SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 157 



In the west of Lyons, at 1'Arbresles, factories have 

 grown up for making silks and velvets ; but a large part 

 of the population still continue to weave in their houses ; 

 while farther west, Panissieres is the centre of quite a 

 number of villages in which linen and silks are woven as 

 a domestic industry. Not all these workers own their 

 houses, but those, at least, who own or rent a small piece 

 of land or garden, or keep a couple of cows, are said to 

 be well off, and the land, as a rule, is said to be admir- 

 ably cultivated by these weavers. 



The chief industrial centre of this part of the Lyons 

 region is certainly Tarare. Thirty years ago, when Rey- 

 baud wrote his excellent work, Lt Colon, it was a centre 

 for the manufacture of muslins and it occupied in this in- 

 dustry the same position as Leeds formerly occupied in 

 this country in the woollen cloth trade. The spinning mills 

 and the large finishing factories were at Tarare, while 

 the weaving of the muslins and the embroidery of the 

 same were made in the surrounding villages, especially 

 in the hilly tracts of the Beaujolais and the Forez. 

 Each peasant house, each farm and metayerie were small 

 workshops at that time, and one could see, Reybaud 

 wrote, the lad of twenty embroidering fine muslin after 

 he had finished cleaning the farm stables, without the 

 work suffering in its delicacy from a combination of two 

 such varied pursuits. On the contrary, the delicacy of 

 the work and the extreme variety of patterns were a dis- 

 tinctive feature of the Tarare muslins and a cause of their 

 success. All testimonies agreed at the same time in re- 

 cognising that, while agriculture found support in the 

 industry, the agricultural population enjoyed a relative 

 well-being. 



By this time the industry has undergone a thorough 

 transformation, but still no less than 60,000 persons, 

 representing a population of about 250,000 souls, work 

 for Tarare in the hilly tracts, weaving all sorts of muslins 

 for all parts of the world, and they earn every year 



