Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/688

 664 LINEN one of the most extensive and widely disseminated of the domestic industries of European countries. The prepara tion and spinning of yarn gave occupation to women of all classes ; and the operations of weaving employed large numbers of both sexe. The industry was most largely developed in Russia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, the northern provinces of France, and certain parts of England, in the north of Ireland, and throughout Scotland ; and in these countries its importance was generally recognized by the enactment of special laws, having for their object the protection and extension of the trade. The inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves, and Crompton in the later part of the 18th century, benefiting as they did, almost exclusively, the art of cotton spinning, and the unparalleled development of that branch of textile manu facture?, largely due to the ingenuity of these inventors, gave the linen trade as it then existed a fatal blow. Domestic spinning, and with it hand-loom weaving, immediately began to shrink ; a large and most respectable section of the operative classes in western Europe found their employment dwindling away, and the wages they earned from thsir diminished labour insufficient to ward off starvation. The trade which had supported whole villages and provinces entirely disappeared, and the linen manufacture, in attenuated dimensions and changed con ditions, took refuge in special localities, where it resisted, not unsuccessfully, the farther assaults of cotton, and, with varying fortunes, rearranged its relations in the com munity of textile industries. The linen industries of the United Kingdom were the first to suffer from the aggression of cotton ; more slowly the influence of the rival textile travelled across Continental countries ; and even to the present day, in Russia, and in other regions remote from great commercial highways, the domestic manufacture of linens holds its place almost as it has done from the earliest period. In 1810 Napoleon L, with a view partly to promote Continental linen industries, and partly to strike a blow at the great British manufacture of cotton, issued a proclamation offering a reward of one million francs to any inventor who should devise the best machinery for the spinning of flax yarn. Within a few weeks thereafter Philippe de Girard patented in France important inventions for flax spinning by both dry and wet methods. His inventions, however, did not receive the promised reward, and were indeed neglected in his native country. In 1815 he was invited by the Austrian Government to establish a spinning mill at Hirtenberg near Vienna, which was run with his machinery for a number of years, but ultimately it failed to prove a commercial success. In the meantime, however, English inventors, stimulated rather than daunted by the success of cotton machinery, had applied themselves to the task of adapting machines to the preparation and spinning of flax. The foundation of machine spinning of flax was laid by John Kendrew and Thomas Porthouse of Darlington, who, in 1787, secured a patent for &quot;a mill or machine upon new principles for spinning yarn from hemp, tow, flax, or wool.&quot; These machines, imperfect as they were, attracted much notice, and were introduced in various localities both in England and Scotland into mills fitted specially for flax spinning. By innumerable successive improvements and modifications, the invention of Kendrew and Porthouse developed into the perfect system of machinery with which, at the present clay, spinning-mills are furnished ; but progress in adapting flax fibres for mechanical spinning, and linen yarn for weaving cloth by power-loom, was much slower than in the corresponding case of cotton. The implements used in the preparation of linen yarn in ancient and modern times, down to the end of the 18th century, were of the most primitive and inexnensive description. Till comparatively recent times, the sole spinning implements were the spindle and distaff. The spindle, which is the fundamental apparatus in all spinning machinery, was nothing more nor less than a round stick or rod of wood about 12 inches in length, tapering towards each extremity, and having at its upper end a notch or slit into which the yarn might be caught or fixed. In general, a ring or &quot; whorl &quot; of stone or clay was passed round the upper part of the spindle to give it momentum and steadi ness when in rotation. The distaff, or rock, was a rather longer and stronger bar or stick, around one end of which, in a loose coil or ball, the fibrous material to be spun was wound. The other extremity of the distaff was carried under the left arm, or fixed in the girdle at the left side, so as to have the coil of flax in a convenient position for drawing out to yarn. A prepared end of yarn being fixed into the notch, the spinster, by a smart rolling motion of the spindle with the right hand against the right leg, threw it out from her, spinning in the air, while, with the left hand, she drew from the rock an additional supply of fibre which was formed into a uniform and equal strand with the right. The yarn being sufficiently twisted was released from the notch, wound around the lower part of the spindle, and again fixed in the notch at the point insufficiently twisted ; and so the rotating, twisting, and drawing cut operations went on till the spindle was full. So persistent is an ancient and primitive art of this description that to the present day, in remote districts of Scotland, the country where machine spinning has attained its highest development, spinning with rock and spindle is yet practised ; 1 and, rude as these implements are, yarn of extraordinary delicacy, beauty, and tenacity lias been spun by their agency. The first improvement on the primitive spindle was found in the construction of the hand-wheel, in which the spindle, mounted in a frame, was fixed horizontally, and rotated by a band passing round it and a large wheel, set in the same framework. Such a wheel became known in Europe about the middle of the 16th century, but it appears to have been in use for cotton spinning in the East from time immemorial. At a later date, which cannot be fixed, the treadle motion was attached to the spinning wheel, enabling the spinster to ^it at work with both hands free ; and the introduction of the two-handed or double-spindle wheel, with flyers or twisting arms on the spindles, completed the series of mechanical improvements effected on flax spinning till the end of the 18th century. The common use of the two-handed wheel throughout the rural districts of Ireland and Scotland is a matter still within the recollection of middle-aged people* but spinning wheels are now seldom seen. The modern manufacture of linen divides itself into two branches, spinning and weaving, to which may be added the bleaching and various finishing processes, which, in the case of many linen textures, are laborious undertakings and important branches of industry. Flax, when received into the mills, has to undergo a train of preparatory operations before it arrives at the stage of being twisted into yarn. The whole operations in yarn manufacture comprise (1) heckling, (2) preparing, and (3) spinning. HecUing. This first preparatory process consists not only in combing out, disentangling, and laying smooth and parallel the separate fibres, but also serves to split up and separate into their ultimate filaments the strands of fibre which, up to this point, have been agglutinated together. The heckling process was, until recent times, done by the hand ; and it was one of fundamental importance, requir ing the exercise of much dexterity and judgment. The 1 See Dr Arthur Mitchell s The Past in the Present, Edinburgh, 1SSO.