The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-02-20
PURPLE AND FINE LINEN.
No Record or the Advent OF Muslin
- an Article Of Wearing
Apparel.
tn Use and Great Perfection
Among tho Ancionts OF
the Earth.
JmInnnse Manufactures by tbs Egyptians
-ft Was Nightly Expensive In
Those Days.

There IN no other fabric In tho wor q TINT
has such q history Of its WI and such d
part in the worlds history as linen has,
says Harper's Bazaar. No ono knows ~
what point Of primitive iifo tho SAVING,
found the wool OF his sheep preferable 10
its hide, nor just where linen came likc n
new dispensation oyer that. Other plants
besides the fax have como up since; the
jute, whose leaves the East Indian eats
like spinach. has nm immonse production
to-day; and the common pricking nettlo Of
our fields has been made into both cloth
and paper; indeed, tho delicate Chinese
grass cloth, that looks sometimes like moth
ing more substantial than a honr-frost, ~
produced from a species Of nettle, which "
carefully cultivated and gathered three
times n year TOR the dne fibre Of its third in
Ier layer. But the use Of fax once habituaI,
the improvements in the manufacture seem
TO have reached perfection at IN early day
in India, Egypt and BABYLON. We road OF
Hindostnnce muslins 10 fine that whom
spread on the grass and wet with dew they
wero invisible. A Persian ambassador
brought to his royal muster a coconnut Oh"
riched with jewels in which was enclosed q
turban muslin thirty yards long, 40 me
that with closed eyes one could scarcely rec
ognize il by the touch. II was probably
from the Egyptians that tho Hebrews
brought many Interviewing secrets. The
splendid hanginRs OF the tabernacle in tho
wilderness, as we'll as the priests robes,
were Of shining linen, and the high priests
girdie was OF linen no curiousIy woven as to
suggest = snakes skin, These robes were
afterward ravcled to make wicks for the
sacred lamps. The mufiiers and wells and
atomachers and turbnns which made the
picturcaque toilet Of tho Hebrew women
were oil Of linen; and il 10 iine linen that
always moved the imaginations Of their
poets. Solomon, we are told, had wells and
hangings of the softest linens wrought with
exquisite devices; n that Egyptian
princess who was his wife brought with
her from home dresses OF linen whose sheer
gauge was w%ondrously embroidered.
Perhaps in the bales that came to her were
tho linen lawns from Tyre and Sidon, $50
thin as to be transparent, and which glow
with purple"-the gauziness Of which such
Of fine linen brought from Thebes which
had in it $40 threads to the inch.
Both tho Egyptians and B~sbylonians wove
golden threads into their linen occasionally.
Egyptian napkins embroidered with golden
flowers have been found. n mummies
Babylonian cloth in which ono Of Nero's
dining rooms was hung. worth nearly
S200,W0 of our money, WAS doubtleSs Of this
description. The robe which Acnan covet.
cd was probably a Babylonian ne-no
linen, however, but woven entirely OF gold.
Cato, having inherited a Babylonian robe
perhaps OF a similar ~sort-ordered ii sold,
rs too costly for an honest Roman to wear.
Indeed, many Of tho old Roman families
regarded linen itself as something too lux
urious and eftcminate. and chung to their
WOODEN robes long after the rest Of the
HDnpld thu uNftnn %nhpin flxyty
speaks Of the priests OF Rom AZ wearing
linen. and probably the lawn Of the Angli-
can bishop is the Legitimate successor OF
that linen.
One 10 led to fancy that there must have
been an immense manufacture of linen in
Egypt from the character OF the %wrappings
Of the mummies. which had sometimes rs
many as forty thicknesses, and used 800
yards Of material. Many OF these linen
bandages we're written and painted on with
great delicacy. Indeed, linen was used in
stead OF papyrus to some extent; the Sibyl-
line leaves themselves arc said to have been
written on it. There seem to have been in
Vulnerable uses to which the Egyptians put
the faxen fber. Among other things, they
made OF 1t very strong and wonderful nets;
and they may be said to have invented the
mosquito net, as the fishermen used their
nets by day. and spread them over them
selves at night to keep away the flying pests
OF the night time as they slept.
As linen, having had its day, gave way a
little before the advance of silk among the
elegant, Pliny speaks with some mild con-
tempt OF tho ladies beyond the Rhine whose
best wear WAS linen; but in the 1T season IL
has always remained choice wear with tho
ladies beyond the Rhine from that day to
this. Ben johnson speaks of q tablecloth
costing 30; and in his era q linen shirt,
with its fine finishings, was worth Go. A
century later q weaver in Dunfermline,
where the king sat with Sir Patrick Spence
without a seam, and finished without a
needle. save for a button.
Linen is not cheap now, but it was might
lily expensive in those old days. II was the
exk ense of it 80 late as the time Of Charlie
imagine that caused Voltaire to think many
diseases Of the skin then that went under
this name OF leprosy were due to the want
OF lineD, probably ns it's want occasioned
uncleanliness and irritation. The habit ap-
pears to havo been remedied aftsrward, al
though it took several hundred years to do
it. for one Of the officers of the household
Of Mary Queen OF Scots, in her imprison-
ment, complained that she wns allowed but
sixty pairs Of sheets. which was truly n beg
garry equipment for royalty.
1t WAS in order to encourage the manu-
facture of linen. a hundred years or moro
afterward, that the Scotch enacted n law
forbidding m to 10 buried in anything
else. Perhaps even in this there was felt,
almost as strongly ms the need of u pros
Porous industry. something OF the pure and
line character OF linen. whose preparation
has left in il 80 little soil and decay that 10
is the fit and symbolic drapery for the holy
Of holics. the only garment for the purified
priest rs he waits upon the altar.