work. The hanks, in bundles, are carried,
wet and hot, round wheels, and pressed under
rollers in their passage, by which the dirt is
squeezed out. They are thrown into vats,
where boiling water is violently soused upon
them: and the same process is gone through
in another vat with cold water. Here we
have the yarn clean, but wet. Formerly, it
took two men with staves to twist the hanks
in opposite directions, to wring out the
moisture, which still left the yarn very wet.
Now, there is a new machine, by which
centrifugal force is made use of to send the
water flying off, in proportion to the rapidity
of the revolutions. By peeping into this
wonderful box, we see the yarn carried madly
round, faster than the eye can follow, and
the moisture raining off in streams from the
top and down the sides. When the rain
ceases, the yarn is taken out,—now merely
damp.

While we are among the hot water, we
inspect the foiling process. The coarse
inferior cloths, which serve for saddle linings,
&c., are cleansed in the fulling-mill; thrust
into a box, open on one side, to be beaten by
the "fulling-stocks,"—heavy hammers, which
are raised by strong pegs fixed in a revolving
wheel, and let fall, and raised again. It is a
rough method of scouring, but most effectual
for a fabric strong enough to bear it.

The yarn being dried and dyed, and dried
again, must next be warped. The warping
mill is an enormous reel; and the warper has
to reel off from the bobbins whatever colours
are wanted for the warp of a carpet.
Suspended before his eyes is a bit of the carpet
to be imitated. He picks out his greens, and
his reds, and his yellows, and winds them all
off together on his great reel, in readiness for
the loom. If it be a new pattern of carpet
that he is preparing for, he has a pretty
picture before him, instead of a strip of carpet.

Who paints this pretty picture? The
designer to the firm. Great is the intellectual
exercise, severe the toil, keen the eyesight,
required to make that pattern. The artist
has been trained at the Government School
of Design; and he has so much taste and
invention that his employers declare that they
can nowhere find, within the range of the
carpet manufacture, patterns which can be
compared with those furnished by this young
man. He sits in his office, surrounded by
portfolios of drawings,— containing not only
his educational exercises, but sheetsful of
results of later observation. There are
impressions from the various ferns of the
neighbourhood, from the plane leaf and the ivy,
and many another familiar growth. We see
them reproduced in the carpets unrolled for
us in the warehouse; and those who adjudged
the Exhibition prizes had others before their
eyes. The designer sketches his fancies; and,
if he like them on paper, draws them
carefully in little;—on paper diced with little
squares, where they look so pretty in black
and white, that we should be in raptures
with them if they had been ours. If still
approved, they are next to be drawn in
colours on paper diced with larger squares,
containing little ones equivalent to stitches;
—the same that patterns are produced on for
ladies' Berlin wool work. It is this which
must be so severely trying to the eyes; for
every stitch has to be attended to. As he
works, the artist now and then tries his
pattern by the mirror,—two pieces of glass
fixed at right angles, which, placed along two
sides of his pattern, present him with an
expanse,—a repetition of his work—and
enables him to judge of its effect.

The choicest designs have to be wrought
in the highest kinds of carpets—Wilton and
Brussels; and, for these, Jacquard looms are
chiefly employed. The Jacquard looms are
so familiar to all who know the Spitalfields
or other silk manufacture, that there can be
no need to describe them here: but we may
mention, that at Messrs. Whitwell's mill
may be seen a curious and recent invention—
an invention of their own—called a "repeating
machine," for taking copies of the Jacquard
pattern-cards.

In carpets, as in other things, society is
subject to "rages;" and when there is a
pressing demand for a fresh pattern, cards
are wanted for many looms. The machine
before us multiplies the needed cards. Moveable
pegs, of the size of the round holes in
the cards, are selected, as it were, by the
pattern-card on one side of the machine, and
deposited in order in a perforated frame. This
frame is then transferred to the other side,
and pressed down under a roller upon slips of
card underneath, several of which can be thus
perforated at a stroke. The piecing machine
and this repeating machine were to us the
most novel and interesting particulars of the
whole manufacture.

And now everything is ready for the weaving.
It is noon, and the people are ready for
their dinners. We, who have travelled many
miles to see this mill since breakfast, and
have used our eyes diligently, and our ears
more than is agreeable, are ready for luncheon,
though it is hardly past noon. We agree to
suspend operations for an hour or two, and
go to the factory when the workers have
returned from dinner.

We had no idea that we should find
anything picturesque in a carpet factory: but, on
entering any one of the long rooms, we
certainly felt a wish that an artist had been with
us, to represent things just as we saw them.
All along both sides of a long room are
looms, placed as close as liberty of weaving
will allow;—so close, that a weaver has to
stop his work while a party of three steps
in to observe the feats of his neighbour.
The tricks of the light, falling from the
high windows upon the posts and beams of
the looms, are striking; and so are the gay
colours of the webs, shining out here and