rROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 417 



mcaning'lcss, but ■with a permit from the office avc may safely begin our 

 perambulations -without fear of ejectment. 



We will commence our tour at the stock room. The counters along its 

 sides are covered with piles of braid, nincteen-twentieths of which is 

 imported. Here is some from Italy, here a lot from Switzerland, and near 

 it some frcmi Germany • France and England have their straw delegates 

 here ; South America sends her representatives to this congress of straws; 

 and even the Chinaman introduces his member from the celestial empire. 

 We hear the workmen who are arranging the braid use a mixture of geo- 

 graphical and other names as they talk of "Pedale," "Fancy Hair," 

 "Manilla Split," "Patent," "Luton," "Argovia," "Florence," "Canton,'^ 

 " Alilan," etc., and conjecture rightly that they are speaking of the mem- 

 bers of this international assemblagp of straws. A portion of the Canton 

 braid is imported from China in the shape of large, ungainly hats, the flat 

 sides of the braid being sewed together, and each hat containing material 

 enough for several bonnets. 



We will then pass to the nost, the manufacturer's room. Here we are 

 confronted by a long row of latticed bins, in which the braid is arranged, 

 ready for tlie use of the "manufacturer;" or, in other words, the one who 

 carries out the stock. In order to understand- wliat is meant by "carrying 

 out" as here used, it must be noticed that the building in which we have 

 supposed ourselves to be is used for hardly anything else save the finishing 

 up of the Avork, which is made ready for the finishing process in many a 

 family throughout the region within twenty miles of the factory. To these 

 families the braid is carried out, and after a week or so brought back in 

 the shape of bonnets. Each "manufacturer " or stock-deliverer lias in the 

 room we are visiting his bin of braid ; here he supplies himself with the 

 little cloth tickets, or " numbers," to be used by the sewer, and with large 

 skeins of a peculiar thread, which is made of Sea Island cotton expressly 

 for the bonnet manufacture. Having loaded his covered wagon with all 

 articles needed, and fastened a large bag for bonnets to the rack behind, 

 he is ready for his departure for Attleborough, Dedham, Taunton, or some 

 other one of the eighteen or twenty towns visited by the stock deliverers 

 of the Union Straw Works, whither we will accompany him. 



Arriving, after a few hours, at the scene of operations, the carriage is 

 stopped at one of those story and a half houses so common in Alassachusetts, 

 and we alight. Entering the cottage, we find a home scene peculiar to this 

 part of the country. From the youngest to the oldest all are engaged in the 

 straw businers. To be sure, the little one is not of much help, as she puts 

 the straws in disorder, watches every motion of her sister, and bothers 

 lier with questions; but said sister, the girl of ten years, is quite useful as 

 she sits on her cricket and braids her daily stint. The mother plies the 

 needle merril}-- as she, with flying fingers, forms the t\\), laps braid upon 

 braid as she sews spirally arcumd it, and makes a splice when necessary ; 

 while the old grandmother, nearly seventy, a somewhat slower worker, 

 manages to make a boonet in no way inferior to that of her young- com- 

 petit<jrs. In the laps of the sewers sit plaster of Paris model blocks, the 

 quite convenient substitutes for the paper patterns formerly used for regu- 

 lating the sliape of the growing bonnet. Upon these blocks the partially 



IAM. I.NST.l A* 



