APPENDIX. 455 



noisy factories, roads blackened with coal, and a poor 

 vegetation give the country the well-known aspects of 

 a " Black Country." In certain towns, such as St. 

 Chamond, one finds numbers of big factories in which 

 thousands of women are employed in the fabrication 

 of passementerie. But side by side with the great 

 industry the petty trades also maintain a high develop- 

 ment. Thus we have first the fabrication of silk 

 ribbons, in which no less than 50,000 men and women 

 were employed in the year 1885. Only 3,000 or 4,000 

 looms were located then in the factories ; while the 

 remainder that is, from 1,200 to 1,400 looms 

 belonged to the workers themselves, both at St. 

 Etienne and in the surrounding country.* As a rule 

 the women and the girls spin the silk or make the 

 winding off, while the father with his sons weave the 

 ribbons. I saw these small workshops in the suburbs 

 of St. Etienne, where complicated ribbons (with inter- 

 woven addresses of the manufacture), as well as ribbons 

 of high artistic finish, were woven in three to four 

 looms, while in the next room the wife prepared the 

 dinner and attended to household work. 



There was a time when the wages were high in the 

 ribbon trade (reaching over ten francs a day), and 

 M. Euvert wrote me that half of the suburban houses 



* I am indebted for the following information to M. V. Euvert, 

 President of the Chamber of Commerce of St. Etienne, who 

 sent me, while I was in the Clairvaux prison, in April, 1885, a 

 most valuable sketch of the various industries of the region, 

 in reply to a letter of mine, and I avail myself of the opportunity 

 for expressing to M. Euvert my best thanks for his courtesy. 

 This information has now an historical value only. But it is 

 such an interesting page of the history of the small industries 

 that I retain it as It was hi the first edition, the more so as it is 

 most interesting to compare it with the pages given in the text 

 to the present conditions of the same industries. 



