The Penn's Grove record., 1886-01-30
311ana,ttahtr's
die SCENT. The whiting Yam

the scent. The whiting Van.
KEGS ofEurope invented-not
, embroideries-thc machine to
make them. II Keep the Sc
cret better they gave a foreign
city the credit of it.
Theart of embroidery pre-
historic; older than painting
older than statuary. If you
follow backward through the
primitive twilight into the dark
unwritten time it rises as you
go: romantic, poetic, noble,
royal and sacred. Scott occu-
pies his Hottest heroines with it.
Penelope threw a golden
broidered garment over Ulys-
ses embarking for Troy.
China, Persia, Turkey, India
the ancient orientals are full of
it yet. Old Egypt learned the
art from Babylon. Egypt
taught the Jews. Stern Moses
had a weakness for it. Eve
can there be a doubt that the
earliest aprons and baby-cloth-
es were sewed with cross-stitcho
But up to thirty years ago it
was slow and toilsome hand
work. Then a machine was
got to pick up the needles,
point them, push them through,
pull them out on the other side,
tighten the thread, and turn
again to repetition and all with
such exactness-yOu knew
what machine-likc exactness.
St. Gall became the machine
embroidcring city. The name
of "Hamburg' is said to have
been a mere device to keep
the machincand its whereabouts
secret, lest some ingenious ri
val should steal the invention.
Togoodto keep. Theworld
insisted on having more work
than one machine could do.
There are now in and around
about St. Call $4,000 embroid-
ering machines, and of course
more than as many persons
skilled in the use of them and
this particular sort of ncddlc-
work has passed from an art to
an industry. The art lies back
it, in the pattern-making.
The machines, of course,
have been greatly improved ;
and their work has become
more perfect, though scarcely
more wonderful.
A word on the machine itself.
Of iron, five yards long,
nearly as wide, and half as
Don't expect a descrip-
ton. The right hand heavily
turns this complex andponder-
Gus machine the left hand fol
lows the pattern; one foot gov
erns one side Of the machine
the other the other. Embroid-
cry has become a strong mans
work, not a woman
We venture a word on how
the left hand Of man SO bur
dened with work all over can
follow the tiny lines and vary
curves of the pattern. The
pattern is six times as large as
the work to be done. A big
man with the skill that
comes of day-long practice
month after month and year
after year can follow a pattern
six times as big as the work.
The machine hat refnes his
pattern down to one-siXth the
size refnes his blunders out of
Three years ago a novel and
sharp refinement Of this EN-,
broidery skill brought Point de
Venise to light, Nota thread
of the fabric wrought upon is
cut away. Not a thread is in
sight. 1t is wound all over
wound to every line of the pat
tern; wound to the size of
every line; wound fine, wound
heavy, heavy on fine; the fine
is the background; the heavy
stands out. Another embrold-
cry it we'll deserves another
name.
Not fifty men of all the thou
sands of St. Gall embroiderers
have the requisite skill, we are
told, to make Point de Venlse.
Hence its rarity.
1t is a singular fact that
nearly two-thirds of all the St.
Gall embroideries come to the
United States. Another more
singular where the patterns