Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/550

532 the finest laces of the Brussels market, smuggled them over to England, and sold them as English point (Figs. 7 and 8).

The smuggling of lace is a very important and interesting feature in its history. From 1700 downward we are told that in England the prohibition of lace went for nothing. Ladies would have foreign lace, and if they could not smuggle it themselves the smuggler brought it to them. "Books, bottles, babies, boxes, and umbrellas, daily poured out their treasures." Everybody smuggled.

"At one period much lace was smuggled into France from Belgium by means of dogs trained for the purpose. A dog was caressed and petted at home, fed on the fat of the land, then, after a season, sent across the frontier where he was tied up, half starved, and ill-treated. The skin of a bigger dog was then fitted to his body, and the intervening space filled with lace. The dog was then allowed to escape, and make his way home, where he was kindly welcomed, with his contraband charge. These journeys were repeated till the French custom-house, getting scent, by degrees put an end to the traffic. Between 1820 and 1836, 40,278 dogs were destroyed, a reward of three francs being given for each."

The thread used in Brussels lace is of the first importance. It is of extreme fineness, and the best quality, spun in underground rooms to avoid dryness of the air, is so fine as to be almost invisible. The room is darkened, and a background of dark paper is arranged to throw out the thread, while only a single ray of light is admitted, which falls upon it as it passes from the distaff". The exquisite fineness of this thread made the real Brussels ground so costly as to prevent its production in other countries. A Scotch traveler, in 1787, says that "at Brussels, from one pound of flax alone, they can manufacture to the value of seven hundred pounds sterling."

In former times, the ground of Brussels lace was made both by needle and on the pillow. The needle-ground was worked from one flower to another, while the pillow-ground was made in small strips an inch wide, and from seven to forty-five inches long. It required the greatest skill to join the segments of shawls and large pieces of lace. The needle-ground is three times as expensive as the pillow, for the needle is passed four times into each mesh, but in the pillow it is not passed at all. Machinery has now added a third kind of ground, called tulle, or Brussels-net. Since this has come into use, the hand-made ground is seldom used except for royal trousseaux. The flowers of Brussels lace are also both needle-made point à l'aiguille and those of the pillow "point plat." In the older laces the plat flowers were worked in along with the ground, as lace appliqué was unknown (Figs. 7 and 8).

Each process in the making of Brussels lace is assigned to a different hand. The first makes the vrai réseau; the second the footing; the third makes the point à l'aiguille flowers; the fourth, the plat