Morning journal and courier., 1889-07-06

AhCvs A0 1upOASHuOc OA sA0 p1OJSSt uAAAAl6p of course, of no question, when the fact of the long seq passage around the southern coast of Italy and up the stormy Adriatic to Trieste and Venice is considered.
 AFo0T IN IRELAND.
 The Linen Making Industry in Bel- fast-Where and How Flax is Pro.
 duced-The Process Of Preparing 1t For Use-Early Introduction of Flax Cultivation and the Art of Spinning
 -Scenes in the Death-Breeding Fac.
 tories.
 BELFAST, Ireland, June 21.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 When one contemplates the tremendous amount of capital invested, and the vast number of persons employed, in the differ ent processes of linen-making in this one Irish city, two reflections are impressively resultant. The first is along the line of the antiquity of linen-spinning and weaving, with the wondrous reaches of history be- tween it's origin and the songs of the spins dles of today. The second is the astound- ing shortsightedness of American farmers and manufacturers that flax is not grown in the United States on the numbsrless farms where wheat can no longer be counted on as sure crop, for every pound of fibre used in the making of every pound of thread, for the manufacture of every yard of linen pur- chased annually in America, as well as for millions of dollars worth of export. Out side of Ireland, Russia and Germany produce the finest flax, and Germany spins and weaves the finest linen in the world; and Russia's and Germany's climate and soils for raising, and streams for stepping flax, are precisely identical with those in vast por- | tions of our own country. A million acres | of flax more than Is now grown should an- nually be produced In the United States. | This would yield fourteen million bushels of | seed, worth as many million dollars for seed and oil From 1t two million five hundred thousand tons of flax straw, worth fifty mil- lion dollars, would be secured; and from 1t five hundred thousand tons of fax fibre | worth one hundred million dollars would be obtained. Aside from this increase in value
 of agricultural product, the inestimable
 blessing of the employment of over quar-
 ter million people in the manufacture of this
 product into marketable goods would also re- ! cult. IL would eeena to any reasonable mind
 that this Is a matter worth thinking about in
 America. The practical results are all shown
 right here in Belfast. This city of over two
 hundred and fifty thousand souls, the third
 for customs in the United Kingdom, is, with
 her magnificent industries, wholly result of
 flax. growing and linen spinning and weav-
 ing.
 Probably the earliest reference to flax
 growing is found in the Book of Exodus, ] where 1t is said that in the plague of hail
 "the flax and the barley were smitten, and
 the flax was boiled" The quantities of
 mummy linen found in the Egyptian tombs
 is remarkable, bodies often being enveloped
 in folds of linen cloth from three to five hundred yards in length its use in the gar.
 ments of priests, and for other sacerdota purposes by all eastern nations in ancient times, is we'll known; while the veil of the Holy of Holies iu the Jewish tabernacle was , | of linen. Phpnician merchants carried lin. ! en, as chief article of trade, into every part of the then known world. The anoien | Britons were clad in skins, but their Druids l ! wore linen garments. The Milesians wht came to Erin from Scythia twelve hundred | years previous to the Christian era, brough with them knowledge of the cultivation O flax, as we'll as of the art of spinning ane 8 ! weaving. In the ancient Irish Book O Rights among the recorded tributes paid by l provincial kings are mentioned msntles O linen embroidered in colors and with gole
 and silver thread; while poem of about th B time of the introduction of Christisnit, , | into Ireland refers to the use of linen in at
 tire as follows:
 "I saw his splendid linen kilt
 With it's striped silken borders,
 Al A facs-redeSted N .S mirror @ of , various huss' 5 As early as in St. Patrick's time the art o
 hand weaving and embroidery had elread
 attained much perfection in Ireland. Si : Patrick himself constantly kept three em broiderers at work. One of thess was hi
 sister; another was the daughter of nobl
 of high rank; and the third was 8 daughte 8 of Daire, King of Ulster. St. Columbcill s also employed skilled weavers and embro derers; and it was King Eochaidh, know Himself as the cloth designer, who intre
 duced the weaving of various oolored cloth l.. into Ireland, designating rank from the on ID ! color of the servant, to the seven colors l, the raiment of kings and queens. For hv q hundred years previous to the Elizabetha '. l and Cromwellian wars hand linen spinnin '' and weaving had reached perfection in Ir 'e land not surpassed in any other country; br
 the desolation of Ireland for nearly one hul
 dred years after the savageries and extern is nation of those conflicts almost wholly d er ! stroyed the industry. It was not revive In until the revocation of the Ediot of Nant !. drove great number of families from Fran ID to Ireland. Many of these were skille ot spinners and weavers. They settled in Il Id counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down and T. 70 l rome, near Lisburn, Belfas. and Lurgan, ar
 ! the industry was soon again so well und
 | vop &bot in 177R a pvrjfer op Trnlard ks speaking of this section, stated as a fact
 peculiar interest, that "the manufacture
 wives drink tea for breakfast" Tea was ke luxury in those days, as some of our ov o- forefathers rather vigorously atteste h. Again, in noting the extraordinary prosper ;, ty of the people of this region at the sar '' period, the same writer related that ct or weavers in the country keep @ pack k- hounds; every man has hound, and, joi sd ing them together, they hunt hares. T The pack is no sooner heard than all { j. weavers leave their looms, and away they w. after them by hundreds"
 W, Wet spinning of linen yarns was begun 'lo Belfast in 1880. Previous to that time thr per fourths of all the yarn used in weaving lin Ter ! was made on the ancient spinning wheel, ,n- the homes of the cottiers and farmers amo l the peasantry. A woman servant was ms only expected to accomplish her every-G ieh household duties, but in addition she m ou- spin 6 certain amount of yarn week to Mothers, daughters, and even the
 grandmothers, had their allotted hours Of the wheel, and its buzz and hum were Ian dom missing from the cabin save dur be hours of sleep. The women of Tyr
 were most famous in all Ireland as sI
 ners; and their kemps, or spinning-mat Ict, es, often plunged a whole townland .o excitement. Aptly illustrative of this un- Carleton's story of the Irishman, Ca g 'ue- catch" in love with two girls, both cen nous as spinners, who spun race fo ,ov. day for the honor Of his business ,ect ,nith mora varn than hanninasa So t of as 1850 only ffty-eight power-looms feet linen weaving were in use in Ireland. t.;n the intervening thirty nine years. despite natural discouragements from the deplorl rten condition of Ireland through governme gis- injustice and stupidity, the increase in