SHAWLS, Figured. This article has, within less than forty years, become a very considerable branch of our manufactures. For a long period the district of Cashmere, a province of Hindustan, formerly subject to the king of Candahar, produced articles of this description in such perfection as to make them highly prized both in Europe and in Asia. The date at which this manufacture took its rise is not known; but ever since the British established themselves in India, Cashmere shawls have been considered as one of the most valuable manufactures of the East.

These shawls are made both long and square, the former generally measuring fifty-four inches wide, and a hundred and twenty-six long; the latter are from sixty-three to seventy-two ioches square. The finest of them are composed of a material exquisitely soft and warm, surpassing in this respect probably any other material that has ever been fabricated into clothing. It is recorded that, at the most flourishing period of this manufacture, the district of Cashmere had not less than 40,000 looms or frames employed in it. This district produced also a fine article of cloth, which has also been imitated in this country, and is in extensive use, called Cashmeres or Cassimeres. These manufactures were sufficient to draw to the district of Cashmere, merchants and commercial agents from Northern India, Turkey, Persia, and Tartary; and the increasing prosperity of this industrious and ingenious people was only checked by the oppressions of their own government, or the rapacity of the bordering states.

These shawls were not more prized for their fine, soft texture, than for the chaste beautiful-coloured flowering with which they were ornamented. Long practice, united to a natural delicacy of taste, enabled the manufacturers to dye the numerous colours of an unfading and brilliant hue, and to arrange them in such a manner as to produce a harmony and elegance such as no article made in Europe has ever fully equalled. The value put upon them by the traders who brought them to the different markets runs from L.5 to L.100, and those of the finest texture and greatest extent of figure sold for still higher prices. At a time when there was a duty of eighty per cent. upon their importation into this country (when, however, many were smuggled), a celebrated dealer in the article in London possessed a shawl for which he asked five hundred guineas.^[1. The duty is now (1840) thirty per cent. ] *

As this country became more and more engaged in a variety of manufactures, and the ingenuity of so many persons was put upon the stretch, it was but natural that attention should be turned to a manufacture at once so curious and so much prized. It was long before the manufacturers of this country ascertained the material of which the Cashmerian shawls were made, or by what process they were fabricated; and hence the first specimens that were produced in imitation of them in this country were very inferior. The merit of commencing, and bringing to a high degree of perfection, British shawls, belongs exclusively to Edinburgh, and the principal seat of the manufacture all along has been in Scotland. About thirty-four years ago the late Miss Bowie, who, with her father, had for a number of years been engaged in the gold-lace manufacture, attempted to make square shawls of the more simple patterns, in imitation of the Cashmere, by means of the sewing-needle, from a fabric made of silk, spun from the waste made in reeling the finest Italian silk. This plan was tedious and expensive, and in effect fell far short of the originals.

The manufacture of damask had been carried on in Edinburgh for a long period. The process by which the figures are produced in this elegant fabric first suggested the idea that a similar contrivance might produce a close imitation of the Indian shawls, both in the form of the figures and the distribution of the colours attained. To accomplish this, and to train children to insert the coloured yam with their fingers, were simultaneously attempted by several manufacturers in Edinburgh; but although this article was manufactured by means of the fingers in Cashmere, it was soon found that the higher price of labour in Britain ren-[7:20:193] dered it hopeless to establish the shawl-manufacture on this principle.

The part of a loom termed a lay was at last constructed, and fitted up with boxes to hold the number of shuttles for the colours required. This the weaver managed by a simple application of the thumb of his left hand, whereby he was enabled, without stopping his loom, to throw in the coloured yarn, and make it catch the threads of the warp as they were raised by the draw-boy, and thus form the intended figure. Patterns required from five to twelve different colours, and consequently as many shuttles. The loom being mounted on a plan similar to that employed for weaving damask, required one, two, and sometimes three boys, according to the extent of the pattern, to draw up the threads in their order, the shuttle being driven through: where not required to form the figure, the coloured yarn remained loose and useless over the whole breadth of the shawl, and required to be cut off with scissors. There was thus a great waste of material; but as one weaver, with one or two boys, could produce as much work in a single week, as a Cashmerian, with still more hands, on his plan of working, could produce in twelve months, the saving was still very great. In place of using any thing like an ordinary loom, the Cashmere manufacturer had the threads called the warp placed in an upright frame, and the piece worked with the fingers much in the same way as tapestry used to be made. A single shawl of some of the most extensive patterns occupied a whole family from one to two years.

The material of which the finest shawls were made, was procured from a goat found in the range of mountains lying to the north and north-west of the district of Cashmere. This animal is called by them the Thibet-goat, after the mountains they inhabit. The skins of these animals are covered with a coat of strong hair five or six inches in length; at the roots of this hair is found, in small quantities, the very soft woolly substance of which the shawls are made. Napoleon caused a breed of these goats to be brought to France, from the hair of which shawls were made; and it has now become an article of commerce, and is spun in considerable quantities both in Britain and in France. France spun and manufactured it for several years before this country succeeded in importing or making it; and to that country we are still indebted for a superior article of yarn, which sells in this country, the doubled or warp at 48s. per pound weight, and the single or weft at 30s. There are two circumstances which must at all times make this article costly: the wool is obtained from the skin after death, and not while the animal is alive; and the fine part requires to be picked from the hairy part by the hand, no machine having yet been found capable of performing the separation adequately. It farther appears that these goats are found, in their natural state, only in ranges of the highest mountains; and as they do not yield a fleece like sheep, it is manifest that the supply of the article must at all times be very limited. During the earlier period of the manufacture of shawls in this country, they were either compost'd of silk spun from waste, or from a mixture of this article with the finest Saxony wool, carded and spun together; the flowering being composed of the same material, or of worsted; and some of the colours were of cotton only. In this state of the manufacture, the makers in Edinburgh received from L.2 to L.10 sterling for each shawl; and for several years the demand was good.

The shawl-manufacture was soon established in several places, more particularly at Norwich, Glasgow, Paisley, and at Lyons in France, and a variety of trials continued to be made to lessen the expense of production. The plan of mounting, at this stage of the manufacture, in preparing the loom and figure, cost in many instances from L.40 to L.50 before weaving was commenced; each loom requiring one, and some of the large patterns two and even three boys, to draw the cords during the process of weaving. There was also the expense of clipping off all the coloured yam except such as was taken up to form the figure. To lessen these expenses various means had been tried, but without success.

During the short peace of Amiens in 1802, a straw-hat maker in Lyons, of the name of Jacquard, happened to see, in an English newspaper, an advertisement offering a premium to any one who should contrive a machine for making nets. This led him to turn his attention to the study of mechanics, and after many fruitless trials he succeeded in contriving a machine which fully answered the purpose. He was sent for, on this account, by Napoleon, and while at Paris, a superb shawl was about to be woven for the Empress Josephine; and for its production they employed a very costly and complicated loom, which had cost more than 20,000 francs. It appeared to Mr Jacquard that the same results might be produced by less complicated machinery. Intense study and perseverance enabled him to produce the machine that now bears his name. Mr Jacquard was rewarded with a decoration of honour, and a pension of a thousand crowns per annum, and sent with his machine to Lyons, the seat of the shawl and figured silk manufactures. This contrivance not only superseded the use of the draw-boy, but also rendered a great deal of tackling unnecessary; thus greatly simplifying and cheapening the production, not only of shawls, but also that of figured articles of every description.

It is a striking instance of the ignorance and shortsightedness of the operatives of Lyons, that when Jacquard introduced his invention, the people broke out into open rebellion. He was denounced as an enemy of the people, and as the man who had been scheming the destruction of their trade, and the starvation of themselves and their families. Three several plots were laid to assassinate him, and twice he was in great danger of losing his life. So strong was the tide of prejudice and indignation, that the machine was ordered to be openly destroyed by the public authorities, and was accordingly broken in pieces in the great square of the city.

The successful competition of foreigners, and the consequent decline of trade at a subsequent period, induced some of the more intelligent manufacturers to think of the man whose discovery was likely to bring some relief to the then depressed manufacturers of Lyons. They made an experiment, and succeeded. Silks of the greatest beauty were introduced at a lower cost, and now (1840) there is not a mechanic, either in France or in Britain, who does not acknowledge the great importance of Mr Jacquard’s invention. This may be fully conceived, from the fact, that not only has it been very generally adopted by shawl-manufacturers, but by makers of all kinds of damask, whether of silk or of linen, in Britain. This improvement, together with a machine which the French had also contrived about the same time, for cutting off the spare yam used in making the figures (which completely superseded hand-labour), were both adopted in France some time before they were introduced into Britain, which, with the advantage they derived from having good yarn from the wool of the Thibet-goat, procured for the French manufactures a decided advantage over the British for several years; and notwithstanding a nominal protecting duty of thirty per cent. (but in reality not affording more than twelve per cent. as facilities for smuggling were such, that any one could have had an insurance for goods being safely delivered in London, on paying to the French merchant twelve per cent. extra), goods were brought over in great quantities, which, together with a general desire for foreign productions, had the effect of ruining several British shawl-makers, as well as some extensive dealers in the article. The improvements invented[7:20:194] by the French, however, quickly found their way to this country, and being applied with energy, soon produced a re-action in favour of Scotch manufacturers, and caused the French to suffer in their turn, from having made too large quantities in the hopes of retaining the London trade. British figured shawls are now manufactured equal, in point of elegance, with any produced in France, and superior to those of every other country in lowness of price. They are manufactured from the wool of the Thibet-goat, which is as soft as, and more perfect in figure than, the best Cashmere, and probably less than a tenth part of the cost. The material, however, used for the flowering, being finer, and the colours being more durable in the manufactures of Cashmere, they still retain a superiority over those of Europe.

Edinburgh, from the commencement of this manufacture, has taken the lead in most of the improvements connected with it, always producing the best goods of the kind; but from the circumstance of labour of various kinds being lower in Paisley and Glasgow, the manufacture has mostly been transferred to these places. At one time there were about a thousand hands employed in Edinburgh in this manufacture; now it scarcely gives work to one hundred.

Shawls in imitation of Cashmere are made of a very great variety of qualities. While some of those made of the finest materials and richest patterns still sell for L.8 or L.10 each, there are a great many made of a mixture of silk and cotton, silk and wool, cotton and wool, and some are made wholly of cotton, so that figured shawls can be purchased at five shillings each. It is computed that, at the present time, this description of shawls gives employment to at least 20,000 hands. A great many are exported to America, as well as to other parts of the world. See Weaving. (b. y.)