The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-04
IN JAPAN's COTTON MILLS.
Things Noticed by Recent Ameri-
 can Visitor.

can Visitor.
 There are a good many hand loom establishments containing up to 100 looms and some of the finest cloth made in Japan is produced on them. There are also a great many small establishments run by water, steam, gas engines, and some by electricity, that really produce the bulk of the cloth for home supply. Some of these spin their yarn on hand-spinning wheels, but the great majority buy it from the regular cotton mills, so that the yarn sold by the cotton mills is an indication of the cloth being pro- duoed in Japan.
 I went through several of these small mills In the first one l visited, in Tokyo, the building was a one story frame structure with dirt floor There were fifteen looms in operation nearly everything except the cam shaft and gears of wood, Twenty more looms were ready for work and carpenters were building others in the same room. Jute warp and cotton fill ing was used and cloth for bags made In one corner of the room a girl with a spinning wheel was changing the yarn, which was bought from a cotton mill, from the skein and winding it on 1-2 inch quills The looms were operated by hand, and there was a girl to each loom. The operator
 
 pushed the lay back and forth with both hands and operated the pick levers, throwing the shuttle by means of foot treadles. The looms were run at about 11O picks per minute. The girls got 50 sen a day for ten yards, which is 1-2 cents yard, and is less than a yard an hour. For similar cloth a Japasese cotton mill would pay 14 sen for forty yards, or about one third of cent per yard, and that is the reason hand looms are dropping out.
 The finest cloth ever saw woven in Japan was at an eighty-eight hand loom establishment in Osaka, weaving muslin by 6S, 52s warp and GAS filling. In this case small engine and boiler was used to run the slasher and warp ed and to furnish steam for the dve- ing. The yarn was bought in sl1eins, dyed in closed steam kettle and wash ed in tubs by hand Only a small por- tion used was dyed. The yarn was then run by hand wheels on to bob bine. These bobbins were placed on shelves of a rough creel, certain number of ends gathered together, about 200, and passed through a wrath about four inches wide, down and around about twenty S-inch steam-fill- ed dry pipes inside a glass-sided box and then out and through a wrath about four inches wide on to a warp beam with iron sides and which was about sixtees inches in diameter and four inches between heads. These mar row beams had about finch berrel with 2-inch opening. "A number of these beams were then slid on a shaft according to pattern to be made, either white, or pink and white, and the ends all passed through a wide wrath on to a wooden loom beam about thirty- six inches wide. These then went to the weave room. where there Were eighty-eight looms run by hand.
 It was warm day and each woman had thrown her klmono back and was stripped to the waist, so as to give full play to her arms. The lay in this case was operated by foot treadles, as the picker throwing shuttles jerked first from one side and then from the other by string fastened above the looms. timed some of the looms and found them running 110 to 120 picks per minute. The weavers were paid 3 sen q 1-2 cents) per yard and were requir- ed to finish fifteen yards day. The cloth after weaving, was carried to a place in the suburbs and there block printed in very elaborate patterns.