Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/312

in a perfect manner should have been patented in 1816, while it was not seen in actual use in Nottingham, the capital of the hosiery trade, till 1845. The inventor of the round stocking-frame was no other than Sir Marc I. Brunei, who in 1816 patented his machine under the name of the Tricoteur. In Brunei s apparatus the needles are fixed on the rim of a rotating wheel. The yarn is delivered, the loops formed, the beards of the needles pressed down, and all the other operations performed by means of a series of arms and wheels which act on the circumference of the ring or circle of needles. As the working of such a machine is continuous, and as several sets of wheels and arms may work simultaneously around a ring of sufficient diameter, Brunei s machine was really capable of doing work with very great rapidity. He appears not, however, to have regarded his invention as worthy of being pushed into notice, and it was not till 1845 that in an improved form it was brought forward as an original invention by Mr Peter Claussen, who, however, reaped no profit from his undoubted ingenuity and merit.

Another improvement of very great importance in the hosiery trade was effected through the invention of the tumbler needle, patented by Mr M. Townsend in 1853. The tumbler needle (fig. 2) consists of a stem some what bulged near the point. The bulged part contains a groove in which there is hinged a short pin. The pin is so placed that, when turned to the hooked or curved point, its own point falls into a spoon-like indent, thus forming a smooth metal loop. When reversed the pin falls into the groove of the stem, making a smooth stalk. In this way, as will be clear from the figure, when the yarn is caught in the curved point of the needles, the already formed loops in being brought forward to pass off the needles carry forward the hinged pin and close the steel loop, over which they pass quite smoothly. The newly- formsd loop then pushes over the tumbler pin into its groove, and the hook is once more ready to seize the yarn as it passes along. The tumbler needle and the revolving frame to gether form the basis of the various domestic machines which are now in the market. In machines in which the tumbler needle is adopted the needles themselves move in grooves, each being carried forward in succession as the feed of yarn comes opposite its position.

The varieties of frame now in use are embraced under narrow hand-machines, wide hand-machines, power rotary- frames, and power round-frames, the first two being exclu sively used in the houses of the operatives, while the latter are factory machines driven by steam. " It will be an explanation of some interest," says the late Mr Felkin, in a paper before the British Association (Nottingham meeting, 1866), "to those who are strangers to the process of these trades, to state that the hand-knitter of a stocking, if assiduous and clever, will knit 100 loops a minute, and that Lee on his first machine made 1000 of worsted, and on his second 1500 loops of silk per minute. The visitor may now see on the round frame, patented by Brunei in 1816, but since modified and improved, without any effort but to supply yarn, 250,000 loops of the finest textures made, in various colours, per minute, with safety, an advance of 2500-fold upon the hand-knitter."

The principle centre of the hosiery trade of the United Kingdom is Nottingham town and county ; and in Leicester shire and Derbyshire the industry is also of importance. It was computed by Mr Felkin that the English hosiery trade gave employment in 1866 to about 150,000 persons, of whom about 100,000 were occupied in the preliminary and finishing operations of winding, cutting, mending, seaming, itc. At that time the industry was largely domestic, frames being hired out to operatives; but the trade tends steadily towards factories. According to a par liamentary return issued 31st July 1879, there were in the United Kingdom 186 hosiery factories, giving employment to 14,992 persons, 6683 males and 8309 females. Of these, 175 factories were in England, 10 in Scotland, and 1 in Ireland; and centred in Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Rutland, and Derbyshire there were 173 of the establish ments employing 13,680 of the operatives. The exports in 1878, which of course represent only a small proportion of the total output, amounted in value to 860,318. In the United States the industry is conducted on a manufacturing scale in New York State, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine ; besides which family machines are extensively employed in that country. In Saxony also the trade is an important in dustrial feature, and there its development has been strik ingly rapid. Throughout France, Spain, and Italy there are numerous frames at work, and indeed the trade may be regarded as in some degree commensurate with civilized industrial communities.

(j. pa.)

HOSIUS, or Osius, bishop of Cordova, the friend of Athanasius, and the favourite of Constantine, was born about 256 a.d., most probably at Cordova, although from a passage in Zosimus it has sometimes been conjectured that he was believed by that writer to be a native of Egypt, Elected to the see of Cordova before the end of the 3d century, he narrowly escaped martyrdom in the persecution of Maximian (303–305); in 305 or 306 he attended the council of Illiberis or Elvira, his name appearing second in the list of those present; and in 313 we find him already at the court of Constantine, he being expressly mentioned by name in a constitution directed by the emperor to Csecilianus of Carthage in that year. In 323 he was the bearer and not impossibly the writer of Constantine s letter to bishop Alexander of Alexandria and Arius his deacon,, designed to promote the cause of peace; and, on the failure of the negotiations in Egypt, it was doubtless with the active concurrence of Hosius that the council of Nice was convened. He certainly took part in its proceedings ; according to some Roman Catholic writers he presided, and did so as representing the bishop of Rome, but both these statements are made on totally inadequate grounds. Equally doubtful is the assertion that he was the principal author of the Nicene creed ; but manifestly he powerfully influenced the judgment of the emperor in favour of the orthodox party. After a period of retirement in his diocese, Hosius presided in 347 at the fruitless synod of Sardica, which showed itself so hostile to Arianism ; and afterwards he spoke and wrote in favour of Athanasius in such a way as to bring upon himself a sentence of banish ment to Sirmium (355). From his exile he wrote to Constantius II. his only extant composition, a letter not unjustly characterized by Tillemont as displaying gravity, dignity, gentleness, wisdom, generosity, and in fact all the qualities of a great soul and a great bishop. Subjected to continual pressure, the old man, who was approaching, if he had not already passed, his hundredth year, was weak enough to sign the Arian formula adopted by the second synod of Sirmium in 357. Shortly afterwards he was permitted to return to his diocese, where he died in 359. Apart from some human touches of worldliness and latterly of weakness, Hosius was a consistent and creditable as well as prominent defender of orthodoxy, and as such he is recognized even by those who most bitterly resent his apostasy.

See Tillemont, AKmoires, vol. vii. 300-321 (1700), and Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. i.