218 
THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
too much moisture. The skeins of silk are then wound on the large 
reeling-wheel, which is placed on the left-hand side of the basin. 
Our Chinaman then sits down, all being ready, in front of the whole, 
and putting one of his chop-sticks between the fore and middle fingers, and 
the other between the middle and ring fingers of his right hand, he uses 
them as dexterously as if these were mere elongations of his fingers, and 
thus escapes the scalding of the hot water. After stirring the balls about 
till the gum which glues the thread together is dissolved, he commences 
unravelling such as run most freely, and, making up eight or ten of them 
into a common thread, passes it through the small eye in front of the stand 
of the small wheel. This thread is first conveyed from the eye over the 
top of the small wheel, and then brought back again by the bottom, 
where it is twisted into a kind of easily-running knot, giving compactness 
and strength to the thread as it passes on to the large reeling-wheel, to 
one of whose spokes it is now tied. The large wheel is then turned with 
the left hand, by which the silken thread is wound up; and the small 
wheel being also thus caused to revolve, the cocoons are at the same time 
unravelled. While thus employed, the chop-sticks are not idle, for with 
these he gives a rotatory motion to the cocoons in the basin, by producing 
a vortex in the water, which keeps them continually revolving. He 
then goes on more rapidly and dexterously with his operations, increasing 
the speed of his wheels, and the application of his chop-sticks keeps up 
the vortex in the water, throws out the exuviae, or skins remaining after 
the thread is run off, preserves the cocoons in clear running order, and 
keeps up the same number. 
When a cocoon is nearly run out, he pushes another into the heart of 
the vortex, and makes it immediately to form part of the thread in hand. 
Although this Chinese method must be acknowledged as inferior to 
that of Italy, it is owing much less to the defect of the instruments 
employed than to the carelessness of the reeler. There not being the 
same demand in India and China for the fine material as there is for the 
coarse raw silk, less attention has been directed to this important opera¬ 
tion. A decided advantage which the Chinese possesses over the Italian 
instrument will be found in many circumstances. It requires very little 
fuel, can be managed by a single person, and used in the corner of the 
meanest hut. Hence it might be easily introduced into the habitations of 
the Hindoos and Mussulmans, and afford a means of employment which 
might prove greatly instrumental in raising them from their present state 
of abject misery to comparative domestic comfort; for, whatever Utopian 
philosophers may say, the tone of moral feeling is too apt to be regulated 
by the means of subsistence. 
