50 Transactions. 
occupation of the handloom weaver is gone, the click of the 
shuttle and the thud of the beam are no longer heard in Colvend, 
and with the cessation of handloom weaving there has ceased 
contemporaneously the occupation and art of spinning, the 
one art and occupation being dependent on the other. Fifty 
years ago there were several spinning wheels in the parish, the 
big wheel for spinning wool, the small for flax or hemp. The 
big wheel was kept in motion by the spinner advancing and 
receding, but always on foot; the small wheel by the spinner 
sitting and keeping the wheel in motion by one foot on a pedal, the 
hands being employed meanwhile in pulling down the tow from the 
distaff and guiding the thread. The big wheel I have frequently 
seen in operation in the parish, but not the less. Yet, doubtless, 
the little wheel must have been in operation in the parish 
within the specified period, for both yarn of wool, and thread of 
flax were required in weaving some of the kinds of cloth made by 
the handloom, such as drugget, a coarse kind of cloth consisting 
of wool or worsted and hemp woven together, and linsey-woolsey, 
a finer cloth, made up, as the name implies, of flax and wool 
combined. But, whether the distaff and spindle were in use in 
the parish within the last fifty years or not, they doubtless were 
in other parts of Scotland. I myself have seen the little wheel 
in common use in a parish farther removed than Colvend from 
the advancing civilization, and also the distaff and spindle, a 
method of spinning more primitive than either big or little wheel. 
But neither big nor little wheel is now known in Colvend. 
At one time a shoemaker and tailor were to be found in every 
hamlet or little group of houses. At this moment there is not a 
shoemaker in the parish, and only one tailor, and he is only 
partially employed. Formerly there were four tailors in the 
parish who took in work to be done in their own houses at stated 
rates, or perambulated the country making and mending in the 
cottages and farm houses, getting their food and a small payment, 
ls 6d or 2s for the day’s work. Now there is but one tailor, 
and he only partially employed. 
There are two trades in the parish, however, which, mid all the 
changes which have taken place and are still taking place, hold 
their ground unchanged and undiminished—the trades of joiner 
and blacksmith. There were four or five joiners’ shops in the 
‘parish, and four smithies, fifty years ago ; each with its head and 
one or two apprentices, and there is the same number still, and 
