Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/85

LACE 79 afterward united by invisible seams. The firm- ness and solidity of the texture are remark- able. Horsehair is often introduced along the edge to give firmness. Although the work- manship of this lace has always been of great beauty, the designs in the older specimens were seldom copied from nature. This circumstance gave a marked advantage to the laces of Brus- sels, which represented flowers and other nat- ural designs with a high degree of accuracy. The defect, however, has disappeared in the point d'AlenQon of recent manufacture ; at the Paris exposition of 1867" were specimens con- taining admirable copies of natural flowers in- termixed with grasses and ferns. Owing to its elaborate construction, this lace is seldom seen in large pieces. A dress made of point d'Alencon, the production of Bayeux, consist- ing of two flounces and trimmings, was ex- hibited at the exposition of 1867, the price of which was 85,000 francs. It required 40 wo- men seven years to complete it. Lace made at Chantilly formerly held a high rank, but the manufacture has greatly declined ; but Chan- tilly lace is produced at Bayeux and other places. Bayeux and Caen are important cen- tres of the lace industry, and are specially noted for black laces. The productions of Lille and Arras are well known, though that of the former place is greatly diminished. The Lille lace is noted for the beauty of its ground, "the finest, lightest, most transparent, and best made of all grounds." The work is simple, consisting of the ground and the pattern marked by a thick thread. The lace of Bailleul is strong and cheap, and is extensively used for trimming ; much of it is sent to America and India. The lace manufacture of Auvergne, of which Le Puy is the centre, is considered the most ancient and extensive in France ; the es- timated number of women employed is about 130,000. Nearly every kind of lace is pro- duced here. In England the manufacture of lace is carried on chiefly in the counties of Buckingham, Devon, and Bedford. The work is mostly done by women and girls at home. The best known of the English hand-made laces is the Honiton, so called from the town of this name in Devonshire, where it was first made. The high rank held by Honiton lace in recent years is attributed to the fact that Queen Victoria, commiserating the condition of the lace-workers of Devonshire, and wishing to bring their manufactures into notice, ordered her wedding dress, which cost 1,000, to be made of this material. Her example was fol- lowed by two of her daughters and the prin- cess of Wales, and Honiton lace has continued to be fashionable and expensive. In making it, the designs, which often consist of simple sprigs, are formed separately and then attached to the ground. The Honiton guipure has an original character almost unique, and is said to surpass in richness and perfection any lace of the same kind made in Belgium. British point is an imitation lace made near London. Lace 473 VOL. x. 6 is made to some extent in Ireland, of which the Limerick is the best known, and in Scot- land ; also in most of the countries on the continent. Machine-made Lace. Nearly every kind of lace is now made by machinery, and such excellence is attained that it is often difficult even for a practised eye to distinguish between the two kinds. According to Mrs. Palliser, however, "the most finished productions of the frame never possess the touch, the finish, or the beauty of the laces made by hand." "While the invention of this machinery has brought lace within the means of a large num- ber who were formerly unable to buy it, the demand for the finer products of the pillow and the needle has not been diminished. The manufacture of lace by machinery is carried on chiefly in England and France, the great cen- tre of this industry in the former country being Nottingham, and in the latter Calais. The first attempts to apply machinery to the work were made in 1758 by a stocking weaver of Nottingham, and his machine, which was called a pin machine, making single press point net in imitation of Brussels ground, is said to be still in use in France for making the variety known as tulle. The stocking weavers of Nottingham invented other machines, the first for bobbinet in 1799 ; and though they were all inferior, they made lace more cheaply than by the old methods, and caused Notting- ham to become the centre of the trade. But the first really successful machine for bobbi- net (so named from the threads crossing the warp being supplied from bobbins) was that of ' Heathcoat, invented in 1809, and suggested by the machinery employed in making fishing nets. The principle of the invention was in the use of fixed parallel warp threads, round which the bobbin threads were worked as the weft of the fabric, one set going obliquely across from right to left and the second set obliquely across from left to right. Heathcoat was compelled by the opposition his machine excited to remove from Nottingham to Devon- shire, and it was not until the expiration of his patent in 1823 that the machine was intro- duced in the former place. In the machine the warp threads, to the number of 700 to 1,200 in a yard of width, are stretched from a roller, which extends the whole length of the thread beam, and the weft threads are wound each upon a bobbin formed of two thin brass disks riveted together, leaving a narrow space between them for the thread. Each bobbin holds about 100 yards of thread, and there are as many as 1,200 of them to a machine. The arrangement and movement of these in the machine can be understood only by care- ful inspection and study of the machine itself. The pieces of bobbinet measure from 20 to 30 yards each ; the width is variable. The nar- rowest strips, even the narrow quillings used for cap borders, are made on the same ma- chine, many breadths together, which are tem- porarily united by threads that are finally