REVIEWS. 
255 
markable products. Rags take a very prominent place in the catalogue, 
and really there is no material which contributes more largely to the 
transformation scenes of commerce than the cast-off clothing of humanity. 
By a variety of processes, the rags thrown away by the poorest beggar 
reappear in the clothing of the sailor, the labourer, or even of the gentle- 
man ; or, after passing through the sad history of St. Giles, are met with, 
tinted couleur de rose, in a lady’s boudoir in St. James’s. Few people not 
engaged in it are aware of the value and importance of the rag trade. Mr. 
Simmonds estimates that cotton and linen rags, to the amount of above 
£300,000, are imported annually, and that “ the whole quantity used in 
the kingdom exceeds £1,000,000.” Rags are imported; from the various 
countries of Europe, from the northern part of Africa, from India, and 
from Australia, America consuming more than her own population can 
supply.* Linen and cotton rags are used in the manufacture of paper ; 
woollen are converted into shoddy and mungo. An extract from an article 
on Yorkshire in the Westminster Review, quoted by Mr. Simmonds, gives 
an excellent definition of shoddy, t and an interesting list of its applica- 
tions is added. It is estimated that the value of shoddy and mungo 
amounts to above £700,000 annually. 
Shoddy is another name for rag-wool, and it was probably first used for 
purposes of manufacture about 1813 ; but machines for reducing woollen 
rags to small particles appear to have been known in London before 
they were employed in Yorkshire. The shoddy trade is a large one on the 
Continent. At Berlin several establishments have been formed by Batley 
manufacturers for making rag-wool. Prussia levies a heavy export-duty 
on rags, but none on shoddy ; hence we receive about 8,000 tons annually, 
via Hull, from Prussia, Denmark, &c. In the collection of products from 
Denmark in the International Exhibition, an interesting series of samples 
of shoddy were shown. It is estimated that this trade employs 600 persons 
in Batley alone, 
Old woollen rags also form an important feature in the manufacture of 
prussiate of potash, a chemical largely used in blue colours, in making 
Prussian-blue, and also cyanide of potassium, which is employed in electro- 
plating with gold and silver. Woollen rags are also used as a manure in 
the Kentish hop-gardens, 2^ lb. being considered equal to 100 lb. of farm- 
yard manure. The agriculturalists of Italy have long been in the habit of 
planting old woollen garments at the roots of their orange-trees. 
* The perusal of this notice of Mr. Simmonds’s book induced us to look 
at a “Foreign Rag Circular,” published by a Liverpool firm, and we there 
found that, during the month of November last, 11,000 bales of rags 
(representing about £35,000), were exported from Liverpool and London to 
New York. These rags had been imported into England chiefly from 
Egypt, India, and Japan ! This circular quoted the prices of about fifty 
different varieties of foreign rags, varying in value from nine shillings to 
forty shillings per hundred- weight, imported from Egypt, Japan, Bombay, 
Beyrout, .Hamburg, Palermo, Leghorn, Trieste, Smyrna, Spain, and 
Valparaiso. There are many other places from which rags are imported. 
— Ed. 
f P. 302, 
