The most startling change in the lace industry occurred after 1816, when the introduction of machine net caused the _vrai réseau_ to go out of fashion. The cheap mechanical net took the place of the hand-made ground, throwing hundreds of hands out of work in a few years, and upsetting the social economy of the district. Application on machine net became universal, and the prices decreasing, the workers lost heart, and gave up their good old patterns, taking to inventions out of their heads, and frequently down to the present time copying some frightful design from a wall paper! Queen Adelaide, in answer to a petition sent up by the lace makers, ordered a dress made of Honiton sprigs on machine net, in which every flower was to be copied from nature. It was executed at Honiton.[25] The bridal dress of Queen Victoria, which she ordered from Devonshire, was carried out at Beer, and cost £1,000. It was made in the _guipure_ fashion, the sprigs being connected by openwork stitches on the pillow. The trade from that time revived, as lace came once more into fashion, the _guipure_ being the description made, the sections of the pattern united on the pillow, or sewn on to paper and joined by the needle with the various lace stitches; _purling_ is made by the yard, for the edge. ----- Footnote 25: Queen Adelaide also caused to be introduced the Maltese lace, that continued to be made for years here and there. ----- The lace schools of this time were a great feature, there being many in every village, and as few other schools existed, boys in addition to the girls of the place attended and learnt the industry.[26] The usual mode of procedure was this. The children commenced attending at the age of five to seven, and were apprenticed to the mistress for an average of two years, who sold all their work for her trouble; they then paid 6d. a week for a time, and had their own lace, then 3d., and so on according to the amount of teaching they still required. The young children went first from 10 to 12 in the morning to accustom them to work by degrees. At Honiton the full hours were 8 to 8 in the summer and in the depth of winter, but in spring and autumn less on account of the light; as candles were used only from nutting day, the 3rd of September, till Shrove Tide. The old rhyme runs:— Be the Shrove Tide high or low Out the candle we will blow. ----- Footnote 26: Mrs. Treadwin in her younger days saw some twenty-four men lace makers in Woodbury, one of whom had worked at his pillow so late as 1820. From being taught as boys, the sailors used to employ themselves in the winter making some of the coarse laces. -----