2 MR. TOPPAN'S NEW PROCESS 



Mr. Sherry will begin at once, in order that his specimens may 

 be ready for your inspection at the close of the lecture. 



Before proceeding to the discussion of wool, allow me to 

 refer briefly to the principal statements of the previous lec- 

 ture, of which this is indeed but a continuation. 



A reduction in the time necessary for bleaching was claimed. 

 This claim has been substantiated in practice. The process 

 will bleach the goods in one half the time of the next best 

 practical process. As to color and quality, you can judge 

 for yourselves. I have brought here bleached cottons in the 

 piece for your inspection. A bleacher of my acquaintance, 

 who has no interests at stake, being engaged in a specialty 

 with which these goods do not compete, has assured me that 

 he considers the Toppan bleached goods as fifteen to twenty 

 per cent better in a monetary sense, than the same goods by 

 the old process. The white proves to be permanent ; and 

 when it is question of sewing the material, I am assured by 

 ladies, that the ease with which it can be sewed, both by hand 

 and on the machine, pays many times over for the trouble it 

 is to find the article, which, as yet, has not secured a uni- 

 versal distribution throughout the stores. 



The position of opponents to the process has changed. 

 After the previous lecture, I was many times assured that, while 

 the results of experiments with small swatches of cloth were 

 very good, yet, on a large scale, the method would fail. This 

 feeling or opinion has disappeared before practical results, 

 and the question of cost is now raised. This is a considera- 

 tion which it is not at all my province to discuss, but I can 

 say in passing, that the Canton Company will give the Toppan 

 bleach at the same price per yard as do the bleachers by the 

 old system. 



It has been and will always be urged against new chemical 

 processes in the arts, that practice in the mill does not follow 

 closely enough the experiments in the laboratory ; that a 

 process which can easily be applied to a small quantity of 

 material fails, through inability to use it on a large scale. 

 This was the objection urged against the cotton bleach, and 

 I should not be surprised if it were urged against the wool 

 scour. There is this, however, to be considered : in the 

 scouring of wool, the mill rep^duces very closely the condi- 

 tions of this platform, or the laboratory. Instead of handling 

 goods by the ton, as in cotton bleaching, the wool is treated 

 in lots of a few pounds each, and the care which the experi- 

 ment here will of course receive, will not be so disproportion- 

 ate as in other cases. The laboratory experiments on cotton 



