world to Oregon, and from the queen down to the pauper, is the shawl the symbol of woman’s taste and condition. Whence come all these shawls? For it is clear that the supply which arrives from Asia--over bleak continents and wide oceans--can only be for the rich and great. Some of the shawls from Bokhara sell, in the market on the Russian frontier, for two thousand four hundred pounds each. Whence come the hundred thousand shawls that the women of Great Britain purchase every year? Some of the richest that our ladies wear are from Lyons; and the French taste is so highly esteemed, that our principal manufacturers go to Lyons once or twice a year for specimens and patterns. Some of our greatest ladies of all, even the queen and certain duchesses and countesses offer to our chief manufacturers a sight of their treasures from India, their Cashmeres and other shawls, from a patriotic desire for the improvement of our English patterns. From these, the manufacturers of Norwich and Paisley devise such beautiful things that, but for the unaccountable and unrivaled superiority of the Orientals in the production of this particular article, we should be all satisfaction and admiration. The common cotton shawls, continually lessening in number, worn by women of the working-classes, are made at Manchester, and wherever the cotton manufacture is instituted. In order to study the production of British shawls in perfection, one should visit the Norwich or Paisley manufactures. If any article of dress could be immutable, it would be the shawl--designed for eternity in the unchanging East--copied from patterns which are the heirloom of a caste--and woven by fatalists, to be worn by adorers of the ancient garment, who resent the idea of the smallest change. Yet has the day arrived which exhibits the manufacture of three distinct kinds of shawls in Paisley. There is the genuine woven shawl with its Asiatic patterns; and there is that which is called a shawl for convenience, but which has nothing Asiatic about it: the tartan--which name is given not only to the checks of divers colors which signify so much to the Scottish eye, but to any kind of mixed or mottled colors and fabric--woven in squares or lengths to cover the shoulder. The third kind is quite modern: the showy, slight and elegant printed shawl, derived from Lyons, and now daily rising in favor. The woven kind is the oldest in Paisley. The tartan kind was introduced from Stirlingshire--without injury to Stirlingshire--which makes as many as ever, but to the great benefit of Paisley. The printed kind has been made about six years, and it is by far the greatest and most expanding manufacture. The most devoted worshipers of the genuine shawl can hardly wonder at this, considering the love of change that is inherent in ladies who dress well, and the difference of cost. A genuine shawl lasts a quarter of a lifetime. Ordinary purchasers give from one pound to ten