such bonnets are heavy and clumsy;hence
the makers sought the means of splitting
the straws into three, four, or more
narrow strips each. Knives were employed
to do this;but it was sorry work:the strips
were uneven, and the progress was slow.
About half a century ago, an ingenious man
invented a simple but efficient tool to aid in
this operation;and his return was such as
ingenious inventors do not always realise—a
handsome fortune. Besides wheat, rye and
other straws are also used. Italian grasses
and corn-straws have likewise been made
available.

A lady need hardly be told how
elaborate the patterns of fancy straws now
are;nor need any one accustomed to
manufactures and manufacturing operations be
informed that these fancy productions require
machinery to bring the slender straws into
such elegant convolutions. But the plain old-
fashioned mode of proceeding is somewhat as
follows;as many a village in Beds, Berks, and
Herts, would show. The straws are drawn
out and the heads of corn cut off. They
are shorn of the leaves which sheathe the
stalk;and they are cut. They are whitened,
or bleached, or steamed, or sulphured, by
exposure to the fumes of sulphur in a box.
Then the plaiter comes in, and examines
whether the material be worthy of the labour
about to be bestowed upon it. If it be spotted,
or reddened, or jointed, or bruised, or crooked,
it is either rejected altogether, or is
appropriated to inferior uses; but if it be straight,
and light, and clean, and whole, it is
ranked as first class, and is divided into
different thicknesses or finenesses. Then
comes the splitting. A little instrument made
of iron, or brass, or wood, or a combination of
metal and wood, is thrust into each straw;
there are cutters varying from four to a dozen
in number, which sever the straw into an
equal number of parallel strips. As the
little bits have a natural tendency to
convexity on one side and concavity on the other,
they are passed between two wooden rollers,
which flatten and straighten them. Then the
plaiting begins—a process which we have not
the temerity to attempt to describe. How,
by employing different numbers, and different
kinds, and different sizes of straws, and
entwining them in different ways, the plaiters
produce the varieties of rustic, and pearl, and
backbone, and lustre, and wave, and diamond,
and double-seven, and double eleven, and other
denominations of plait—let the inquirer learn
by looking on, and not by mere reading.
Strips are thus made up and sold in scores,
or pieces twenty yards long. A straw
bonnet of sober and moderate pretensions
consumes, we believe, from three to four
scores of plait. The plaits are bleached by
the larger manufacturers, who purchase them;
and are then sewn, and blocked, and pressed,
and wired by women, until they assume the
form of a smart bonnet or hat. When Sally
Tibbs purchases a straw bonnet for a shilling
(which she can do in any town in England),
she has the product of an amount of fingerwork
such as may well astonish those who
can trace the manufacture through its successive
stages.

Of the "fancy straws" (as ladies and
manufacturers designate them) the Great Exhibition
showed to what exquisite perfection they have
arrived. England did its work bravely, to
compete so well with Italy and Switzerland: but
it is to those countries, doubtless, that we are
indebted for the spread of the fancy work.
Ladies make a little puzzlement in the
geography of their Italian bonnets; for,
geographically, a Leghorn bonnet must be a Tuscan
bonnet, and a Tuscan bonnet maybe a Leghorn
bonnet: whereas in a millinery sense, a Tuscan
bonnet may not, must not, and cannot be a
Leghorn bonnet. Waiving these differences,
however, the straw work ot the Grand Duke's
dominions is an important branch of industry
for the peasants. In the country districts
around Florence, Pisa, Sienna, and other
towns, young girls may be seen sitting at the
cottage doors braiding the plait which is afterwards
to be formed into hats;some travellers
are quite enthusiastic in admiration of the
Arcadian simplicity of these damsels, and
the neatness of their white dresses and
silken bodices. The girls buy the straw
(which has been carefully cultivated and
prepared for that purpose), and ultimately sell
the plait or the hat, which is the result of
their labour. They are sedulously careful to
avoid hard or tough work as much as possible,
that they may retain the requisite softness
and flexibility of finger. But, the females are
said to be given to expensive dress, which
deprives them of the means of supplying
themselves with more necessary articles. During
the prosperity of the straw-trade, which lasted
from eighteen hundred and eighteen to
eighteen hundred and twenty-five, they are
said to have been ordinarily seen in
embroidered stockings and pumps, with large
velvet bonnets trimmed with feathers and
lace;while their houses were miserable.

These velvet and lace days are doubtless
gone;for the Leghorn hats and the Tuscan
plait are much less in fashion than they were
some years ago. With regard to our own home
products, the Exhibition jury say that though
the manufacture of straw-plait and bonnets
may be considered as of recent date, its
origin being about one hundred years ago, it
has now arrived to a state of great perfection
in all its branches. This may in a measure
be accounted for by the circumstance of
the whole female population wearing bonnets;
which with the exception of North America,
are but partially used in other countries. At
the present moment, it is calculated that
from sixty thousand to seventy thousand
persons are engaged in the production of
this article;and it is considered that the
yearly return cannot be less than from eight