TOUCHING  LINT. 
861 
middleman,  works  also  on  her  own  account,  and  cultivates  a  con- 
nection. On  entering  the  room,  we  find  her  seated  in  front  of 
the  linting-machine,  a  rude  and  primitive  instrument,  about  the 
size  of  the  stool  of  a  banker's  clerk,  and  not  a  whit  more  ingeni- 
ous in  its  construction.  The  affair  is  just  the  shabbiest  of  all 
shabby  contrivances  for  bringing  the  edge  of  a  sharp  blade, 
about  fifteen  inches  in  width,  to  bear  upon  a  little  platform  be- 
neath. There  is  a  kind  of  treadle  worked  by  the  foot,  which 
assists  the  hands  of  the  manipulator  in  using  the  knife.  Upon 
the  flat  surface  of  the  little  platform  is  stretched  the  rag,  or  that 
portion  of  it  undergoing  the  operation  which  has  to  be  linted. 
A  simple  contrivance  keeps  the  rag  partially  strained.  As  the 
knife  hangs  in  its  frame  over  the  cloth,  its  edge  is  parallel  with 
one  line  of  the  threads,  and,  of  course,  perpendicular  to  the 
other  line.  Several  of  these  machines  are  at  work  in  the  room, 
and  the  blades  are  rising  and  falling  with  a  dull,  thumping, 
scraping  sound  continually.  As  the  blade  descends,  it  cannot 
much  injure  the  threads  whose  course  is  parallel  with  itself,  for 
obvious  reasons;  but  it  would,  being  very  sharp,  cut  through 
the  others  were  it  allowed  to  descend  with  sufficient  force.  The 
force  of  the  decent,  however,  is  regulated  by  the  dexterity  of 
the  worker,  so  that  it  shall  only  partly  sever  the  cross-threads  ; 
and  at  every  fall,  while  the  knife  is  down,  and  its  edge  im- 
bedded in  the  partly  severed  threads,  the  blade  is  forcibly 
shifted  in  the  direction  of  those  threads  for  a  certain  small  space. 
It  is  this  horizontal  shifting  of  the  sharp  and  heavy  blade  of  the 
knife  upon  the  strained  rag  while  it  is  half  cut  through,  which, 
by  disintegrating  those  threads  that  cross  the  blade  at  the  right 
angle,  and  raising  nine-tenths  or  more  of  their  entire  substance 
into  a  soft  woolly  pile,  produces  the  lint.  It  is  worthy  of  remark, 
that  the  threads  which,  lying  horizontally  with  the  knife,  escape 
serious  injury  by  the  process,  render  an  important  service  by 
preventing  the  disintegrated  pile  from  being  detached  from  the 
surface  of  the  rag  by  the  violent  passage  of  the  blade." 
The  preparation  of  lint  by  steam  power  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  several  patents  since  the  above  description  was  written. 
A  suitable  fabric  is  now  woven  expressly  for  the  lint  manufac- 
turer in  lengths  of  100  yards.  This  forms  the  raw  material, 
and  takes  the  place  of  linen  rags.     Having  been  imperfectly 
