The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1900-05-05
MERcERfzED COTTON.


A boy sat before the fire and
watched his mothers kettle boil. The
lid quivered, rose a little, and the
boy gave steam power to the world.
John Mercer, an English dyer, fl
tered caustic soda through square
of cotton cloth. Thence new verb
to mercerize--in the language, new
fabric on the market, and new bust
ness, engaging millions Of capital. to
cheer the unemployed.
The story of the boy, John Watt, is
old, but MERGERS story is new and In
teresting. Mercerized cotton, either
cotton yarn or cotton cloth, resem-
bles silk absolutely. 1t has the luster
of silk; it will take on. like silk. the
richest and most brilliant dyes, and it
has the unmistakable soft-harsh,
nesting feel which nothing but silk
ever had, says the Brooklyn Eagle.
Also cotton, under this process,
does not weaken, as might have been
feared, but it acquires strength. A
skein of cotton yarn in the natural
state that win carry 10 ounces with
out breaking will carry, after mer-
cerizing, 10 ounces. And if you take
three coats and line the first with a
plain cotton lining, the second with
mercerized cotton and the third with
silk, the cotton and the silk will wear
out, about together. but the mercer
lied lining will outlast them two or
three times over.
Mercerized cotton is used in Innings,
in underwear, in spindle banding, in
stockings, in dress goods, in negligee
shirts. There is profit in merceriz-
ing of from 100 to 200 per cent. In
the last year or two many public dy-
ers have added mercerizing machines
to their plants. and good number
of mercerizing mills have been estab-
hshed.
But there is room for more. Here
Is the proof of the demand for mer
cerized goods: Bradford, the ingeni-
GUS and alert manufacturing town Of
England. ran night and day making
cloths for US in the time of the low
tariff. Bradford is still running night
and day. but she is making for us
now only mercerized things.
Mercerizing began as far back as
1886 in the English town of Accring-
ton, where John Mercer, manager for
the firm of Hargreaves, filtered caustic
soda through cotton cloth. Mercer.
by accident, kept this cloth by him,
happened to test it's strength, hap
pened to splash it with dye. He
found that it was about twice as
strong and about twice ms susceptible
to dye liquor as it had been before.
Slight savings. in connection with
big outputs, come in the long run to
astonishing totals. Here was a saw
ing by no means slight. Here, just
by running cotton thread through q
liquid as cheap as water, it would
come to do the work of two threads.
and in being dyed it would save hall
the quantity of the dye stuff.
Mercer rejoiced. He refused for his
secret an offer of $4,000 from .
French firm. He had the idea of an
immense syndicate, with himself at
the head. rolling up millions of profits
per annum.
Then it was found that cotton
shrunk in the mercerizing A yard
of cloth would save in dyestuffs and
in raw stock, say five cents to its
manufacturers, but it would come out
Of the mercerizing bath only three
quarters of yard of cloth. Against
the profit of five cents a loss through
shrinkage of about ten cents would
have to be set. This is why Mercer
never formed his syndicate, why mer-
cerizing was Of no commercial impor-
lance until latterly.
For the remaining 20 years of his
life the man toiled Intellectually on. and
he died disheartened. But his name
lives. That is because. somewhere
around 1890, Horace Lowe, in England,
and Thomas and Provost, in Germany.
began to try to see if it might not
be possible to mercerize a cotton
thread and to prevent the thread from
shrinking in the process They more
than succeeded.
Mercer had taken his cotton, stepped
1t for about three hours in caustic
soda, then washed it. That is mer-
cerizing in its simplest terms. To the
Englishman, Lowe, aud the Germans.
Thomas and Provost, came simulta-
neousiy the idea of keeping the cot
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