AXMINSTER carpets, though in point of time a comparatively recent development of the industry, may claim to be, in point of structure, the nearest related of all machine-made fabrics to the Oriental ancestor. The similarity lies in the fact that they are tufted; and the tuft, though inserted in the fabric mechanically, and bound down without being knotted, undoubtedly represents the knotted tuft of the original hand-made carpet. The essential feature of a tufted Axminster carpet is that the tufts are inserted row by row between the warp threads, either before or after being cut off, and are then bound down by the weft, and so woven into the ground of the texture. Each tuft is used on the surface, and forms part of the design; none of the tuft material is hidden away or wasted in the body of the fabric beyond what is needed for attachment to the binding weft. The Axminster loom was introduced into England from the United States about 1878; and since that time the fabric has developed steadily, with an increasing popularity, which has only been rivalled in recent years by that of the Chenille Axminster. Bradbury, in commenting upon the similarity of Axminster in structure and appearance to the original hand-made carpet, says: “Generally speaking they are far superior to Eastern and hand-made productions, and where price is permitted to enter as a factor, they leave these primitive structures still further in the rear.” This may appear to some an extravagant appreciation; but there can be no difference of opinion as regards the general merits of the fabric. It combines economy in the use of material, and in manufacture, with richness of texture and almost unlimited potentialities of design and colour effect. As in other carpet fabrics, there are in Axminster plenty of varieties of qualities; but there are comparatively few differences in structure, such differences as exist being mainly matters of pitch, tuft, or method of tufting and binding. The original Axminster quality was called the Royal. This is about 5 per inch in the pitch, and 6 in the beat-up, with a tuft of about 7/8 in. This held the field until 1893, when a strong invasion of the British market by American Axminster, offered at a considerably lower price, caused the Axminster makers of this country to bestir themselves to meet this competition. They did so strenuously; and the result was the production of the quality known as the Imperial Axminster, which had an instant and a lasting success. This was made in a pitch of 7 to the inch, and a beat-up of about 6½, and was put on the market at a moderate price. For many years it held the position of being the critical quality of the whole trade; the standard by which the value of other qualities was measured, and, as has been intimated, it is only of recent years that its position has been challenged by the Chenille Axminster.