buildings needed to carry on the business of
that one firm; of the apparently complicated
ramifications of a sewed-muslin factory; nor of
the vast numbers employed by means of this
one branch of industry.

In describing the many departments of this
interesting establishment, it may be as well
to classify them under three heads, all
perfectly distinct from each other. These are,
the tool and pattern rooms; the preparing
and printing rooms; and the receiving, finishing,
and sale rooms.

Wending my way through a huge gateway
and up a noble flight of stairs, I reached a
long suite of quiet, business-looking workshops
full of young men of gentlemanly appearance.
They were all busily employed with pens,
pencils, tracing paper, and sundry curious-
looking surgical sort of instruments. I
scarcely knew whether they were studying
comparative anatomy, civil engineering, or
architecture, and was not a little astounded
on learning from my guide that this staff of
draughtsmen were designing and drawing
patterns for infants' caps and young ladies'
collars! After that, I felt perfectly prepared
for anything.

I examined, and sure enough they were all
hard at work upon flowers, and fruit, and
cross-bars, such as we see on the surface of
raspberry tarts: evidently intended for
embroidery work of some description. Every
one of these patterns must, of necessity,
possess novelty, or the work would not sell;
and for the guidance of this corps artistique,
there were kept on shelves in an adjoining
room volumes on volumes of their own old
patterns, as well as of those issued by other
houses, not only to form new combinations
from, but to prevent repetition of worn-out
designs.

Some of these draughtsmen receive as much
as two hundred pounds per annum, and that
for work occupying not many hours a day.
There were at that time about a dozen men
and lads thus engaged, and I learnt that the
business of the house could, at most seasons
of the year, give ample employment to
them.

In a new workroom, well lighted from
above, we found six or eight persons occupied
in copying the last finished patterns from the
designers' sheets, upon transfer paper, ready
for throwing them upon zinc plates and stone
blocks, from which to be printed off on the
plain muslin ready for working.

And here it must be observed that, to
enable the thousands of workwomen to
enbroider the tens of thousands of little
articles of dress required, the patterns are
not worked by them direct from the paper on
the cloth, as I remember to have seen done
by my young lady acquaintances; this work,
like everything else, has been so perfected,
that a far superior and more economical mode
is adopted with the designs. In place of
stitching the paper pattern on the back of
the material and working from that, the
design required to be embroidered is printed
on the cloth, by means of zincography and
lithography, with a fugitive ink which is
afterwards easily washed out. Passing on
from the workmen who were preparing these
transfers, I entered a large room in which
were a party of workpeople engaged upon
blocks of wood, masses of metal, and curiously
shaped tools. These were cutting patterns of
a particular description upon lime wood
for block-printing direct, or for forming
matrixes for metal moulds to be framed
from them. Here I witnessed a very ingenious
method of cutting designs in wood; it was
performed by means of a hollow pointed tool,
fixed perpendicularly, the extremity of which
was kept almost at a red heat by means of a
lighted jet of gas thrown within it. The
operator having the pattern inked on the
wood, moved the block against the fiery
cutter which, tracing out the design instantly,
burnt in at one regulated depth the lines and
corners of the pattern. This work was
performed with astonishing rapidity and
precision.

Amongst other curious apparatus for
transferring patterns on muslin fabrics, I observed
a pair of copper cylinders; on one of these a
number of half-circular devices were engraved;
these turned out to be patterns of ladies'
collars, which, by means of an inking
apparatus, were transferred from the revolving
rollers with wonderful rapidity to long slips
of muslin. In one ordinary working day, a
man and a boy could print off in this way
fifty thousand of collar patterns.

On the same floor were extensive workshops
for the manufacture and repair of the numberless
tools and machines employed throughout
the establishment; and, below them, were
other large apartments, in which were made
card-board boxes and heavy deal packing-
cases for the reception and despatch of the
wares of the factory.

From these ranges of workshops I
proceeded to the preparing and printing rooms.
There, might be seen whole hecatombs of
muslins ready to be offered up to the printers
and sewers, from the finest French cambrics for
babies' best caps and ladies' superior worked
handkerchiefs, down to the low qualities for
servants' collars; the goods were ranged
around in Titan heaps. Burly-limbed, beef-
fed porters staggered and reeled under
enormous piles of stuff for ladies' sleeves;
giants of labourers perspired under the
infliction of infants' caps. In fact, it seemed
marvellous what was going to be done with
so many little round pieces of muslin; there
could not be such a number of babies
"expected" for many years to come to fill all
those caps, unless, indeed, there was some
large society about to establish infant
hospitals throughout Central India and the
Chinese empire.

In one of these initiatory rooms young women