THE WOOLEN FACTORY. What is supposed to be the most expensive set of books ever published in the world is now being printed by the United States Government-the history of our Civil War, which up to the present time has cost $2,334,328. It will not be completed for three years, and it is estimated that by that time the cost will have reached $3,000,000.-New Ideas. TWITTS-THEIR CAUSE AND CURE. Friend Wade,-You will perhaps imagine from the caption of this article that I am going to explain the cause and cure of twitts or weak places in yarn, but such is not my intention; it is merely to introduce the subject to the columns of your paper so that some of the many experts in carding and spinning who chance to read it may give us this information. I am satisfied from my own personal experience that this is an imperfection which causes a great amount of annoyance and loss of time, and one that is well worthy to occupy a space in the columns of your valuable paper. In my experience, extending over the last twenty years, I have seen a great deal of this particular imperfection both in the dressing and weave rooms, and I am forced to say that it seems to abound more in large than small mills, in spite of the more improved machinery of the former. Doubtless some of it may be due to low stock brought down too fine for the staple to draw to, but after making due allowance for this I believe that there is still a large margin to be accounted for. I remember one mill I worked in where the warp yarn, about 24 runs, was so twitty that it would stand scarcely any weight in beaming, so that although our orders on that class were all ten cuts I was forced to make them in two warps, although with average yarn I could have put it all on one. This necessitated extra work in dressing and weave room. The fault was afterwards found to be in the boss carder's department, he having tried to lay the blame on the spinner. Once before in the same mill, when troubled the same way, the owner-superintendent not being a practical man-was forced to get a practical superintendent from a neighboring mill to examine and locate the trouble, and he traced the fault to the boss carder. So with these few remarks I leave the subject with your readers and shall anxiously await further light thereon. -K. SCOURING WOOL. I am over forty years of age and was born not above fifteen miles from the great worsted town in good old Yorkshire, well known in the worsted business by the name of Bradford. My first appearance in the business was in a chamber where in the next room four men were working, combing wool by hand. I straightened the wool and got it into shape for the hand comber when I was only seven years of age. Not one hundred yards from our house there was a small place fixed up for scouring wool, which consisted of a large round tub which fitted between two posts. Over this tub there projected from one side of the post a large iron hook, which was a fixture, and a similar hook from the opposite post, which was turned by hand. In this way the dirt was wrung from the wool by hanging it on the hooks. This system was very slow, but I have seen wool washed in this way better than many places wash their wool today. In order to make myself clear, we will start up a new modern scouring machine. We will run the rollers at eight turns per minute, and both the driver and driven shall be cone pulleys, so that you can run either faster or slower, according to the quality of wool to be scoured, as it requires more time for fine, short wools than it does for long and coarser wools. I would by all means give short wools the benefit of water, as it is cheaper than soap or any hard means of scouring, such as soda, etc., and nowhere liable to hurt the fibre. I never use any extreme means to scour wool where I can avoid it, and I have always found time and good water to be more profitable and the best cleanser than either boiling hot water or soda. I would not wash more than 3,500 pounds per day. The next important feature in scouring wool is to be sure and have all the grates taken out and the vats thoroughly cleaned once every day. I was called in by a firm where they had considerable trouble in the scouring department. I looked around and found the machine about the right speed. It took me considerable time to find the evil. I told the man in charge to let off one vat, and to my surprise I found the dirt and refuse two inches above the grate. I asked, "How often do you clean out?" and received as an answer, "Once a week." I said, "By all means do it once every day." We will now prepare our soap. I put 300 pounds into a large iron vat to melt up at one time, along with 1200 pounds of water. There will certainly be a little more water added every time I heat up, but this is the rule I have always found to answer my purpose. The man in charge measures carefully every particle of soap to be used for different qualities and quantities, and knows by his slate how much to use for the classes of wool we ar in the habit of using; and should any difference arise, or the wool vary- what I mean by this is washed or unwashed wool or more greasier, as I am well aware that wool grown in different States, as well as foreign wools, require different treatment, in all these cases I never allow anyone but myself to be the judge as to what is required to have the wool thoroughly scoured. Anyone who has worked in a mill will know the more minor points, such as putting on belts, oiling, etc. I had almost forgotten to say that I picker my wool both before and after scouring; in this way I rid it of a great amount of foreign substance and get it into better shape both for scouring and the processes afterward. As I said, too much attention and importance cannot be paid to wool scouring. ROCKVILLE, CONN.-Mr. C. Lowell, loom fixer in the lower weave room, and formerly of Pittsfield, Mass., has taken charge of the upper weave room at the Rock Mill. Mr. Lowell is a first-class loom fixer, and is familiar with the duties of the weave room. The company is making a very fine line of fancy woolens and worsteds, most all fine, six and seven shuttle work, which makes it a very particular weaving job, and an overseer or fixer cannot be either a bluffer or a duffer, but must know how to weave. If not, he or she will know the reason why, when the cloth goes to the perch.-Miss Maria Dunn has secured a position in the finishing department of the Rock Mill. -Mrs. S. C. Burlingame, O. A. Burlingame and H. H. Hirst, formerly of Oneco, Conn., have secured positions in the Stockinet Mill.-Walter G. Woodworth, formerly of the Oneco Mills, New Bedford, Mass., has entered the employ of the American Mill. Mr. John Cameron, boss dyer in Belding Bros. silk mill, has resumed his duties after a serious attack of rheumatism. Mr. Cameron has been in the employ of the company for more than twenty-five years; his many friends are giad to see him around again.-Walter A. Bruce has resigned his position as dyer in the silk mill, on account of ill health; he is now the guest of his son, who resides in Springfield, Mass. His many friends wish him a speedy recovery. In Mr. Bruce the company has lost a trustworthy workman, after giving twenty-two years of his faithful services to dyeing and matching colors.-George E. Perkins, overseer of reeling and stretching in the silk mill, has been entertaining his father and sister from Maine, for the past week.-Walter F. McCray, second hand for Mr. Perkins, has been entertaining a lady friend from Paris, Me., for the past week. -J. G. R. STATE CANVASSING. Mr. George Fred Williams appears to be enjoying himself upon the stump. He has this field to himself, and the Repubcans do not appear to be at all afraid of any injury he may do them in it. They are rather cruel to him in not affording him any text for his speeches. Opposition is a boon to any one who has to vary what he says from night to night. George D. Robinson used to say that he could not have made half so lively a campaign as he did against Gen. Butler if the latter had not talked constantly, and thus given him something always to reply to. We are much inclined to think that the "masterly inactivity" of the Republicans upon the stump this year is shrewd party policy. They know they have the people with them, and they let well enough alone. Dr. Everett, who can always talk entertainingly, seems thus far disposed to imitate their tactics.-Boston Herald. The old dyehouse at the Clyde Woolen Mills, Lanark, Ont., has been torn down and a new stone building is being erected in its place. Meantime the mill has been closed. William Hirsh, late of the Yount Woolen Mills Co., Yountsville, Ind., has taken the position of superintendent in Slingsby Manufacturing Co's woolen mill, Brantford, Ont. shearing in the same time as on a single shear and with only one shear tender. This saves the extra cost of the machine in the first year and pays a handsome per cent on the investment for every year thereafter. Crowded finishing rooms can about double their shearing capacity in the same amount of space, as the double shear takes up but a very little more room than a single shear. Another important point is that, if an accident happens to one set of blades, the other remains so that the shear may be run as a single shear. In numerous points this machine has been improved so that it now represents a perfected whole. It is built with the new rubber knot and list saving rests, or with the steel list saving rests, or with plain steel rests if desired. The builders are the Parks and Woolson Machine Co., of Springfield, Vermont, and they will be pleased to answer all inquiries concerning this machine. CHINESE WHEELBARROWS. One of the chief means of travel and transport in China, especially in the northern part of the empire, and throughout the Great Plain, is the wheelbarrow - not the wheelbarrow such as we know it, but, in point of fact, a decided improvement on the types used in western countries, for it is so constructed that the load, which sometimes is very great in bulk and weight, is carried over the wheel, and not between it and the man who propels it. To aid in steadylng and propelling it, as explained by Mr. Charles Mayne, of Shanghai, in a note recently contributed to the British Institution of Civil Engineers, the wheelbarrow-man wears across his shoulders a strap which is attached to the shafts on each side. Boxes, bales of goods, or whatever the load may consist of, are secured to the wheelbarrow by ropes. There are seating accommodations for four Lorimer Machinery Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Cable Address: Lcrimer, I hiladelphia. hai, the wheelbarrow has been extensively used as a passenger vehicle, especially for carrying work women to and from the mills. One man can wheel six women for a distance of about three miles, morning and evening, the charge being 1s. 5d. per month. The average earnings of a wheelbarrow-man are about 82 d. per day. About 4,000 licenses are issued monthly to the same number of wheelbarrows plying for hire in the streets of the foreign settlements at Shanghai, where, being under the municipal regulations, they are perpaps the best in China. Sometimes as many as fifty barrows may be seen in the streets, traveling one behind the other, each carrying two barrels of English Portland cement and pushed by one man. Very frequently a load is carried on one side of the barrow only, and it is extraordinary to see a Chinaman skillfully balancing and propelling it. The upsets and accidents, too, are remarkably few when it is considered that about 4,000 of these vehicles are in use in the streets in addition to a large traffic of other kinds.- Cassier's Magazine. We would like to put into communication with some interested party a young, energetic and ambitious man, experienced in cotton mill work as draughtsman, master mechanic and engineer, who wants to go to Japan or China. He has permission to refer to previous employers and other prominent American cotton manufacturers, who have known him and observed his successful work. He should be a valuable man to any concern which is about to establish a new mill, and his best efforts will be given to a company which secures his services. Pittsfield, Mass.: Every department in the Pontoosuc mill is being run overtime and the finishing room is running nights. BUILDERS OF THE LATEST IMPROVED SPECIAL MACHINERY FOR WASHING, SCOURING, DYEING AND DRYING Every class of Raw Stock or Yarns in whatever form required, including Machinery for Washing and Drying Cotton, Wool, Hair, Waste, etc. For degumming Rame and kindred fibres. For treating Flax, Straw and Tow. Also dealer in Dyestuffs and Supplies. JOHN H. LORIMER, Sole Agent, Offices (85 and 687 Fourse Building, Philadelphia, U.S.A. Found a lawyer in the place In whose hands he put the case, citedly in the reptile house of the Zoological Gardens. The keeper hurried to the cage in Was enough to fill a starving tramp with And she got it where the chicken got the front of which the youngster was dancing dread. An inch long, without a lie; SOUND RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES.-It is re shell.lated of the late Mr. Pullman that, although about just in time to see the tail of a 10-foot mottled python disappear in the yawning throat of another specimen of its kind 14 feet in length. The victim was a new arrival, which had been placed the day before with the larger snakes. It was too late for the keeper to pull it out of its devourer's mouth, though he tried to do so. Neither could he shake it out or force it to light by rubbing the big snake's body. Full of resource, as a keeper has to be in such cases of emergency, he dispatched the small boy to the Zoo restaurant for a can of mustard. Ten minutes later he was pouring mustard and water down But how long it took to grow them, who can When one Saturday night the game ran over the big python's throat. So much of the tell? There were napkins for desesrt, Or you'd swallow foreign matter with the soup; There were tooth-picks, second-hand, ous benefactor.-Boston Herald. the midnight hour, he sent $300 to his church mixture was used before any effect became in the name of J. Pott, and was greatly apparent that he almost despaired of securing amused when the pastor read out that name the hoped-for result. A second canful, howbefore the congregation as that of the gener-ever, did the work. The big snake writhed about. choked and spluttered and finally in convulsions gave up its prey. Strange enough, the smaller one when disengaged seemed none the worse off because of its experience, and the other soon recovered from its dosing. They have been placed in separate cages.Philadelphia Record. A long suffering tailor wrote one of his And you had to pick your teeth out on the customers as follows: stoop. Oh, the coffee was all right, And the tea was out of sight, For a drop of either one she couldn't make. If he swallowed just a little by mistake. We had beefsteak there one day, 'Bout a year ago in May. Dear Sir,-Will you kindly send the We are told by telegraph to the Boston Herald" that a war is to be made on the saloons in Calais, Maine, and the authorities threaten to close them within 30 days. They have told us so often that Neal Dow was the father of prohibition, and that Maine was a prohibition State, that this telegram reads Who were fed by old Matilda on the scraps. strange. The fact is, the world over, that But a fixer stole it all to make lug straps; I have heard the hoboes say, Old Matilda used to pray "Two long hours every day." (How she loved to tell us of her pious deeds.) But each ornamental meal Somehow made the boarders feel prohibitive liquor laws are an unwritten That her praying did not quite supply their watched and carefully regulated by law. needs. When one day her crazy son On his cycle took a run Sissy Cisneros has arrived in Washington. And collided with a sand bank in his way, As we have no hero just now, a shero will Never tell an editor how to run his paper. Let the poor devil find out himself.-Texas Siftings. Professor Nelson Sizer, the best known phrenologist in America, died at New York, October 18, aged 85 years. In 1864, he examined my head at 308 Broadway. It was wonderful how correctly he read me; he even told me what I was doing and what I ought to do. I had the reading printed and passed them around to those who knew me best. That reading cost me, I think, $5.00, and was worth as many thousands. It was an incentive to the moulding of my after life. DOBBINS SOAP MFG. CO. SOLE PROPRIETORS FOR 30 Years of DOBBINS' ELECTRIC SOAP, IN "SHAVINGS," "BARS," AND "SOLID," Also "BRADFORD" ENGLISH “FIG" SOAPS, Oleine, Crown, Gallipoli, Bradford Oleine, German. Oleine, 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, and From a Woman. FIBRE AND FABRIC is perhaps the most independent paper now published; aside from its technical matter from fibre to fabrics; at least many of its readers say so, and others think so. It is outspoken, because it is truth METAL SKYLIGHTS. Proof against leaks from weather and condensation. SHEET METAL CORNICES AND BUILDING TRIMMINGS. E. VAN NOORDEN & CO., 383 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON, MASS. ing aged and gray. Gray, you may be, but fully seeking the good of all classes, at the COLORED CHALK CRAYONS aged, never. Goodness gracious, the dread- A SUPPLEMENT TO MR. DONNELLY'S expense of none, not even excluding the too "What is that Japanese idol over there worth?" she inquired. The salesman replied, in a subdued tone: "Worth about $50,000, madam; it's the SUNDAY FIGHT.-A Chicago alderman is proprietor.”—Exchange. reported as having been fatally wounded in a John Brannigan, one of the dressers em FOR TEXTILE MILLS, Prevent mixing numbers, and discover imperfect work. LOWELL MASS. Sunday fight in a bar-room there. He was ployed by Charles A. Stevens & Co., is "sit-POSITION wanted by a young man as salesman for a of the civil court at Northampton. attempting to bite off the nose of an antago-ting on the jury" this week, at the fall term -Tilton. N.H.: A new 500-horse power water wheel has been received at the Tilton mills which will furnish power for the electric plant at the lower mill. -Mr. T. J. Edwards has been appointed treasurer of the Apponaug Printing, Dyeing and Bleaching Co., of Apponaug, R.I. . Well, Ikey," said Moses, the teacher, Said Ikey, "von hundred per cent." Is what avers disaster.-C. M. Snyder. THE STURTEVANT SYSTEM HEATS, VENTILATES AND MOISTENS OLD OR NEW MILLS. Can be Applied to Weave and Spinning Rooms to Great Advantage. PLANS AND ESTIMATES CHEERFULLY FURNISHED. SEND FOR LIST OF OVER 500 PLANTS IN USE. B. F. STURTEVANT CO., Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, London. worsted mill. Familiar with yarn tests, and has had goods mill. Age 25; single. American Protestant. Adsix years' experience with yarns made by a large fancy dress 3364, care Fibre and Fabric. THE HISTORY OF THE WADE FAMILY. VICTOR SHUTTLE CHECKS. TELEPHONE 3593. ESTABLISHED 1854 to.-Sunday golf is quite popular in some Save their cost In 60 days. Save PATENTS CROSBY & places.-The strike of the Brockton soul repairs. Save stock. Save 34 SCHOOL STREET, BOSTON. patents. GREGORY. fasteners has pegged out. Pegs not used now.-Ambassador Draper has returned to Rome. Now let the Romans do as Draper does.-Boss Croker's name is " agin" him. New Yorkers don't want a croaker.-They now say that Dana made Greeley. One thing sure: Greeley was made out of very raw material. -- The Pennsylvania Dutch always say leave " for let. GEORGE DRAPER & SONS Think It Over. In America the people are robbed of their earnings by trusts; in Turkey by favoritism; in England by aristocracy.--Col. Ingersoll's Mistakes of Moses " has been translated into the Jewish language. It will be news to them.--The old-time watchman's rattle was borrowed by the English from China or Japan.--By an imperial decree of 1637, all Japanese who had left their island home, driven by storm or otherwise, and returned, were put to death.--Some people are so prudish they would not eat salad without dressing.--Impatience is a wrinkle producer. --We find people who want something for nothing everywhere; we do not have to seek them. The little thieves are sent to jail, the big ones to their palace go. - By George," his chances in New York look fairly well.--How many bad men does it take to make and keep one woman bad?-Bostonians still linger to admire the beauties of the new Tremont Street entrance to Keith's Theatre. - Ten gallons of wine were consumed at a communion service held in Tomlinson Hall, Indianapolis, on Sunday, October 17, when Uncle Sam seems to be building a navy the Christian Church Convention was in ses- for exhibition purposes. If you have a shore sion. Thirty-two deacons distributed the picnic, ask for the navy.-A Congressional bread and wine.-New York Sun. junket to Klondike would prove a blessing to What I would like to know is, how much the American people.- New York has a bread was consumed and how many people prohibition " candidate for Mayor. There PRINCE OF WALES.-- The impudence of were present? is a comic side to every play.- Chinese the New York politicians is laughable to Why is it that we hear so little complaint ponies are nearly all white.-Henry George those who know the extent of the Prince of from Catholic missionaries? Why is it that visited Tom's River; it looks as though he Wales' acquaintance with the Tammany would settle on Tom Platt.-General Walker chief. When Croker brought his race horses they do not set the people and their govern- has been buried again. When will windy here, he was introduced to the Prince of ments" masacreing" each other? The Catholics were the first to enter Southern men let the dead rest?-Do not hold me re- Wales in the character of a generous supCalifornia when the white man had hardly write.-Children do not like to see a rich the running of the American horses fell unsponsible for your understanding of what I porter of the turf. Immediately, however, got a foothold on the Atlantic shore. When the Puritans were persecuting each other the parent do good with his money. They swear der suspicion, and Croker was dropped from Catholic priests were conquering the wild In- he is insane.-The courting room often leads the royal circle like a hot potato. As it was, dians of the West with the weapon of peace. They did it by force of example; they did not ask for soldiers to defend them. In every country where a white man could live, the Catholic missionary went. They worked among "uncivilized" people unarmed, and they always conquered. to the court room; still, there is fun enough the old man.-The New York Sun" terms It was not Shakespeare who said "two was said to have had one case which was a case as an innocent person tried for murproved erroneous; our altitude is sufficiently der. Wonders will never cease until man high to secure us against an epidemic. The knows so much that there is nothing left to disease itself is nothing compared to the cow-wonder at.-What good would the sight of ardly fright of the people, which is apt to kill a ten pound nugget of gold do a freezing, more than the fever itself. --Fischer. Will Support Van Wyck. Hon. Gustav Poopenheiser. of Harlem, who it was thought would give his support to Seth Low, has come out for the Tammany ticket. His letter to the Tammany boss is as follows: "Hon. Richard Groker: Dear Sir, I haf in der newsbaber readed dass Gustav Poopen heiser was gome oudt dat Citizens' tigit for. Aber dass is nicht drue. Venn Tammany dot yeller tog tigid nomernated had, dass was deeferent, ain't it? "Der Tammany tigit was besser als any dime und I gif my vode und my inflooence mit der gradest bleasure. "Vee New Yorkers vant no more Raines law, no more bolice hoombug,,no more wasserlumperei, ain't it was so, Mr. Groker? Vee vant free speech, free loonch und blendy beer. My old frendt General Asa Gardiner Bird was shoost wride venn he say dot Reform to hell mit him!' The main shaft at the George H. Gilbert starving, dying man?-Can Mr. Williams Mfg. Co.'s woolen mill broke about 5 PM. and Mr. Debs make Democracy in Massa- last Thursday, causing a shut-down for a few chusetts more "social" than it has been of late?-A" Union, Pacific" would help the Democracy. Perhaps Debs and Williams can bring it about.-What is faith? I dunno, unless it is eating fried liver in a New York restaurant.-The coming winter will ners' lot becomes more and more a game of prove a summer of content.-The bread winchance. Carl Schurz upon Webster " is a headline in the "Herald." Won't somebody knock him off?-Henry George is trying hard |