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ing by any silks of the kind T have ever seen in France, and my 

 opportunities of judging, having served on the Silk Juries of the 

 great Paris Exhibitions of 1878 and 1889, have not been small. 

 The same must be said for these splendid brocades and figured stuffs 

 for Church furniture and dress purposes, made and kindly lent to us 

 by my artistic friend Mr. George Bermingham, Silk Manufacturer, 

 of Leek. These will show that England can and does manufacture 

 silk equal for every possible requirement, and emphatically bears 

 protest against the false assertions of the middleman that good 

 siUis can only be had from France. 



One of my objects in choosing this subject, has been the hope of 

 enlisting your sympathy and patriotism, the ladies particularly, in 

 favour of British silks, and to ask you to help the efforts of the 

 Silk Association of Great Britain and Ireland (of which I have the 

 honour of being President), and of the Ladies National Silk As- 

 sociation, presided over by H.R.H. the Duchess of Teck, with Lady 

 Egerton of Tatton, as Honorary Secretary, whose object is to solicit 

 the membership of all ladies who will agree only to ask for British 

 silks when they want to buy silk of any kind ; still not pledging 

 themselves to buy such silk if they do not find it as cheap, as 

 durable, and as artistic, as foreign silk. 



This Ladies Association is spreading rapidly ; already the looms 

 of Spitalfields and Macclesfield are again busy, and we hope for a 

 great revival in the other time-honoured centres. The looms of 

 Spitalfields and Patricroft were merry with the sound of shuttles 

 only a few sad months ago, when the Duchess of Teck gave orders 

 that all silks for the Royal wedding should be home made and not 

 foreign. Here is a sj^ecimen of it with May blossoms woven in 

 silver. Alas ! that the looms should have been stopped in the 

 middle of their work and their shuttles made to weave for woe 

 instead of bridal joy ! 



In conclusion, I am reminded of the Ancient Grecian story of 

 Minerva and Arachne, which tells that in the days when purple 

 was rare and highly appraised ; the dye very hard withal to extract 

 from its tiny gland in the shelly Murex, which but hardly yielded 

 its tinctured drop of costly colour, there lived by Lydia's shores, 

 Idmon the purple dyer, in his craft renowned for skill. He had a 

 daughter whose name was Arachne, famed for her art in spinning 

 and broidery, but who acknowledged not her obligations to and 

 dependency upon, great Jove's daughter, Minerva ; (in the Greek 

 mythology Minerva was called Pallas Athene, the goddess of the 

 liberal arts) ; but disdainfully challenged her to a contention of 



