_Resist Stencil Paste._—This process of resist, ancient as it is, is used in Japan to this day, and many, indeed most, of the stencilled towels and piece goods that come from there are done in this way. It has the advantages, especially for the craftsman, over the Direct Color process, in that the color, being applied in a dye-bath, can be fixed readily and uniformly, without the bother and uncertainty of a steaming process. Through a friend, a well-known dyeing chemist, who has travelled in Japan, I learned the composition of the Japanese Resist Paste. They mix rice flour, wheat bran, and a little quicklime (the calcium oxide of the chemist) with water and boil it to make a paste. This they strain, and then they stir in some powdered carbonate of lime (powdered chalk), which thickens and gives some body to the mixture. The paste thus formed is applied, as a rule, not with a brush but with a flat wooden instrument or spatula, with which the paste is laid on as with a trowel, and further, to get the dead white effects so commonly noticed, the paste is put on the back of the cloth as well as on the front. My friend also explained to me how the Japanese were able to get irregular shaded effects with their stencil work, and at the same time to furnish such beautiful and intricate hand-made work, at such absurdly low prices. These goods are made of very thin porous materials, and the dyer applies with his trowel the thick resist paste, through the stencil, to one piece after another, laying each one, as fast as it is stencilled, carefully on top of the previous one, until a pile has been formed of ten or more separate pieces. This pile is pressed very tightly together, and then the dyestuff, as, for instance, Indigo in solution and thoroughly reduced, is poured on to this mass of goods, soaking through from one to the other, but always kept out of the white parts by the double coating of thick paste. After a few minutes these pieces are carefully taken off, one by one, exposed to the air until oxidized, and then thoroughly washed until the paste and loose color have all disappeared. For an example of Japanese resist stencil work, dyed in an iron spring, see Plate III. [Illustration: PLATE V. JAPANESE TOWELLING DYED BY IMMERSION IN IRON SPRING. THE WHITE PATTERN IS CAUSED BY RESIST STENCILLING] _Resist Stencilling with Sulphur Dyes._—Without lavishly copying the Japanese practice it is possible to get very interesting results by using suitable dyestuffs with a simpler paste.