Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-08-23

work to 1000 hands. 1t began opera
tions with loo operatives, but in the
short time since 1t began il Is now
running to its fun capacity. and the
1000 pounds CT yard a week have
been Increased to %. 900 pounds q
week.
The company has already made
plans to expend s1,000.900 for two
new factory buildings, new machinery
and 300 dwellings for operatives on
the factory site. Yet the output Of
the plant is only a small part of, the
artificial fiber consumed BY the man.
Ufacturers of the diffrnt commodities
in which it is used No other infant
industry in the United States has had
such a remarkable and rapid growth.
There are now a half dozen firms
manufacturing it.
You see, it all comes from the fact
that everybody wants to wear silk
The day was when woman got a
black silk dress and wore 1t for years.
and only people of means possessed
this enc silk dress. But at any sum-
mer resort almost every other woman
is wearing silk dress of some sort
foulard. taffeta, silk striped muslin,
charmeuse, crepe de chine or null.
The. girl whose pay envelope holds
S. or SO week wears silk stock
ings. You see silk shirtWaists in the
windows at $1.50. knitted silk ties
for men at 25 cents.
Never has there been such a de-
mand for silk and never has it been
so cheap. That is apparently the
truth. You can go to the cheaper
stores and buy silk on bargain
day" for as low as SO cents a yard.
The goods look like silk, but, as every
body guesses, there's not great deal
of silk in it.
With this enormous demand for silk
the silkworms have not hustled q bit
in turning out their supply of silk, no
matter If the owners sit up all night
watching the mulberry trees and try
ing to tempt them with attractive
feeding. So, with all the girls crying,
"Gire us cheap silk for our dresses
and waists" and the women insisting
upon silk Innings throughout" and
the young men demanding silk shirts
and the prosperous, tired business
man wanting 1t for his underwear, the
manufacturers have had to do some
scheming.
The solution was adulteration. Here
they have performed wonders. One
dealer says, There is no such thing
as absolutely pure silk, and every ma
nufacturer knows 1t is a physical i'm
possibility to dye black silks without
adding some weight to the fabric" An
other dealers: 1T is impossible to de-
tect the real quality of silk in gar
ment, the only way to acquire this
knowledge being to submit it to a
chemical analysis, and this, of course.
is impracticable. Women buy from
style and color without knowledge of
the quality. can place two pieces of
silk on the counter, one at $3.50 a
yard and the other at 81, and they
cannot tell the difference in the quail
ties.
The practice of adnIterating skein-
dyed silks rs almost universal So
then the manufacturers turned to
some substitute for silk something
that would look like silk, glisten like
silk, feel like silk and yet not be silk
at all The trouble with the wood
pulp fiber was that when It was wet
it turned back to pulp and parted
readily under tension. A lot of expe-
rimenting was done, and this difficult
ty was overcome, so that now the arti-
fetal silk is introduced into wash cot
tons as silk stripes or figures, and
washes very well.