The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1898-07-08
TOWELING BY THE NILE.
Immense Stretches Of Domestic stan
Turned Out In the Mills
of Maine.

Twenty-Five miles of toweling. Ten
hundred white bed spreads in one piece!
These things excite no remark at the
Avon mill, Lewiston, where looms are
kept busy the year round weaving
towels of varying grades of texture,
and bureau scarfs and stand covers are
done as a sort of knitting work at odd
moments, and quilts or spreads are
finished off with the regularity never
attained save by machinery.
Before you go into the wareroom just
take look into this room piled high
with bales of cotton yarn, beams of
spun cotton and cases of mule-spun
cotton filling. Part of this yarn comes
from Richmond, Me-, where the South
ard cotton mill spins firm, clear yarns,
and part of it comes from the south,
from whose mills tons and tons have
been bought in the last Is years by the
Avon mill, and to whose tills more than
100000 has been sent.
The yarn which comes from the mill
over the Kennebec and from the south
comes in bales weighing 500 pounds or
more-all that can be conveniently
handled-and must be sen: to the
beamer, who with infinite pains sep
arates all tangles and starts the 2,7OO
threads evenly on the great iron beam,
and sees that the machinery winds the
threads evenly and close on the beam.
The ends are first started through a
rattle, so-called, after which they are
wound upon the loom beam. After the
beam has been filled an iron comb is
cfr.1rn ha hr1n hoo of
and by practice such a degree of &C
curacy is obtained which drives the
teeth of the comb between each sep
arate thread. The beams are then ready
for the loom.
If ever any person since the day of
Job deserved to be put into story book
to point moral it's a beamer. The
careful eye. the cool temper, the steady
hand and unfailing patience required
make Job a peevish, ill-natured invalid
in comparison to the quiet, goodlna
tured beamer.
But it's pretty nearly as hard on the
weaver, for when a fresh beam is put
on a loom each of the ends must be tied
separately before the machinery can
be started
When the product of the looms has
been sewed together till five miles of
towels or 500 or so of quilts are in one
piece this piece is run over rollers out
into the room where every day is Mon
day and is piled up on platform in
one corner. Then the system of rollers
and pulleys is reversed, and the fabric
is drawn over rollers into the bleaching
vat, where it remains for two hours in
a solution of chlorine and is drawn into
an empty tank overhead, where the
chlorine drains off. Then the cloth is
run through rollers where the clear
water is forced upon it, then back to
the boiling kier. When the kier is filled
the soap and water are put in and the
kier kept boiling for eight or ten hours.
Then a final rinse is given through the
huge rollers, which squeeze the fabric
nearly dry.
A part of the towels are so woven as
to leave fringed ends, and these are
quickly folded by the deft young wom-
an who, from practice at the pile before
her, folds as precisely as machinery.
Another part are taken to the room
where hemstitching is done in the twin
kle of an eye.
Each quilt before it is beached passes
through the hands of two keen-eyed
young women, who snip off any knots
of the fabric or pull away any bit of
waste that may be clinging to them.
Then they are subjected to the bleach
ing, rinsing and boiling process.
When the quilts come from the bluing
vat they are run through a more intri-
cate system of heated rollers, on ac-
count of their larger size and their
heavier weight. Two young fellows
with knives sharper than a virago's
tongue then slash into the selyage OF
the long stretch of quilts with a reck,
less accuracy born of practice and cut
each quilt free from it's fellows.
Only a short time ago dealers were
satisfied to get the quilts with raw
edges, the customers hemming them
But now every quilt must be neatly
hemmed . and folded and closely
wrapped in paper, ticketed and tagged
before it goes to the packing box and
ng-room.-Chicago Journal.