The Looms Are Very Complicated And Expensive Affairs, And Do Not
Belong To The Weaver But To The Manufacturer.
The pattern is traced on
stiff paper in holes.
Was very much interested in watching the process
of weaving; of course did not understand it, and therefore wondered over
it. The web was two and a half yards wide, was double damask of a fern
pattern. The weaver, a young and nice-looking man, with the assured
manner of a skilled worker, informed me proudly that he could earn three
shillings a day - 75 cents. Out of this magnificent income he paid the
rent of his house - which was not a palace either - and supported his
wife and family. His wife, a pretty and rather refined looking young
woman, had a baby, teething sick, in the cradle. It must wail, and
mother could only look her love and coo to it in softest tones, for if
she took the little feverish sufferer up the pirns would be unwound and
the husband's three shillings would have a hole in it, so both wife and
baby had a share in the earning of that three shillings - baby's share
the hardest of all.
Called in to see another weaver of damask to-day; he could earn fifteen
pence a day. He was a melancholy little man, of a pugnacious turn of
mind, I am afraid. He said that fifteen pence a day was but little out
of which to pay rent and support a wife and family.
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