The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-06 00:00:00

STALE OF TRADE.

home
is trade
Id. per an
lb.
MANc HES TER, Dec. 6.—ln
advance asked to-day, which
shipping, but the yarns we have had a betterd
market since Tuesday for all kinds, both
had
in some cases and 2d. per lb. in others over the rates of Tues-
day,
has caused the market to be rather quieter than
been anticipated. The business Las boon smaller than it
would have been but for the advance, because, at the prices
asked on Tuesday, it is known that persons were prepared
to have bought rather considerable quantities. An advance
has been sought for also upon cloth, but it has in a great
measure stopped business. There have been some small
lots of T-cloths, and some business has been done on a small
scale in other fabrics, where sellers have been moderate in
price, but any attempt to follow the advance in. yarns and
cotton checks business, and buyers are unwilling almost
to test the strength of the market. In shirtings the
ten-
dency has been downwards until to-day. Printers are in
less demand than they were a week to a fortnight ago,
probably in consequence of some fairish orders having
then been placed, Several sellers report rather more in-
clination among buyers to take T-oloths, where prices are
moderate. The production of domestics is on a small seal,
and stocks are getting low, but sellers have a difficulty in
getting any advance in price. Frequent complaints have
been made of late that cotton cloths exported from this mar-
ket have suffered from mildew, and so notorious have cases
of this kind become that advertisements have appeared
from parties offering to pack so as to protect them from in-
jury from this cause. It turns out, on investigation, that
the evil arises from a new practice of employing salt in
sizing the warps used in manufacturing such cloths. Some
of the manufacturers have been accused of impregnating
their cloths with large quantities of saline matter for the
purpose of increasing
its weight, and thus defrauding their
customers wilfully. But this ingredient is too injurious to
the manufacturer himself to be encouraged by him,
inasmuch as it rots the warps before they can
be woven, and also spoils the colour. The probable ex-
planation of the practice is, as stated above, that the evil
has arisen with the sizers, who have used some kind of salt
with their sizing matter in ignorance of the damage likely
to accrue to the goods subsequently from mildew. The prac-
tice is no doubt a bad one, and one which must be put a
' stop to. Such goods are more or less affected by the wea-
-1 ther, or the state of the atmosphere in which they may be
placed, and an agent in Manchester who had unwittingly
allowed some goods to be placed in his warehouse in which
salt had been mixed with the size found them not only losing
colour from mildew,but that they became heated to such an
extent as to lead to a fear of combustion. They had, conse-
quently, to be removed without loss of time as a matter of
safety. Whatever may have been the inducement to the use
of such a substance--whether economy or fraud, with or
without complicity on the part of the manufacturer—it is
to be hoped that the expomo now going LawArci will put