Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-19
BY RENE BACHE

stuff has hard feeling; but the best test is
to hold it between the eye and the light. If
it exhibits any transparency, it should be
rejected.
AS everybody is aware, there are many
other ways of adulterating silks. The prod
uct of the silkworm is frequently mixed with
ramie-a strong and luStrous fiber from a
plant of the nettle family, native to the
Orient-or with cotton. Sometimes the
warp is of silk and the welt of mercerized
cotton. The latter, which is made from
ordinary cotton by treatment with cauSt1C
potash, not only bears strong resemblance
to silk, but can with difficulty be dis
tinguished from it under the microscope.
Many silk stockings are made from ramie,
and even from woodpulp; and, as for those
of woodpulp, they have the notable dis
advantage of dissolving when wet.
People commonly imagine that one of the
wool in part. The truth is that it is wholly
cotton. In the process of its manufacture
both sides of it are scratched with wire
claws, to give it a fuzzy nap and make it
look and feel like wool. Unfortunately this
renders it highly inflammable, garments
made of the stuff being liable to take fire on
slightest provocation and burn with a rapid
ity most perilous to the wearer.
THERE is saying that, although the total
1 supply of wool in the world meets only
one-third of the demand, there IS always |
plenty of wool to be had. A suggestion of the |
means by which this problem is solved was
afforded by an experiment made in the
laboratory at Teachers College, New York |
City. Some pure-white wooden goods was |
purchased, at forty-seven cents a yard, and |
on examination was found to be all wool. |
But, when inspected under the microscope,
it proved to be composed wholly of wool of
the kind known in the trade as "twice on
the sleeps back that is to say, wool
that had been woven before, which when
worn out had been cut into rags, respun, and
rewoven. In other words, the stuff was
"shoddy." This is a term commonly ap-
piled to wooden goods composed in greater
or less degree of foreign and cheaper fbers,
which are easily detected under the micro
scope: but an all-wool shoddy is very diff
cult to detect.
Ordinarily the manufacturer prepares his
wooden yarn by mixing a small part of good
wool with shoddy wool made from old rags
once used, and with other cheaper filling
These ingredients are placed in layers, and
combined while passing through machines
before spinning. In finished wooden goods
the thickness of the "pile" is often increased
by the addition of short ends of waste fiber
down and become part of the cloth in the
finishing process.
1t is said in the trade that there are eleven
kinds of wool on one sheep; the quality of
the fiber varying on different parts of the
animal. Thus, it is not an easy matter to
establish exact standards. There are good
many ways, however, in which the purchaser
may detect an admixture of cotton in
alleged "all wool" fabrics. If glycerin be ap-
piled, cotton remains opaque, while linen be-
comes translucent. Cotton burns with a
flash and little smell, whereas wool gives out
a strong odor when ignited.
But trustworthy and exact test can be
made by anybody who will take the trouble
to buy small quantity of sodium hydroxid
at the nearest drugstore. 1t comes in sticks,
and is cheap. Take piece of it four inches
long, dissolve it in a cup of boiling water,
and then put into it small sample of the
material. After four minutes take out the
sample and wash it. What is left is cotton;
the wool has entirely dissolved.
7 INEN is not only adulterated with cotton,
- but also with linen refuse; that is to say,
with the short pieces of fiber that are known
coy,,n,ercia11v nc 0tou, 'Thic &c q nev, and