The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Descending from the long room, where the winding is going on, we find
ourselves in an apartment which it does one good to be in. It is
furnished with long narrow tables, and benches put there for the sake of
the work-people, who may like to have their tea at the factory, in peace
and quiet. They can have hot water, and make themselves comfortable
here. Against the door hangs a list of books, read, or to be read, by
the people: and a very good list it is. Prints, from Raffaelle's Bible,
plainly framed, are on the walls. In the middle of the room, on, and
beside, a table, are four men and boys, preparing the "strapping" of a
Jacquard loom for work. The cords, so called, are woven at Shrewsbury.
We next enter a room where a young man is engaged in the magical work of
"reading in from the draught." The draught is the pattern of the
intended ribbon, drawn and painted upon diced paper,--like the patterns
for carpets that we saw at Kendal, but a good deal larger, though the
article to be produced here is so much smaller. The young man sits, as
at a loom. Before him hangs the mass of cords he is to tie into pattern,
close before his face, like the curtain of a cabinet piano. Upreared
before his eyes is his pattern, supported by a slip of wood. He brings
the line he has to "read in" to the edge of this wood, and then, with
nimble fingers, separates the cords, by threes, by sevens, by fives, by
twelves, according to the pattern, and threads through them the string
which is to tie them apart. The skill and speed with which he feels out
his cords, while his eyes are fixed on his pattern, appear very
remarkable; but when we come to consider, it is not so complicated a
process as playing at sight on the piano. The reader has to deal thus
with one chapter, or series, or movement, of his pattern. A _da capo_
ensues: in other words, the Jacquard cards are tied together, to begin
again; and there is a revolution of the cards, and a repetition of the
pattern, till the piece of ribbon is finished. In the same apartment is
the press in which the Jacquard cards are prepared; just in the way
which may be seen wherever silk or carpet weaving, with Jacquard looms,
goes forward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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