The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-07
Some 100000 Turned Out
 Yearly in This Country
COVERING IS A MYSTERY
New York's One Factory Has Been at Work Fifty Years-Young Wom- en Do Most Wicker
 Work.
From the New York Sun.

HOW uo they ever get the bottle of demijohn inside of its wicker covering? The basket work is all in one piece and of course much smaller at the top, around the neck, than 1t Is around the body; how do they ever squeeze the bot tie into it? Of course the answer is they don't squeeze the bottle into the basket. but weave the basket around the bottle.
 Some years ago lot of money was spent in an effort to perfect a demijohn
 basket weaving machine, but the ma chine didn't prove as successful as ex- pected, and so now demijohns are still, as they had been before covered by hand.
 There is only one demijohn factory in New York. this one being located in Brooklyn borough. Most of the work Is done by young women. There are em- ployed some men, who put on the handles, though there is here at work one blind man, who makes bottoms. but most of the weaving of the basket cov- erings around the bottles. which includes the bulk of the work is done by young women.
 In making the wicker covering of a demijohn the work begins at the bot tom. The weavers sit with their backs to the wall In two lines down the sides of the factory room. facing the center, while down the middle of the room. standing on the floor, are long rows of demijohn bottles to be covered. At the end of each row of basket weavers sits bottom maker.
 The Bottom Maker.
 The bottom maker picks up a sufficient number of reeds or sticks of length and size suitable for the bottom of the cover to be made and these sticks he crosses so that their ends radiate like the points of star, and then he proceeds quickly
 to weave in and out over those radiating sticks to form the bottom, setting the reeds snugly in at the center at the start, and then rapidly running the reed around and around in and out of the ra- diating sticks until he has brought the bottom thus woven to the required dl- mensions.
 ferhaps he tests this then with wooden gauge to see that 1t Is just right as 1t is more than likely to be, for he | becomes adept by long practice and he can tell pretty accurately without meas uring. and then he snips off the project Ing ends of the sticks and losses the bot to into girl, who puts in the uprlghts The uprights are the reeds that form the vertical framework of the woven basket. The are composed of long reeds, and shorter ones alternating all around. The shorter reeds will go up the side of the bottle and over the shoulder to the bottom of the neck; the long reeds will go up the side and over the shoulder and on up the top of the neck.
 Passed on to Another Girl. When the uprghts have thus been placed another girl takes the bottom and bends the uprghts up and weaves around among them at the bend three courses of reeds This fixes all the uprights in their relative positions, and the weaving, thus done, makes also a short of shallow cup of basket work deep enough to hold the bottle In place without shifting when 1t has been placed within the skeleton framework. and the weaving of the com plete basket Is begun.
 Supporting the bottle in her lap with it's neck to the front, the basket weaver now starts making the basket work around it, beginning at the base; the reeds that are to be woven in are all thoroughly soaked before using to make them soft and pliable and easy to work and so that they can be drawn and fitted snugly. All the uprights stick out around the bottle long and wavy toward the neck, and 1t might seem that 1t would be difficult thing to get around them, to get the reeds she weaves among them into place, but the weaver has a way of bending the uprights aside one after an- other as she comes to them, all the time steadily rotating the bottle as she runs the reed around 1t, in and out, under and over the uprights which spring back, one after another, as she passes on.
 Exrert Weavers Earn Good Pay.
 As the weaver works thus defty and swiftly you see the basket work steadily growing up the sides of the bottle and enveloping 1t, with the free ends of the uprights steadily growing shorter. When the shoulder of the bottle Is reached it requires care and skill to keep the basket ! work from creeping and separating on | the slope, but the weaver keeps 1t snug | ly together there and keeps on so until | the neck is reached, and then, with that | covered, except narrow space at it's | extreme top, the covering of the bottle | Is completed. Expert weavers earn good | pay.
 With it's cover completed, the demijohn | now gees to the handle man to have its handle put on. The woven cover Is made of split reeds; the handle is. of whole reed.
 First the handle maker cuts a short length of reed one end of which he tucks under the basketwork on one side of the bottle just below the shoulder, whlie he bends and tucks the other end into the top of the basketwork around the neck. This reed Is called a false bow: 1t really serves as a core for and form on which he will now build the handle
 ne now takes a reed of some length, one end or which, with the aid of tool made for the purpose, he puts through the demijohn covering alongside the lower end of the false bow. Drawing the en-. of this reed well through from under the covering. the handle maker doubles it up along the other end, and the reed thus doubled he winds with two or three turns around the false bow until he comes tothe neck of the bottle around which he turns it.
 Gives the Handle It's Secure Hold.
 This gives the handle its secure hold there. running 1t through the cover does below, and that turn around the neck, with the double reed also covers the raw edge of the weaving at the top and gives the work nice finish there From around the neck the handle maker brings the double reed back to the handle and takes it, with two or three turns, now downward around that to the bot en- of the reed down and through the cover again and back to be run, out of sight. with the handle.
 This work Is done quickly that you have to keep your eyes on 1t closely to follow 1t. but quickly 1t has been done. 1t is done so nicely that the complete handle looks like evenly stranded new rope. And now the demijohn is finished and ready for delivery.
 The head of the New York city concern that makes demijohns has been making demijohns since 1854, or for more than half century, and he is still actively engaged in the business, He sells dem-