246 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



higher sorts of silks became scarce, the Lyons weavers re- 

 sorted to the manufacture of stuffs of lower qualities : 

 -foulards, crepes, tulles, of which Lyons had the monopoly 

 in Europe. But now the commoner kinds of goods are 

 manufactured by the million, on the one side by the fac- 

 tories of Lyons, Saxony, Russia and Great Britain, and on the 

 other side by peasants in the neighbouring departments of 

 France, as well as in the Swiss villages of the cantons of 

 Basel and Zurich, and in the villages of the Rhine provinces, 

 Italy and Russia. 



The emigration of the French silk industry from the 

 towns to the villages began long ago, i.e., about 1817, but it 

 was especially in the sixties that this movement took a great 

 development. About the year 1872 nearly 90,000 hand-looms 

 were scattered, not only in the Rh&ne department, but also 

 in those of Ain, Isere, Loire, Sa8ne-et-Loire, and even those 

 of Dr6me, Ardeche and Savoie. Sometimes the looms were 

 supplied by the merchants, but most of them were bought 

 by the weavers themselves, and it was especially women and 

 girls who worked on them at the hours free from agriculture. 

 But already since 1835 the emigration of the silk industry 

 from the city to the villages began in the shape of great 

 factories erected in the villages, and such factories continue 

 to spread in the country, making terrible havoc amidst the 

 rural populations. 



When a new factory is built in a village it attracts at once 

 the girls, and partly also the boys of the neighbouring 

 peasantry. The girls and boys are always happy to find an 

 independent livelihood which emancipates them from the 

 control of the family. Consequently, the wages of the fac- 

 tory girls are extremely low. At the same time the distance 

 from the village to the factory being mostly great, the girls 

 cannot return home every day, the less so as the hours of 

 labour are usually long. So they stay all the week at the 

 factory, in barracks, and they only return home on Saturday 

 evening ; while at sunrise on Mpnday a waggon makes the 

 tour of the villages, and brings them back to the factory. 

 Barrack life not to mention its moral consequences soon 

 renders the girls quite unable to work in the fields. And, 



