292 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



be forgotten that thousands of small articles 

 for the writing-table and for draughtsmen are 

 fabricated on a large scale in the small factories 

 in the same region. Some of the workshops 

 are situated in private houses, and in some of 

 them artistic work is made ; but most of them 

 are located in special houses, where the neces- 

 sary power is hired by the owner of the work- 

 shop. You see here " a fantastic activity " 

 the word is M. Dumazet's ; the division of 

 labour is very great, and everywhere they 

 invent new machine-tools. 



Finally, in the villages of the Vermandois 

 district (department of the Aisne), we find a 

 considerable number of hand-looms (more than 

 3,000) upon which mixed stuffs made of cotton, 

 wool and silk are woven.* 



Of course, it must be recognised that, as a 

 rule, in northern France, where cottons are 

 fabricated on a large scale in factory towns, 

 hand- weaving in the villages is nearly gone. 

 But, as is seen already from the preceding, new 

 small industries have grown up instead, and 

 this is also the case in many other parts of France. 



Taking the region situated between Rouen 

 in the north-east, Orleans in the south-east, 

 Rennes in the north-west, and Nantes in the 

 south-west that is, the old provinces of Nor- 



* Ardouin Dumazet, voL xix., p. 10. 



