Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-21
TIN IN SILK.
Metal Added to Fabric to Increase
Weight and Sheen.


"Would ladies believe that quite IS per
cent Of the so-called silk used for skirts,
blouses and dresses is nothing less than
tin, pure and simpler A correspondent
in proof Of that statement. forwards sam
pies of what is in reality tin-weighted silk.
He asserts that the practice of substitute
ing tin for vegetable weighing substances
originated in Germany. The vegetable mat
ters were no detriment. though equal bril-
liancy Of color was not obtainable, and
there was not the same sheen and feel
when handled as that produced by real
silk. which has the rustic so pleasing to
ladies' ears. THE practice of the DYER
he explains, ito whose hands the silk yarn
is entrusted for dyeing and weighing, is
to boil 1t, and in SO doing he reduces every
sixteen ounces to twelve, thus eliminat ting
the natural gummy substances and the
foreign matter added for the purpose of
spinning. The twelve ounces were then
brought up to fourteen by the use of tan
of tin, the twelve ounces are raised to six
teen ounces. or even thirty ounces"
THE. proportion Of Weighing is more
than that in black silk" said a manufac-
turer to whom this statement was sub
mitted. Very frequently only one-fourth
of the woven material is real silk; the
other three parts are tin and dye"
Any lady can test for herself whether
the silk she Is buying is tin-weighted
For the purposes of an experiment, a dozen
were colored glace silks sent by the cor
respondent, with one sample Of pure
(white) figured silk Two others were sup
piled by firm weaving with genuine silk
One specimen was of real silk; the other
a German imitation. A soft washing silk
and Tussore silk, and four cuttings of
glace silks in actual wear made up the
number. One by one these were all held
to-, a.,> vx,ixl Al
left an ash resembling that of wool when
burned, with no traces of -filament, while
the tin-weighted simply lost its color and
tenacity. each thread remaining distinct
In thin wire gauze. This was the result
that our correspondent had declared would
follow an attempt to burn tin-weighted
silks, and he believes that very good
substitute for an incandescent light mantle
might be made with it. Carried a little
further, the burned material under a mi
croscope distinctly reveals the glisten of
tin
Out of the fire tests the only silks
which proved genuine were the stufrs
woven from unweighted thread the soft
washing silk, and the Tussore, all Of them
either woven in London or Essex, or dyed
In this country. having been woven in the
east. The glace silks and the German
imitation. with the remnants of blouses
ties and dresses submitted to the fame.
gave the discriminating tin tissue. The
decline of a Furnishing industry is attrtb-
uted by our correspondent to this form
Of adulteratiOn. Surely" he says ut is
in the interests of the manufacturers to
seek at once some means whereby they
may save themselves. We have the food
and drugs act. under which adulteration
is severely dealt with Why cannot the
wearer of silk be protected similarly
through the statute book? Unscrupu-
lcus foreign competition is practiced to
such extremes that English manufacturers
who will not use weighted thread are
often at the expense of cutting loom
cards for original patterns only to find
their stuffs accurately copied by the Ger
mans in tin-weighted silks.-Exchange