314 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



" peruvian serges," " oxfords," and other mixed 

 woollen-and-cotton stuffs which are woven in 

 the mountains by the peasants. No less than 

 3,000 hand-looms are thus scattered in twenty- 

 two villages, and about 600,000 worth of 

 various stuffs are woven every year by the rural 

 weavers in this neighbourhood alone ; while 

 15,000 power-looms are at work in both Thizy 

 and the great city of Roanne, in which two 

 towns all varieties of cottons (linings, flannelettes, 

 apron cloth) and silk blankets are woven hi 

 factories by the million yards. 



At Cours, 1,600 workers are employed in 

 making " blankets," chiefly of the lowest sort 

 (even such as are sold at 2s. and even lOd. a 

 piece, for export to Brazil) ; all possible and 

 imaginable rags and sweepings from all sorts 

 of textile factories (jute, cotton, flax, hemp, 

 wool and silk) are used for that industry, in 

 which the factory is, of course, fully victorious. 

 But even at Roanne, where the fabrication 

 of cottons has attained a great degree of per- 

 fection and 9,000 power-looms are at work, 

 producing every year more than 30,000,000 

 yards even at Roanne one finds with astonish- 

 ment that domestic industries are not dead, 

 but yield every year the respectable amount 

 of more than 10,000,000 yards of stuffs. At 

 the same time, in the neighbourhood of that 



