The suburban citizen., 1900-10-13
A MAN WHO READS IT LIKE AN
OPEN BOOK.

reader:
Lazy sheep, pray tell me why,
Thus in pleasant fields you lie,
Eating grass and daisies white
Fr II the morning to the night!'
But there are people who do know
what the answer to this rhymed query
should be. j. II. Howard, wool ex-
pert, i'm the Chamber of Commerce
Building, knows. Show him 4 hun
dred-pound bag Of wool and he may
even tell you in what State the owner
Of the sheep lives lie can tell you in
five seconds which end Of a fibre Of
wool grow nearest the skin and which
pointed outward. If the sheep on
whose back the fibre grew has been
sick he can tell you in what month It
was aiing, OF reduced in flesh, And
more than that, he will tell you that
a pair Of trousers made from the wool
OF an ailing sheep, or from one that
has been ailing, viii bag at the knees
twice as quick as they would II made
from the coat Of healthy animal.
And. in addition to all this, he knows
what degraS is.
You won't find the word in the die
uonary, but you can find the sub
stance in some form in almost any
drug store. In common English it Is
the grease out of Sleeps wool In an
original package it Is about ten shades
darker and brOwner than is Vasellne,
and it smells like a sheepfOld on n
warm, showery afternoon 1t is Of the
consistency of butter, and, aside from
being the basis Of half the toilet To-
tions and healing salves on the mar
ket, 1t is n by-prOduct, meaning more
10 the process Of turning wool into
cloth than any other wO0l-Washing
method ever devised.
Soaps and alkalies long have been
injurious to wool tbres in the washing
out of the fifteen to eighty-fve per
cent. Of grease and dirt that is found
| i'm the natural fleece. Naphtha, fill
tered through great tanks Of wool, car
ries the natural oil from the fibre to
the bottom. From this the naphtha is
separated leaving the degras, which,
in one Of its clarified forms, is the Ian
! aline of commerce. Washing wool so
treated in clear water cleanses it to
snowy whiCeness.
1t is in the fibre Of wool, whether
short or long, fine or coarse, weak on
strong, that heeces are judged.
One Of the cOmmOnest marks Of in
| feriority in wool comes from the i'll
ness of the animal on whose back It
grew. Anything that weakens the vi
tality Of the animals affects the wool
fibre. The animal may have been well
in the fan and early winter In mid
| winter it may lose flesh for some rea-
son and then fatten toward spring
In such n case the wool growing at
/ that period shows marked structural
| weakness. The fibre in such cases
| breaks easily in the centre. If the
animal suffers in the fan the weak
| place win be nearer the tip; If in the
spring it will be nearer the roots Of
| the fibre
Wool such as this woven into cloth
breaks under strain, and the yarn
stretches as Il consequence. In trous-
ers, especially, it gives way at the
knees, giving that "baggy' effect so
detcstible to the man who is fond Of
| creases
As to baggy trousers, too, short sta
} pie woods are conducive to the effect
Twisted into yarn this short wool
| gives under strain just in proportion
! to its length 1t is this stretching Of
the wooden yarns that make the bagged
| knees.
Long staple woods are used for trous-
ers patterns of the best quality. Often
it is in the length OF the wool tibres
only that pair Of SO trousers differs
from a pair worth $40.
Time was in the history Of English
tailoring when five to seven years was
| the period for transferring wool from
the back Of a sheep TO the coat for the
back of the man. A ripenng process
| was considered necessary before the
fibre would take a lasting dye. To-day
| the wool clipped in the early spring Is
spun aud woven the next winter.
In the structure Of wool hundreds of
little furry particles radate from the
fibre toward the tip Of the strand To
take such a fibre between the thumb
and finger, rubbing thumb and finger
together with some pressure, the fibre
crawls from between them, moving
root foremost. A hair from the heaq
acts in the same way, so that sec.
tion Of hair, cut from the middle Of
a long braid, always points to the end
that grew nearer to the scalp.
Sheep are said to have done more
for the English landscapes than the
Englishman. Certainly they have
done more for the English factory
than almost any other one resource
Chicago Tribune.