The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-08-29

ings are estimated at some 100. 600 900
francs.
\ beautiful city Lille. polished. Ink
uriOus. with nothing Of factory CRIME.
cirCicd Paris style with shaded boulr-
Yards, mansions Of elegance, a free
industrial university and the finest
picture gallery outside of Paris. Each
group of great mills is a garden city
in miniature from the custom Of the
manufactures who elects So often in
good French fasUion to live in the
centre of his group Of factory build
ings. rounded with Il paliSade Of
smoking chimneys may he seen the
family mansion, vast and of chateau
proportions, SET in beautiful gardens
with fine garages and stables filled
with automobiles and saddle horses. a
stan of liVeried servants. where hospi-
tally was dispensed in regal style.
But rs to the factories themselves
they Were as inaccessible as a con-
vent. Contrary To the policy OF the
~neighborinS woollen cities of France,
Lille never allowed the foreigner to
make free with her secrets OF weave
which We're as closely guarded as are
to-day those of munitions. The COM
position of a Lille thread glove was
as invulnerably housed as is the latest
thing in n To permit "A
stranger 10 glance at a stocking in
the making would have been a deadly
commercial sin.
Now those finely kept trade secrets
have been scattered broadcast into the
enemy's industrial hands and the
wealthy capital city of the north Of
France sees it's thousands of ware
houses empty and shclled. its mills
turned into barracks. it's museum
burned. half it's population scattered
throughout the land and it's munici-
pality sending out an appeal for bread
To the stranger.
After the woollen c%apitulation came
h linen conquest. when the invaders
strong arms closed around the French
linen industry centred in Armentierrs.
True, the British lines now run
straight through hat much fought
over city, but the Germans got there
first, and Il conservative estimate
places their linen gains at some 10000
tons OF goods. Armentiercs and its
ring Of satel ite working towns special
lied In fine dress linens and household
linens OF all kinds. Its fifty factories
did n yearly business of 200. OO0, 900 900
francs and its export trade in fine
linens was one of the French foreign
businesses de luxe, largely to the
Americans, that tOtalled up Ii, 1000, 600
francs annually to the credit of this
little city of 10000 inhabitants. How
ever, the whole linen goods scale was
run In this section that the Germans
have cornered. including the classic
blue French linen that furnishes the
French peasant his picturesque blouse
and the working woma her neat
apron; also in the Armentieres district
practically all the linen furnishings
used in the French army as wei. as a
huge preponderance of for
army tents, automobile hoods and
quantities of other useful stuff hat
came in handily for the newcomers.
But in this cast the linen industry
must not be blamed for selecting from
tier towns for its headquarters, as it
was necessary to make use of the
unique magic qualities for bleaching
flax possessed by the waters OF the tiny
River Lys that trickles from France
into Belgium and along whose placid
reaches WA borne the linen Industry