Waterbury Democrat., 1903-01-07
WOVEN SILVER STRANDS.
Bn1Iion Embroidery Cleverly Fash. toned by New York Girls of
 the Italian Quarter.


 Bullion embroidery is one of the small semiartistic trades that arc still partly carried on in unpreten tious fashion chiefly by, foreign-born residents of New York. The old French quarter, now in the hands o1 the Italians, used to be the chief seat of this trade. With the breakup of the quarter the bullion embroiderers left the region to find other sites for their business. Most of the bullion embroiderers are women. The head of small shop is usually a middle. aged Frenchwoman. Her employees are six or eight girls, mostly of for sign percentage, often themselves o1 foreign birth. The shop is usually good sized upper room in small house. The room is reached by the main stairway of the house. Below is shop of some other kind, and above perhaps are lodgings. Hang. ing beside the street door there is almost invariably a frame contain ing samples of the bullion embroider- ers' art-spread-eagles in silver and gold, gorgeous badges, bits of gold 0A1NA oAiNSA bA ulNhy OllNC lCdfCS III Sll- yer, letterings for policemens and messengers caps, and the like. A lit. tie sign somewhere on the house gives the name and occupation of the proprietress.
 When you look into the sunny room where the bullion embroidering goes on you find the girls bending over little wooden frames. on which is stretched the material to carry the embroidery. The proprietress has outlined the design on the ground material, and is perhaps di- recting the newest apprentice in her work. Sometimes a little French song accompanies the labors of the day, or perhaps the girls laugh and gossip as their busy fingers ply the wiry thread. The scene is a pleasant one, for there is no elaborate ma- chinery, and the work is such as a lady might do for pastime in her own boudoir. The workers range in age from Is to perhaps 25, with here and there an older one who has not been released from professional toil by matrimony.
 0ASfSA SAA1S DOCOulC Shlll- ful at bullion embroidery, and are able to earn fair wages. The best of them learn the art of drawing the designs, and here and there one is able to invent designs of her own. For the most part, however, the same designs are repeated year after year, or new designs are furnished by the customers. In any case, some body in the shop must be able to copy 8 design on the groundwork of the embroidery.
 Bullion embroidery is not all of the material that it's name implies. In fact, very little of it is either gold or silver, though much of it is of a baser substance washed with one or the other of the precious metals Fresh from the factory, as it comes to the hands of the embroiderers, it is beautifully brilliant, and the new embroidery glitters in splendid fash ion, but only the best of it retains it's sheen more than a few months. The embroiderers instruct customers as to the best method of brighten ing the wares, but much of such work is made to last only for a short season. Here as elsewhere the de- mand for cheapness has brought about the use of substitutes for tho real thing.
 Part of the work of the small enl- broidery shops comes to them from private customers, but more of it perhaps from dealers who undertake to furnish such material to all com CTS. The embroiderers have to work cheaply for the shops, and the final purchaser pays a large middleman's profit. On the whole, however, bull lion embroidery is good trade for woman, for it is less subject to in- jury from the fluctuations of fash ion than feather curling and some other trades immediately dependent upon the milliner. The constant in- crease in the number of Americans wearing military and other uniforms keeps the trade on tho go. At the same time, however, tho small shops are threatened with extinction by factories that undertake to do. the work on large scale.