The morning call., 1893-01-14
A FLAXEN FABRIC.
Use of Linen in the OIden
Time.
THE NOBLE ART OF WEAVING.
Expert Workmen in Ancient Days.
The Fine Cloth Made by the
Ingenious Egyptians.

There Is no other fabric In the world that
has such history Of its own aud such part
in the worlds history as linen has, says
Harper's Bazaar. No one knows at what
point Of primitive life the savage found the
wool Of his sheep preferable to its hide. nor
just where linen came like new dispensa-
ton over that. Other plants besides the
fax have come up since. The jute. whose
leaves the East Indian eats like spinach.
has an immense production to-day; and the
common pricking nettle of our fields has
been made into both cloth and paper. In
deed, the delicate Chinese grass cloth, that
looks sometimes like nothing more substan-
tial than boar frost, is produced from a
species of nettle, which is carefully culti-
waited and gathered three times year for
the fine fiber of its third inner layer.
But the use of fax once babitual. The I'M
provemeDts in the manufacture seem TO
have reached perfection at an early day in
India. Egypt and Babylon. We read Of
Hindostanee muslins so fine that when
spread on the grass and wet with dew they
were invisible. A Persian Emhassad0r
br0ughtt 10 bis royal master c0coanut en-
ricbed with jewels, in which was inclosed
turban muslin thirty yards long. so fine
that with closed eyes one could scarcely
recognize it by the touch.
1t was probably from the Egyptians that
the Hebrews brought many linen weaving
secrets. The splendid hangings Of the taber-
uacle in ths wilderness. as we'll as the
priests robes, were OF shining linen, and
the high priests girdle was Of linen so curl
ously made as to suggest snakes skin.
These robes were afterward raveled to
make wickS for the sacred lamps. The
muff1ers and wells and stOmachers and
turbans. which made the picturesque toilet
Of the Hebrew women, were all Of
linen, and 1t is fine linen that always
moved the imaginations of their
poets. Solomon, we are told had wells ana
hangngs of the softest linens wrought with
exquisite devices; and that Egyptian
princess who vas his wife brought with her
from home dresses of linen whose sheer
gauZe was w0ndrnnSly embroidered. Per-
haps in the bales that came to her were the
linen lawns from Tyre and Sidon, $50 thin
as to be transparent, and which glow with
purple; the gauzness of which such fab
RIGS were capable is known now by bit of
fine linen brought from Tbebes, which had
in Il $40 threads TO the inch.
Both the Egyptians and Babylonians
wove golden threads into their linen occa-
si0nally. Egyptian napkins embroidered
with golden flowers have been found, and
mummies swathed in gold. wrought linen.
The Babylonian cloth with which one of
Nero's dining-rooms was hung, worth
nearly 100000 of our money. was doubt
less of this description. The robe which
Achen coveted was probably Babylonian
one--not of linen, however. but woven en-
tIrely Of gold. Cato having inherited
Babyl0nan robe - perhaps of a similar
sort-ordered it sold, as too costly for an
honest Roman 10 wear. Indeed, many OF
the old Roman families regarded linen
Itself as something too luxurious and effem-
mate, and chung to their " 00len robes long
after the rest OF the world wore the softer
fabric.
Ovid speaks of the priests of Rome as
wearing linen, and probably the lawn of
the Anglican Bishop is the legitimate sue
cessor of that linen. One is led TO fancy
that there must have been an immense
manufacture of linen in Egypt from the
character of the wrappiDgs of the mummies
which had sometimes as many as forty
thicknesses. and used 300 yards of material.
Many Of these linen bandageS were written
anu painted on with great deicacy. Indeed.
linen was used instead of papyrus to some
extent; the Skyline leaves themselves are
said TO have been written on 1t.
Ben Jon son speaks of a tablecloth costing
$50. and in his era a linen shirt with its
fine tnlshlngs, was worth G10. A century
later weaver in Dunfermline, where the
king sat with Sir Patrick Spence drinking
the blood red wine, wove a shirt without
seam, and finished without needle, save
for button.
Linen is not cheap now, but it was might
lily expensive in those old days. II was the
expense OF it so late as the time of CHARLIE
magne that caused Voltaire to think many
diseases Of the skin that went under the
name of leprosy were due to the want OF
linen, probably as It's want occasi0ned
uncleanliness and irritation. The habit APP
pears to have been remedied afterward,
although ii took several hundred years to do
it; for one of the officers OF the household of
Mary Queen of Scots, in her imprisonment,
complained that she was allowed but sixty
pairs of sheets. which was truly beggarly
equipment for roy atty.
1t was IN order 10 encourage the manu-
facture of linen, a hundred years or more
afterward, then the Scotch enacted law
forb.ddng one to be buried In anything
else. Perhaps even in this there was felt
almost rs strongly as the need Of q prosper
Gus industry. something of the pure and
fine character of linen, whose preparation
has left so little OF soil and decay that it is
the fit and symbolic drapery for the holy OF
holes, the only garment for the purified
priest as he waits upon the altar.