456 APPENDIX. 



of St. Etienne had been built by the passementiers 

 themselves. But the affairs took a very gloomy aspect 

 when a crisis broke out in 1884. No orders were 

 forthcoming, and the ribbon weavers had to live on 

 casual earnings. All their economies were soon spent. 

 " How many," M. Euvert wrote, " have been com- 

 pelled to sell for a few hundred francs the loom for which 

 they had paid as many thousand francs." What an 

 effect this crisis has had on the trade I could not say, 

 as I have no recent information about this region. 

 Very probably a great number of the ribbon weavers 

 have emigrated to St. Etienne, where artistic weaving 

 is continued, while the cheapest sorts of ribbon must 

 be made in factories. 



The manufacture of arms occupies from 5,000 to 

 6,000 workers, half of whom are in St. Etienne, and 

 the remainder in the neighbouring county. All work 

 is done in small workshops, save in the great arm 

 factory of the State, which sometimes will employ 

 from 10,000 to 15,000 persons, and sometimes only a 

 couple of thousand men. 



Another important trade in the same region is the 

 manufacture of hardware, which is all made in small 

 workshops, in the neighbourhoods of St. Etienne, Le 

 Chambon, Firminy, Rive de Giers, and St. Bonnet le 

 Chateau. The work is pretty regular, but the earnings 

 are low as a rule. And yet the peasants continue to 

 keep to those trades, as they cannot go on without 

 some industrial occupation during part of the 

 year. 



The yearly production of silk stuffs in France attained 

 no less than 7,558,000 kilogrammes in 1881 ; * and 

 most of the 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 kilogrammes of raw 



* It had been 5,134,000 kilogrammes in 1872. Journal de 

 la Societe de Statistique de Paris, September, 1883. 



