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 not reversed, as is the case with the earlier pieces. A large collection of this German damask weaving with coloured thread was formed under the auspices of the Royal Kunstgewerbe Museum at Dresden. The north-eastern Irish industry of damask weaving owes much to French Protestant refugees, who settled there towards the close of the 17th century, though linen manufacture had been established in the district by a colony of Scots in 1634. Dunfermline in Scotland is said to produce as much damask as the rest of Europe, but there are important manufactories of it at Courtrai and Liege in Belgium, in Silesia, Austria and elsewhere.

.—The following are titles of a few works on weaving, from which much important information on the subject may be derived:—J. Bezon, Dictionnaire des tissus (8 vols., Paris, 1859–1863), more or less technical only, Dictionnaire des sciences (Paris, 1751–1780), technical; Michel Francisque, Recherches sur le commerce, la fabrication et l’usage des étoffes de soie, d’or et d’argent (2 vols., Paris, 1852–1854), a well-known work full of erudition in respect of the archaeology of woven fabrics, their technical characteristics, &c.; James Yates, Textrinum antiquorum: an Account of the Art of Weaving among the Ancients (London, 1843), a very valuable and learned work of reference; Very Rev. Daniel Rock, D.D., Textile Fabrics (London, 1870), with some few good illustrations; Pariset, Histoire de la soie (Paris, 1862); Raymond Cax, L’Art de décorer les tissus, &c. (Paris, 1900); Alan Cole, Ornament in European Silks (London, 1899), well illustrated; J. Lessing, Berlin königliche Museen, Die Gewebe-Sammlung des k. Kunstgewerbe-Museums (Berlin. 1900), a very fine series of photo type facsimiles of all kinds of textiles; A. Riegl, Die ägyptischen Textil-Funde (Wien, 1889); R. Forrer, Römische und byzantinische Seiden-Textilien (Strassburg, 1891); A. Dupont Auberville, L’Ornament des tissus (Paris, 1877), admirable illustrations; F. Fischbach, Die wichtigsten Webe-Ornamente (3 vols., Wiesbaden, 1901), admirable illustrations; Raymond Cax, Le Musée historique des tissus de Lyon (Lyon, 1902); Nuremberg: Germanisches Museum, Katalog der Gewebesammlung des germanischen National-Museums (Nuremberg, 1896).

WEB (a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Du. webbe, Dan. vaev, Ger. Gewebe, all from the Teutonic wabh—to weave), that which is woven (see ). The word is thus applied to anything resembling a web of cloth, to the vexillum of the feather of a bird, to the membrane which connects the toes of many aquatic birds and some aquatic mammals; it is particularly used of the “cobweb,” the net spun by the spider, the Old English name for which was átor-coppe, i.e. poison-head (átor, poison, and coppe, tuft or head). In architecture the term “web” is sometimes given, in preference to “panel,” to the stone shell of a vault resting on the ribs and taking its winding surface from the same; see.

WEBB, MATTHEW (1848–1883), English swimmer, generally known as “Captain Webb,” was born at Dawley in Shropshire on the 18th of January 1848, the son of a doctor. While still a boy he saved one of his brothers from drowning in the Severn, and, while serving on board the training ship in the Mersey, he again distinguished himself by saving a drowning comrade. He served his apprenticeship in the East India and China trade, shipped as second mate for several owners, and in 1874, was awarded the first Stanhope gold medal by the Royal Humane Society for an attempt to save a seaman who had fallen overboard from the Cunard steamship “Russia.” In 1875 Captain Webb abandoned a sea-faring life and became a professional swimmer. On the 3rd of July he swam from Blackwall Pier to Gravesend, a distance of 20 m., in 4 hours, a record which remained unbeaten until 1899. In the same year, after one unsuccessful attempt, he swam the English Channel, on the 24th of August, from Dover to Calais in 21 hours. For the next few years Webb gave performances of diving and swimming at the Royal Aquarium in London and elsewhere. Crossing to America, he attempted, on the 24th of July 1883, to swim the rapids and whirlpool below Niagara Falls. In this attempt he lost his life.

WEBB, SIDNEY (1839–), English socialist and author, was born in London on the 13th of July 1859. He was educated at private schools in London and Switzerland, at the Birkbeck Institute and the City of London College. From 1875 to 1878 he was employed in a city office, but he entered the civil service by open competition as a clerk in the War Office in 1878, became surveyor of taxes in 1879, and in 1881 entered the colonial office, where he remained until 1891. In 1885 he was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn. Mr Webb was one of the early members of the Fabian Society, contributing to Fabian Essays (1889); and he became well-known as a socialist, both by his speeches and his writings. He entered the London County Council in 1892 as member for Deptford, and was returned at the head of the poll in the successive elections of 1895, 1898, 1901 and 1904. He resigned from the civil service in 1891 to give his whole time to the work of the Council (where he was chairman of the Technical Education Board) and to the study of economics. He served from 1903 to 1906 on the Royal Commission on Trade Union Law and on other important commissions He married in 1892 Miss Beatrice Potter, herself a writer on economics and sociology, the author of The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain (1891) and a contributor to Charles Booth’s Life and Labour of the People (1891–1903). His most important works are: a number of Fabian tracts; London Education (1904); The Eight Hours Day (1891), in conjunction with Harold Cox; and, with Mrs Sidney Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (1894, new ed. 1902), Industrial Democracy (1897, new ed. 1902), Problems of Modern Industry (1898), History of Liquor Licensing (1903), English Local Government (1906), &c. Mrs Webb was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, and she and her husband were responsible for the Minority Report (see ) and for starting the widespread movement in its favour.

WEBB CITY, a city of Jasper county, Missouri, U.S.A., in the S.W. part of the state, about 160 m. S. of Kansas City. Pop. (1890) 5043; (1900) 9201, of whom 248 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 11,817. It is served by the Missouri Pacific and the St Louis & San Francisco railway systems, and is the headquarters of the electric interurban railway connecting with Carthage and Joplin, Missouri, Galena, Kansas and other cities. With Carterville (pop. 1910, 4539), which adjoins it on the E., it forms practically one city; they are among the most famous and productive “camps” in the rich lead and zinc region of south-western Missouri, and Webb City owes its industrial importance primarily to the mining and shipping of those metals. The value of the factory product increased from $353,366 in 1900 to $637,965 in 1905. Webb City was laid out and incorporated as a town in 1875, and first chartered as a city in 1876. White lead was discovered here in 1873, on the farm of John C. Webb, in whose honour the city is named; and systematic mining began in 1877.

WEBBE, WILLIAM (fl. 1586), English literary critic, was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1572–1573. He was tutor to the two sons of Edward Sulyard of Flemyngs, Essex, and later to the children of Henry Grey of Pirgo in the same county. A letter from him is prefixed to the 1392 edition of Tancred and Gisniunda, written by his friend, Robert Wilmot. In 1586 he published A Discourse of English Poetrie, dedicated to his patron, Edward Sulyard. Webbe argued that the dearth of good English poetry since Chaucer’s day was not due to lack of poetic ability, or to the poverty of the language, but to the want of a proper system of prosody. He abuses “this tinkerly verse which we call ryme,” as of barbarous origin, and comments on the works of his contemporaries, displaying enthusiasm for Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar, and admiration for Phaer’s translation of Virgil. He urged the adoption of hexameters and sapphics for English verse, and gives some lamentable examples of his own composition.

WEBER, CARL MARIA FRIEDRICH ERNEST VON (1786–1826), German composer, was born at Eutin, near Lübeck, on the 18th of December 1786, of a family that had long been devoted to art. His father, Baron Franz Anton von Weber, a military