2L 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



chinery of the silk mill, stands upon huge piles 

 of oak, doubly planked, and covered with stone- 

 work, on which are turned thirteen stone arches, 

 which support the walls. The whole length of 

 the building is one hundred and ten feet, its 

 breadth thirty-nine feet, and height fifty-five feet 

 six inches. It contains five storey s,besidestheunder 

 works, and is lighted by four hundred and sixty- 

 eight windows. In the upper storeys (consisting of 

 three), are the Italian winding engines, which 

 are placed in a regular manner across the apart- 

 ments, and furnished with many thousand swifts, 

 spindles, and engines for working them. In the 

 lower rooms, are the spinning and twist mills, 

 which are all of a circular form, and are turned 

 by upright shafts, passing through their centres, 

 and communicating with shafts from the water- 

 wheel. The spinning mills are eight in number, 

 and give motion to upwards of twenty-five 

 thousand bobbin-reels, and nearly three thousand 

 star-wheels, belonging to the reels. Each of the 

 four twist mills contain four rounds of spindles, 

 about three hundred and eighty-nine of which 

 are connected with each mill, as well as numerous 

 reels, bobbin?, and star-wheels. 



The whole of this machine, which contained 

 five large departments, was put in motion by a 

 single water-wheel, twenty-three feet in diameter, 

 situated on the west side of the building The 

 whole number of wheels is about fourteen 

 thousand. All the operations are performed here, 

 from winding the raw silk to organising it for 

 the weavers. The raw silk is chiefly brought in 

 skeins or hanks, from China and Piedmont. 

 That produced in the former country is perfectly 

 white, but the produce of the latter is of a light 

 yellow color. The skein is first placed on an 

 hexagonal wheel, or swift; the filaments of which 

 it is composed are regularly wound off upon a 

 small cylindrical bobbin. To wind a single 

 skein is the work of five or six days, though the 

 machine be kept in motion ten hours daily — so 

 astonishingly fine are the filaments of which the 

 skein is composed. In this part of the process, 

 many children are employed, whose nimble fin- 

 gers are in continual exercise, by tying the 

 threads which break. The silk thus wound upon 

 the bobbins is afterwards twisted by other parts 

 of the machinery, and is sent to the " doublers," 

 who are chiefly women, stationed in a detached 

 building. Here, four, seven, or ten of the 

 threads are united into one, according to the use 

 for which the silk is designed. The finer descrip- 

 tion goes to the stocking weaver, the other to the 

 manufacture for waistcoat-pieces, &c. 



The French and Italian throwsters are still 

 contented if their spindles revolve from three to 

 four hundred times in each minute, while ours 

 commonly perform from one thousand eight hun- 

 dred to three thousand gyrations in the same 

 space of time. Our French rivals are fully aware 

 how greatly the English throwsters are in ad- 

 vance of them in this particular, but have not 

 the same inducement that exists in this country 

 to incur at first a heavy expense in alterations, 

 to enable them to secure a more remunerative 

 profit. The wages paid in Lyons to men em- 

 ployed in silk mills, does not average more than 

 six shillings and sixpence per week, and that of 

 women and lasses, who form five- sixths of the 



hands employed, scarcely exceed three shillings 

 per week. For this they are required to labor 

 fourteen hours per diem ! 



In the silk manufacture, the principal branches 

 consist in the dyeing, winding, warping, throw- 

 ing, and weaving, The first (dyeing) needs 

 no explanation. Winding: this is the process be- 

 tween throwing and weaving. After the silk is 

 thrown, it is dyed, and then wound off, prepara- 

 tory to the loom. The warping is stretching 

 the parallel threads on the loom previous to 

 weaving. 



Throwing silk, is twisting two threads into 

 one, for the purpose of weaving. The single 

 thread, as wound off the cocoon, is designated 

 the raw silk. 



There are two descriptions of thrown silk. One 

 is called " trorn," which consists only of two 

 threads, simply twisted together. This descrip- 

 tion of thrown silk is used in the transverse 

 threads of a piece of silk upon the loom. The 

 other variety of thrown silk is called " organ- 

 zine." In this, the single threads are first 

 twitted up, previous to their being twisted to- 

 gether. This is used for the warp or parallel 

 threads upon the loom. 



Throwing of silk was an important branch of 

 manufacture in this country, until the year 1826, 

 when the duties were reduced. hince that 

 period, it has declined. The manufacture of 

 thrown silk is chiefly carried on at Macclesfield, 

 Congleton, and in the west of England. As silk 

 can be thrown more cheaply in foreign countries 

 than it can in England, there has been a dif- 

 ference between the throwsters of Coventry and 

 weavers of Spitalfields, the latter having re- 

 quested the protecting duty against foreign 

 thrown silk to be reduced, to the manifest injury 

 of the former. 



It may perhaps be needful to explain to the 

 reader, the weights which are used in the silk 

 trade. The weight of silk is estimated by "de- 

 nier," an old Italian weight, of which twenty-four 

 are equal to an ounce, used only in the silk trade, 

 in the same manner as the weight called a, 

 " carat " is employed by those who deal in 

 diamonds and other precious stones. It is the 

 custom to reel off, upon an engine established in 

 the silk trade, a measure of four hundred ells of 

 trom, or organzine (which are both double 

 threads), and the weight of their quantity estab- 

 lishes the fineness or coarseness of the silk. Four 

 hundred ells of the finest Italian troms will 

 weigh eighteen deniers ; and, although this silk 

 will occasionally run so coarse as to weigh forty 

 deniers, the quality mostly in use will vary from 

 eighteen to thirty deniers. The China and Ben- 

 gal silk varies from thirty-five to eighty deniers 

 in its weight. Turkey, the importation of which 

 has of late much increased, is worked up in the 

 single thread on account of the coarseness of the 

 texture; this varies from thirty to fifty deniers, 

 which, as others are weighted in the trom, will 

 be in the proportion of from sixty to one hundred 

 deniers. 



Silk is the staple manufacture of France, and 

 has always received the fostering protection of the 

 Government. The raw material is the produce 

 of the country, and as the growers of silk are not 

 permitted to export, it is procured by the manu- 



