October, 1909,] 



305 



Fibres, 



It appears that the new ' swadeshi ' 

 movement has done very little to 

 stimulate interest in this industry. The 

 Kagjis think that while people are to 

 a large extent patronising handloom 

 products in the matter of clothing, so far 

 as paper goes, they content themselves 

 with the products of the European 

 factories in the country. 



An explanation may lie in the fact that, 

 unlike clothes, a good deal of the paper 

 in ordinary use is devoted only to a 

 very ephemeral purpose where the 

 quality of long endurance has no place 

 to warrant the payment of the much 

 higher price demanded for hand-made 

 paper. Besides, the supply of hand- 

 made paper is too small at present to 

 meet the demand. 



But soon the present race of work- 

 men who still know the art will be gone, 

 making a revival of the industry or its 

 improvement impossible. 



The Kagjis declare it would be very 

 oasy for them to produce thicker or 

 thinner paper than they now make if 

 there was a demand. Paper, a little 

 thicker than what is now known as 

 Baleswar, would be very suitable for 

 being made into post-cards and tramway 

 or even railway tickets. Again, if the 

 paper is left unsized, it would make 

 good enough blotting paper. The mats 

 upon which the wet sheets are put out 

 to dry, being of very uneven surface, 

 produce a corresponding unevenness in 

 the sheets, but, with a slight improve- 

 ment in the arrangement for drying, this 

 could surely be most easily remedied. 



The process of manufacture is as 

 follows : — 



Waste paper is mixed with lime and 

 steeped for a week or ten days in a 

 large earthen vat. The lime used is at 

 the rate of three or four seers per maund 

 of waste paper. When sufficiently 

 softened, the mass is pounded under a 

 ' dhenki ' over a stone mortar. The 

 ' dhenki ' used for this purpose is very 

 much like that used for husking paddy, 

 only somewhat larger and heavier and 

 the head of the pestle is more strongly 

 bound with iron. The stone mortar is 

 only slightly grooved and consists of a 

 large piece of basaltic stone, some three 

 feet long, one and-a-half feet broad and 

 a foot high. 



The paste produced after pounding 

 with the 'dhenki' is next kneaded 

 thoroughly in another vat by trampling 

 under feet like potter's clay. 



The paste is now washed thoroughly 

 in water over a piece of cotton cloth till 

 all impurities are got rid of and a soft 

 pulp obtained. This is now diluted 

 39 



with water in a large vat. The contents 

 of the vat are constantly stirred with a 

 rod to prevent the pulp settling down, 

 and a little is dipped up at a time in a 

 rectangular skeleton mould, called a 

 decle, resting on a fine sieve. This sieve 

 is made of very thin bamboo slips strung 

 together with horse-hair. The sieve is 

 known as 'chhapri,' measures 23 in. by 

 18 in., and looks something like a piece 

 of ordinary verandah 1 chik,' only very 

 much smaller and finer. The chhapri or 

 sieve is stretched over a wooden frame 

 and is held firmly in position by the 

 decle or rectangular mould pressing on 

 its four edges. On withdrawing the 

 mould from the vat in a horizontal 

 position the Water within the decle 

 drains off, leaving the chhapri covered 

 with a thin film of fibies, the operator 

 meanwhile shaking the mould so as to 

 evenly distribute the film. 



The chhapri covered with the thin 

 film of paper is now taken off from 

 the frame and inverted over a slanting 

 piece of stone covered with a piece of 

 gunny cloth. The chhapri is now rolled 

 away, leaving the film of paper on the 

 stone. The process is repeated and film 

 after film laid down one above another 

 forming a pile. This work is generally 

 done in the morning and the pile is 

 left untouched for the water to drain 

 away till the following day when the 

 sheets still wet are taken up one by 

 one and laid separately on mats to dry 

 in the sun. 



After their edges have been trimmed 

 the sheets are next sized or starched 

 one side at a time and again dried. 

 The starch is obtained by boiling sun- 

 ned rice in water and is applied with 

 the spongy fibrous shell of a '' dhundul, 

 nenual " or "vurul" (Luff a cegyptiaca) 

 with the outer skin removed. Some blue 

 stone or copper sulphate is dissolved in 

 the starch to improve the lasting quality 

 of the paper, The starching being light, 

 work is generally done by women. 



After the sheets have been dried, they 

 are exposed to the night dew to soften 

 them slightly, and next morning they are 

 pressed over a plank with the help of a 

 piece of smooth stone or a conch shell. 

 This, too, is generally done by women. 

 The paper is now ready. 



The paper produced is'generally white, 

 but is sometimes coloured blue or yellow. 

 The blue colour is imparted with indigo 

 dissolved in the pulp vat from which the 

 films are dipped up with the chhapri. 

 The yellow colour is given by dissolving 

 turmeric in the starch. Yellow paper is 

 only produced in the Hooghly district. 



The implements used, it will thus be 

 seen, are of the crudest kind possible ; 



