j.243] 



is first taken to a running stream, where it is washed by 

 hand and trampled under foot in the water. It is then 

 spread upon the sand to dry and bleach, after which it is 

 assorted according to fineness, length, and purity. It is 

 then hackled on a simple, old-fashioned hackle, consisting 

 of a few dozen long iron nails driven through a board. 

 After hackling, the fleece is placed in bundles or rolls and 

 spun into yarn, mostly by the women and children. For 

 this purpose a common distaff is used, or a stick from twelve 

 to eighteen inches in length, with cross pieces, rendering it 

 about equivalent to a large spool. It is then ready for the 

 loom. This instrument in Angora is of the simplest and 

 rudest construction, and of the same unvarying type that 

 has been used by countless generations. Asiatic industry is 

 frugal in labor-saving processes. When once machinery is 

 brought to such a degree of efficiency as to render it barely 

 possible for an unlimited amount of labor to supplement 

 and supply its deficiencies, no further improvement is made. 

 Men then subject themselves, their minds, and muscles to a 

 training which makes them almost a part of the machines 

 they operate. Caucasian mind seeks to emancipate itself 

 from all unnecessary labor by transferring it to machinery, 

 thus leaving the mental faculty free for intellectual labor. 

 Each of its tasks it devolves successfully upon inanimate 

 matter, while it continually ascends to higher results. But 

 this function of intelligence seems to be entirely ignored by 

 Asiatic mind and Asiatic art. 



The manufacture of Cashmere, camels' hair, and other 

 shawls, once so flourishing in Asia, is greatly impaired, and 

 in many places entirely discontinued. But few of the once 

 famous Cashmere shawls have been manufactured since the 

 rise of the fatal competition of Lyons, Paris, Paisley, 

 Vienna, and other manufacturing centers of Europe. Cau- 

 casian capital and skill, aided by the elaborate contrivances 

 of machinery, can now produce at much lower prices fabrics 



