OF HAND-SPINNING OF FLAX. 



263 



of linen yarns, which the reports of the Linen Board in 

 Dublin declared to have incieased "in a, most alarming manner " 

 The quantity of linen yarns sent from Ireland to England 

 that year was no less than 2,489,782lbs. The writer of the 

 article adds, " The legislators of that day performed so many 

 odd freaks, that it is a subject of surprise how the Irish Par- 

 liament escaped the blunder of prohibiting a demand for the 

 industrial produce of the Irish people." 



The importance of Flax-spinning by hand is so well known 

 in Germany that a writer says, when speaking of Bohemian 

 women, ''In this part of Germany every female, from the 

 maid-servant to her mistress, has a spinning-wheel ; and 

 there is no good house-wife in Bohemia who would not con- 

 sider herself disgraced, if she did not spin within her estab- 

 lishment all the yarn required to make the linen articles 

 necessary for her household." A similrr feeling existed in 

 Ireland while spinning by hand was practised, but the 

 spinning frame and steam-engine has revolutionised the 

 linen-trade, and now power-loom supersedes old hand-loom 

 weaving. 



Having made a few remarks on the Flax-spinning in 

 Ireland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Scotland, I feel certain 

 that an article which appeared in the London Daily News, 

 on the 14th of September last, will be found equally in- 

 teresting, if not more so, than the dry statistics of the York- 

 shire spinners :~ — 



TEXTILE FABRICS OF THE ANCIENTS— LINEN. 



A letter on the preparation of Flax so as to reseinb]e 

 cotton, which we (Daily News) published recently, has elicited 

 from an antiquarian correspondent the following curious and 

 interesting resume of what is known respecting the textile 

 fabrics of the ancients : — 



"Your correspondent's reference to the clothing of the 



