282 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



Rags have one advantage, besides their cheapness, over all 

 other materials, in that the repeated washings which they 

 have undergone while in use as wearing apparel, are an 

 excellent preparation for their conversion into paper. 



The first thing done with them is to open all the seams, 

 take out any stray pins and needles, and remove buttons, 

 which might injure the machinery or spoil the quality 01 

 the paper. Women are employed in this part of the bu- 

 siness, and they stand before horizontal frames covered 

 with very coarse wire-cloth, and having a large knife fixed 

 upright in the centre, with the blade turned away from 

 them. The bulk of the rags are cut up by machinery, 

 but those intended for very fine paper are cut by hand into 

 small pieces, about four inches square, by being drawn 

 across the edge of the knife. Much of the dirt and sand 

 passes through the wire-cloth into a drawer below, during 

 this process ; the remainder is beaten out by machinery, 

 and the rags are then boiled with soda and lime. Clean 

 white rags are said to yield from 65 to 80 per cent, of their 

 weight in paper. 



Statistics for 1884 show that there were in that year 

 3,985 mills in the world, which together produced nearly 

 17 J million cwts. of paper, of which the newspapers use 

 about one-third. 



But the rags have not come to an end of their career 

 when worked up into paper, for the paper itself may be 

 used over and over again, and clean waste-paper yields from 

 75 to 80 per cent, of its weight in new paper. 



No paper, we are told, need be wasted, since it has 

 been found possible to remove even the stain of printing 



