is fastened a long scythe-blade, with its back toward the operator and its point extending upward, the shank being firmly fixed to the table or operating board. Here buttons, hard seams, and all similar intruders are disposed of, and the larger pieces of rags are cut into numerous small ones on the scythe-blades. The rags thus prepared are tossed by the women into receptacles in the tables. The work in this room is the most disagreeable and unwholesome of any in the entire process of manufacture, and this despite the fact that these rags, too, have been thrashed, and freed from an amount of dust and dirt beyond ordinary belief. ♦The higher grades♦ While watching the operations carried on here, it is impossible to repress the wish that rags might be bought otherwise than by the pound, for, unfortunately, filth, dust, and dirt weigh, and to wash rags only reduces the weight. While this is a true reflection of the condition in the average mill, it is pleasant to know, however, there are others of the higher class that are decided exceptions, as far as dust and dirt are concerned. Such are the mills making high-grade ledger and bond papers, as well as the mill manufacturing the paper that is used for the printing of our “greenbacks,” to which further reference will be made later. In these exceptional mills everything is neat and perfectly clean, all the stock used being new and fresh from the cotton or linen mills, or from factories producing cloth goods, like shirt and corset factories, and others of the same sort. The sorting and shredding room is always large and light, with windows on all sides, and is well ventilated, offering a decided contrast in many respects to the less cleanly mills first referred to, where the women must wear bonnets or hoods for the protection of the hair. In either case the process is certainly an improvement over the old plan of leaving the rags to decay in a cellar to expedite the removal of the glutinous matter. ♦The cutter♦