Foreign Notices : — Spain, Denmark. 71 



hat. About Sienna the process is simply a little sulphur set on fire in the 

 bottom of a large chest, bunches of the straw being placed on long hazel 

 rods across, and the lid shut down. Elsewhere, the articles are described 

 as being placed in a small close room, in which a chafing dish of sulphur is 

 placed, and set fire to. Sometimes the operation requires to be done twice 

 before it succeeds. 



The straw for use is classed or stapled like our wool. Children or in- 

 ferior hands work the coarse thick straw, while good hands work the fine 

 only. Whether fine or coarse, it is only the part on which the spike grows 

 that is made use of; and it is always the same plait, consisting of thirteen 

 straws, which is worked. In the fine plait there is a very great waste of 

 straw, as they reject all that is in the least too thick, and they cut off a con- 

 siderable part of the straw where it comes near the flower-spike. Fine 

 plait is not accounted good unless very much drawn together ; for which 

 end it is worked very wet. The bunches of straw are always put into a 

 small jar, filled with cold water, which stands beside the worker. After 

 being smoked and pressed, the plait is made up into hats by women, who 

 do nothing else ; it is not put together by edges, nor overlapped. On the 

 operation of pressing a great deal depends : there are only two good 

 machines for that purpose in the country. 



Such Js the practice for procuring the hat straw': what they sow for 

 seed is in other ground : not one fourth of the seed is used, and the grain 

 is allowed to come to maturity in the usual way. It is said to be a capital 

 wheat for vermicelli, macaroni, &c., and also for making into bread. 



It ought to be taken into view, that, for the use of the manufacture in 

 Scotland, the straw should not exceed one eighteenth of an inch in 

 diameter. When coarser, it does not answer the market ; and much of the 

 very finest straw is not required, because the bonnets made from it are too 

 expensive. {Prof. Jam. Phil. Jour., March, 1S17, p. 384.) 



SPAIN. 



Elysium in Spain. — In Spanish Estremadura, a person who has 100/. per 

 annum may support a family of four or five in number with great comfort, 

 and enjoy the luxury of a carriage. The finest bread is at little more than 

 one halfpenny per lb., good wine at one penny per bottle, small lambs and 

 kids about eighteen-pence each, and vegetables cheap, and in abundance. 

 Labourers in husbandry are to be hired at less than id. per day, and a female 

 servant for about 2l. sterling per annum, and occasionally a few cast-off' 

 articles of clothing. There is good pasture for cattle almost for nothing ; and 

 the sweet acorns, which make the pork so delicious in parts of Spain and 

 Portugal, grow wild, and are to be had for the gathering. Such is Spanish 

 Estremadura, and yet nobody thinks of emigrating thither. {Newsp.) 



DENMARK. 



Gurre is a place of great note in the neighbourhood of Elsinore. An old 

 king of Denmark, Valdemar Atterdag, was so partial to the situation, that 

 he called it his heaven ; declaring, at the same time, that God might keep 

 heaven to himself, if he would only allow him to keep Gurre. 



The Gardens of Fredensborg have been variously described by different 

 travellers, ladies as well as gentlemen. Some find them very interesting, if 

 not in the newest style ; others grand and magnificent, although on the old 

 plan ; others, again, think them stiff, melancholy, and neglected, being en- 

 vironed by lofty pines, which exclude views on the adjacent lake, i-ender 

 breathing difiicult, and expose the visitor to swarms of gnats, where he 

 expected to sit in odorous groves, listening to melodious breezes. A most 

 ingenious gentleman, the D'lsraeli of Denmark, who seems in his writings 



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