Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1895-12-13
YORKSHIRE PUDDING.
A VISIT TO THE ENGLISH SHOD-
DY YMANUFACTURING CENTRES.

Working Day and Night to Supply the
American Market-Cheap Goods
Made From Rags, Shoddy and
Waste-Free Wool u Good Thing
for Bradford.
BRADFORD, ENG, Nov. IL, 1895.
What is commonly known as the
heavy woolen district of Yorkshire,
comprising principally Dewsbury,
Bailey, Morley and good dozen large
villages, have very great reason to be
thankful for what the German tariff
has done for them. These centers,
situated about eight miles from Leeds,
are at this moment "sweltering" in
the heat of activity, and many manu-
facturers in that neighborhood are
literally ''choked" with orders. Since
the inauguration of the German tariff,
manufacturers of heavy shoddy WOOL
ems have been able to get footing in
your American markets, from which,
prior to the passage of the bill, they
had been excluded for many years. To
this alone the increased activity of the
heavy wooden manufacturers is almost
entirely due. Presidents and low wor-
steds have been shipped, and are being
made for shipment, IN large quaint.
ties.
Said a woolen buyer to me two days
ago: "You cannot buy in Bailey at
this moment presidents or even any
thing else for immediate delivery for
neither love nor money! Manufac-
turers, even with many of them rum
ming their factories day and night,
find they have their full capacity taxed
to execute their orders up to time. In
fact, their difficulty is not to secure
| orders but to refuse them"
Any stranger putting his foot down
in Dewsbury for the first time, would
be at once struck-not with palatial
shop windows loaded with tasty things
but with an army of signboards an
nouncing that the firms inside were
rag dealers. mungo merchants, cotton
dealers, woolen manufacturers, leald
and slay makers, and all the rest of
businesses connected with that of tex.
tile manufacturing. 1t is Just the
same with Bailey and Morley. and as
one looks down upon the varied towns
he can see nothing else but smoking
mill chimneys. This ls indeed the
greatest seat of wool manufacturing
in all the world, and it is also the
greatest seat where, in point of cloth
adulteration and blending together
of foreign products other than wool
in the production of cloth, it likewise
stands unrivaled. From morn to
night and from night to morn, scrib-
bling machinery is rolling together
every conceivable raw product, from
pulled old castaway felt hat down to
an old thrown away felt carpet, which
some poor beggar has picked up from
dung heap and carried to rag deal
er that he might make an honest
penny, or else the same has been cast
into the bag of the rag seeker or pot
dealer by some disgusted housewife,
to find its way ultimately back to the
| rag puller to be converted again into
"raw material, known here as "cheviot
mungo."
elbow long is it since Bailey and
Dewsbury were so busy?" This ques-
tion was put the other day to one of
the leading makers in that district and
he frankly replied, cover twenty years
have elapsed since the woolen manu-
facturers of Bailey experienced such a
busy time as they are now enjoying"
''But what do you consider has
been the greatest factor in bringing
about this present state of prosper
ity?"
"The repeal of the Mckinley tariff
and the substitution of q lower scale of
import duties have opened the Ameri-
can markets, for time at any rate, to
our heavy woolens.
"Then you really have found that
the opening OF the American markets,
under this present low tariff, has been
the means of causing more of your dis
trict class of manufacture to be sold on
American account?"
Undoubtedly, presidents and beav-
er cloth are being shipped to the Uni
ted States in very large quantities,
but when the Mckinley bill was in
force there was duty imposed upon
them of nearly zoe per cent, which
really meant total prohibition"
''What per cent. think you of your
district goods is being shipped to
American" asked.
"Well, that is hard to say, but
everything in the shape of presidents,
pilots, maps, Devons, serges, curls, low
! fancy worsteds and woolens have found
ready SALE"
''Could you give me few of the
lowest prices per yard at which these
goods are being made. together
with weights and widths?''
"Well, now, presidents are being
made as low as 13 pence (26 cents) per
! yard. weighing twenty-six ounces. and
tifty-four inches in width. Serges
J have sold we'll at any price from 8
pence rs cents) and upward for fifty
four inches wide. Low fancy woolens
can be bought at l shilling 10 pence
III width. Until recently you could
buy worsted coating weighing
twenty-three ounces. fifty-four inches
wide, at the nominal figure OF shill-
ing pence AZ cents); but this ad-
vance in the price of yarns has caused
the maker to put up his figure to 2
shillings t4S cents)."
"Have you any idea what profit the
shippers get on your goods after they
leave your placer"
"Well, I believe that thoy, too,
have OF late had to work for very lit
tie, for one responsible man in very
L