Australian. It comes, in the form of yarn,
from Bradford, in hanks which are anything
but white, so that they have first to be washed
Of the washing, dyeing, and warping we need
not speak, as they are much the same to the
observer's and therefore to the reader's, eye
as the preparation of yarns for carpets in
Kendal, and of silk for ribbons in Coventry.
While the washing and drying, and the dyeing
and drying again are proceeding, the higher
labour of preparing the pattern is advancing.

But how much of the lower kind of work
can be done during the slow elaboration oi
the higher! It really requires some patience
and fortitude even to witness the mighty task
of composing and preparing the pattern of an
elaborate shawl. Let the reader study any
three square inches of a good shawl border;
let the threads be counted, and the colours,
and the twists and turnings of the pattern;
and then let it be remembered that the general
form has to be invented, and the subdivisions,
and the details within each form, and the
filling up of the spaces between, and the
colours—as a whole, and in each particular;
and that, before the material can be arranged
for the weaving, every separate stitch (so to
speak) must be painted down on paper in its
right place. Is it not bewildering to think of?
Much more bewildering and imposing is it to
see. As for the first sketch of the design, that
is all very pretty; and, the strain on the
faculties not being cognisable by the stranger,
is easy enough. There goes the artist-pencil—
tracing waving lines and elegant forms, giving
no more notion of the operations within than
the hands of a clock do of the complication of
the works. Formerly, the employers put two
or three good foreign patterns into the artists'
hands, and said, " Make a new pattern out of
these." Now that we have Schools of Design,
and more accessible specimens of art, the
direction is given without the aids. " Make a
new pattern; " and the artist sits down with
nothing before him but pencil and paper—
unless, indeed, he finds aids for himself in
wild flowers, and other such instructors in
beauty of form and colour. By degrees, the
different parts of the pattern shape themselves
out, and combine—the centre groups with the
ends, and the ends grow out into the sides
with a natural and graceful transition. Then
the portions, properly outlined, are delivered
to the colourers; who cover the drawing with
oiled paper, and begin to paint. It would not
do to colour the outlined drawing, because
there are no outlines in the woven fabric.
It is dazzling only to look upon. Much less
minute is the transferring to the diced paper
which is the real working pattern. The
separate portions of the finished pattern of a
single shawl, when laid on the floor, would
cover the carpet of a large drawing-room. The
taking down such a pattern upon paper
occupies four months.

The weaving is done either by " lashing,"
or from Jacquard cards. The Jacquard loom
answers for the eternal patterns, and the
"lashing" method suffices for those which are
not likely to be repeated. The man seated at
the " piano-machine," playing on a sort of
keys, from the coloured pattern stuck up
before his eyes, is punching the Jacquard
cards, which are then transferred, in their
order, to the lacing-machine, where they are
strung together by boys into that series which
is to operate upon the warp in the weaving,
lifting up the right threads for the shuttle to
pass under to form the pattern, as in other
more familiar manufactures. The " lashing"
is read off from the pattern, too, in the same
way as with carpet patterns at Kendal; so
many threads being taken up and interlaced
with twine for a red stitch, and then so
many more for a green, and so on. Boys then
fasten each symbol of a hue to a netting of
whipcord, by that tail of the netting which,
by its knots, signifies that particular hue: so
that, when the weaving comes to be done, the
boy, pulling the symbolic cord, raises the
threads of the warp,—green, blue, or other,
—which are required for that throw of the
shuttle. Thus the work is really all done
before-hand, except the mere putting together
of the threads; done, moreover, by anybody
but the weaver, who is, to say the truth, a
mere shuttle-throwing machine. The poor
man does not even see and know what he is
doing. The wrong side of the shawl is uppermost;
and not even such a wrong side as we
see, which gives some notion of the pattern
on the other. Previous to cutting, the wrong
side of a shawl is a loose surface of floating
threads of all colours; of the threads, in fact,
which are thrown out of the pattern, and
destined to be cut away and given to the
paper-makers to make coarse grey paper.
One pities the weaver, who sits all day long
throwing the shuttle, while the boy at the end
of his loom pulls the cords which make the
pattern, and throw up nothing but refuse to
the eye. He has not even the relief of stopping
to roll up what he has done; for a little
machine is now attached to his loom, which
saves the necessity of stopping for any such
purpose. It is called " the up-taking motion."
By it a few little cog-wheels are set to turn
one another, and, finally, the roller, on which
the woven fabric is wound as finished.

The bundles of weaving-strings and netting
which regulate the pattern, are called
"flowers." From the quantity of labour and
skill wrought up in their arrangement, they
are very valuable. A pile of them, on a small
table, were, as we were assured, worth one
thousand pounds. We may regard each as
the soul or spirit of the shawl,—not creating
its material, but animating it with character,
personality, and beauty. We have said that
it takes a man a week to weave a shawl: but
this means a " long" shawl, and not a "square."
The square remain our favourites; but the
female world does not seem to be of our mind.
It is true the symmetry of the pattern is