaned flax, about 45 or 60 pounds of hackled 

 lino may be obtained by the hand labour of 12 hours ; the rest being tow, with a 

 small waste in woody particles of dust. The process is continued till, by careful 

 handling, little more tow is formed. 



To aid the hackle in splitting the filaments, three methods have been had recourse 

 to : beating, brushing, and boiling with soap-water or an alkaline lye. 



Beating flax either after it is completely hackled, or between the first and second 

 hacklings, is practised in Bohemia and Silesia. Each hiicklod tress of flax is folded 

 in the middle, twisted once round, its ends being wound about with flaxen threads ; 

 and this head, as it is called, is then beaten by a wooden mallet upon a block and 

 repeatedly turned round till it has become hot. It is next loosened out, and rubbed 

 well between the hands. The brushing is no less a very proper operation for part- 

 ing the flax into fine filaments, softening and strengthening it without risk of tearing 

 the fibres. This process requires, in tools, merely a stiff brush made of swine's 

 bristles, and a smooth board, 3 feet long and 1 foot broad, in which a wooden pin 

 is made fast. The end of the flax is twisted two or three times round this pin to 

 hold it, and then brushed through its whole length. Well-hackled flix suffers no 

 loss in this operation ; unhackled, only a little tow ; which is of no consequence, as 

 the waste is thereby diminished in the following process. A cylindrical brush turned 

 by machinery might be employed hero to advantage. These have been tried in 

 establishments for machine spinning, but not found advantageous. 



The object of all hackling being to produce a good yield of line with tow of good 

 quality that is to say, free from broken, unsplit fibres, lumps and knots the care and 

 attention necessary to do this, with the expense and uncertain result of the individual 

 skill of workmen, urged manufacturers to attempt the establishment of machines for 

 effecting the process.' Therefore many contrivances were invented with this view, 

 but it was long doubted whether any of them made such good work, with so little loss, 

 as hand labour. In hackling by the hand it was supposed that the operator would 

 feel at once the degree of resistance, and bo able to accommodate the traction to it, or 

 throw the flax more or less deeply among the teeth, according to circumstances, and 

 draw it with suitable force and velocity. For a considerable period these ideas, or 

 rather prejudices, as they may now bo called, seemed to be confirmed : for the earlier 

 attempts to supersede hand-hackling, like those in many other undertakings, though 

 partially favourable, were, on the whole, rather discouraging. In attaining one poiiit, 

 desired another was lost, for too much still depended on the care and attention, if not 

 on tho actual skill, of the persons attending the machines. 



It will be desirable, therefore, to give particulars respecting some of those which 

 have been from time to time invented, although they are not now in use, as a lesson for 

 preventing the repetition of things already known, as well as to illustrate the stops suc- 

 cessively taken. The first machine invented, or, at least, published, was called tho 

 ' Peter,' and was intended to illustrate, as clearly as possible, the movements of tho 

 liaud hackler. The flax was first divided into small convenient portions or handfuls, 

 about 4 oz. each, called 'stricks,' which, before being taken to tho machine, wi-ru 

 slightly straightened and dressed over the ordinary hand ' rougher.' Each of theso 

 was then placed between a pair of short iron bars, called a ' holder,' one of which had 

 an indentation in the middle, and the other a corresponding projection. Thus when 

 tightened together by screws 4 inches apart (such length being equal to a man's 

 grasp), the strick of flax was firmly held while exposed to the action of the hackles. 

 The holder was then suspended from moveablo levers over a truncated rectangular 

 cylinder, upon the angles of which wore fixed, at a certain angle, hackles similar to 

 those used in the manual operation. Tho levers supporting tho holders received from 

 a crank a short up-and-down motion, so timed in their oscillations as to strike tho 

 holder nearly against the points of tho pins at the time they wore passing uiulrr, 

 coming thus as nearly as possible to tho effect of a man striking in and drawing 

 through the hackles, except that the flax remained nearly stationary, and tho haeklo 

 was drawn through it by the rotation of tho cylinder, whereas in tho hand-process tho 

 hackle was stationary, and tho flax drawn through it by tho operator. Each marliim; 

 carried two holders. Tho tow made and collected from the holders was seized and 

 taken off by boys stationed for that purpose, while another, at tho ringing of a lull, 

 took out and changed tho sides of the stricks to be presented to the action of tho 

 hackles, and subsequently withdrew them from tho first machine to another similar 

 but with finer hackles, and thus continued until the root end always tho first ope- 

 rated on was dressed to the desired degree of fineness, when they would be takmi to 

 a table where another set of boys, previously to removing tho first holder, put on a 

 second to the already-hackled part, leaving about 2^ to 3 im-hes to Ixi iv-hackled. 

 This operation is termed ' shifting,' and tho space loft, 'the shift; 'it is thus performed 



