Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/230

 Europe at about iSj, the square yard, is one of the least econom- ical carpets which people of moderate means could lay down on their floors. The staple is so short, and the texture so loose, that it will not bear the wear and tear of a middle-class English house ; and common sense is of course the backbone of good taste in furnishing. Three years will wear out any Mirza- pore carpet now made. Those made ten years ago will still be in use twenty years lienee, and full of dignity to the end. But as they cost twice the money* there’s the rub, fatal to the once great manufacture of this district.

The Hyderabad carpets have also felt the influence of the jails. In the Exhibition of 1851, the very finest rugs exhibited were from Warangal, about eighty miles east of Hyderabad, The peculiarity of these rugs, cf which several remain in the India Museum, was the exceedingly fine count of the stitches, about 12,000 to the square foot. They were also perfectly harmonious in coloring, and the only examples in which silk was ever used in carpets with a perfectly satisfactory effect. The brilliancy of the colors was kept in subjection by their judicious distribution and the extreme closeness of the weaving, which is always necessary when the texture is of silk. All this involves, naturally, great comparative expense, not less than 10 L per square yard; and it is not surpris- ing, therefore, that in the competition with the Thug carpets of tl;e jails, the stately fabrics of Warangal, the ancient capital of the Andhra dynasty of the Dakhan, and of the later Rajas of Telin- gana, have died out, past every effort to revive them. Surely the Government which has spent so much money in introducing South Kensington Schools of Art into India, might make an an- nual grant for the purchase of the masterpieces of Indian local manufacturers, which they should present to any native prince or gentleman to whom they wished to shew great honour. A few thousand pounds spent in this way every year would have a most beneficial effect in sustaining many local traditional arts in India now nearly dying out, even of the very recollections of men.