to give the pulp and bark a chance to 

 rot away from the fiber. 



Dew-retting is letting the flax lie in 

 the heavy dews of Ireland till the work 

 is done. Soil on which flax is raised 

 is rapidly made poor unless the rich- 

 ness that is taken from it in the flax 

 is restored to it in some way. Most of 

 this richness is in the seed and the part 

 of the stalk that is removed in the ret- 

 ting. Where this gets back to the soil 

 there is little else to be added. Some- 

 times the flax is retted in small pools 

 and the water saved to put upon the 

 ground, though the flax is more dis- 

 colored by this process than where the 

 work is done in running water. Re- 

 cently steam heat and vapor have been 

 used to soften the stalks, and then the 

 air pump draws the pulp away from 

 the fiber, so that what once took sev- 

 eral weeks to do is now done in a few 

 hours. By the old process the fiber 

 was sometimes left stacked dry for 

 years with constant improvement in 

 quality. 



The Irish people, who are so proud 

 of their island, point with additional 

 pride to what some of their linen towns 

 have done. As we were riding past 

 the little village of Bessbrook a clergy- 

 man took pains to point out to us the 

 evidences of thrift. He said that town 

 lacked three p's that are very trouble- 

 some to other towns all over the world. 

 They were the pawnshop, the public 

 house, and the police. The good charac- 

 ter of the people made these entirely 

 unnecessary for their town. But these 

 good qualities are not universal there, 

 for in some of the larger places intem- 

 perance is remarkably bad. 



We saw the work in all its stages at 

 Belfast. Queen Victoria gets her table 

 linen from that city, and we saw sev- 

 eral pieces in the loom that had the 

 royal arms upon them. To get the 

 finest fabric the fiber is kept moist in 

 both spinning and weaving. Nothing 

 can be more beautiful than the silk)-, 

 transparent stuffs made there. Dry 

 spinning is done where a coarse and 

 heavy grade of goods is desired. 

 American visitors in Ireland, espe- 

 cialh' the gentlemen, plan to bring 

 home as large a quantity of linen col- 

 lars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs as the 



customs officers will allow to pass at 

 New York free of duty. 



The finest linen goods are called 

 lawns, and this name is a modification 

 of the French word lifiofi, which sounds 

 much like lawn when spoken properly. 

 The French make many fine articles 

 from all sorts of fibers, and seem to 

 have recovered from the blow to their 

 industries which came on the revoca- 

 tion of the Edict of Nantes. Some 

 writers claim that nearly half a million 

 skilled workers in fabrics left that 

 country in the years around 1688. 



While the battle of Waterloo was 

 raging near Brussels and the people of 

 rank were so strongly affected by the 

 thunder of the guns of all Europe 

 there were thousands of women, young 

 and old, in that city and within hear- 

 ing of the great contest who kept right 

 on with their work, making laces. 

 They knew somebody would win the 

 day, and there would be a market for 

 all sorts of finery, and the linen laces 

 of Belgium were of much importance 

 to society. There are many kinds of 

 laces made in Brussels, but the kind 

 you most see as you pass along the 

 streets is that being made on little 

 cushions by women sitting before their 

 shops and houses with one eye upon 

 their work and the other on those who 

 are passing, hoping to get an American 

 to pay a large price for something that 

 he thinks he has seen made. It is not 

 an unheard-of thing for an American 

 to buy of one of these attractive lace- 

 makers lace that came from the ma- 

 chines of Nottingham, England, for 

 machine-made lace is much cheaper 

 than that made by hand. 



Pillow lace was probably invented 

 by Barbara Uttmann, in the middle of 

 the sixteenth century. She lived in 

 St. Annaberg, Germany, and was a 

 woman of great natural ability. She 

 was highly honored by the Saxons, who 

 state with pride that when she died, at 

 the age of sixty, she had seen sixty- 

 four of her own children and grand- 

 children. 



Point lace of the old sort was the 

 highest form of needle art. Hoi}' men 

 of old gave their lives to architect'jre, 

 believing the}' could give glory to God 

 by work in stone beautifully carved 



115 



