BRUSSELS.

05

is placed to throw out the thread, and the room so arranged as toadmit one single ray of light upon the work. The life of a Flemishthread-spinner is unhealthy, and her work requires the greatestskill; her wages are therefore proportionably high.

It is the fineness of the thread which renders the real Brusselsground (vrai reseau) so costly. 23 The difficulty of procuring thisfine thread, at any cost, prevented the art being established inoth§r countries. We all know how, during the last fifty years ofthe bygone century, a mania existed in the United Kingdom forimproving all sorts of manufactures. The Anti-Gallican Societygave prizes in London; Dublin and Edinburgh vied with theirsister capital in patriotism. Every man would establish somethingto keep our native gold from crossing the water. Foreign travellershad their eyes open, and Lord Garden, a Scotch lord of session,who visited Brussels in 1787, thus writes to a countryman on thesubject:—“This day I bought you ruffles and some beautifulBrussels lace, the most light and costly of all manufactures. I hadentertained, as I now suspect, a vain ambition to attempt the in-troduction of it into my humble parish in Scotland, but on inquiryI was discouraged. The thread is of so exquisite a fineness theycannot make it in this country. It is brought from Cambray andValenciennes in French Flanders, and five or six different artistsare employed to form the nice part of this fabric, so that it is acomplicated art which cannot be transplanted without a passion asstrong as mine for manufactures, and a purse much stronger. AtBrussels, from one pound of flax alone, they can manufacture tothe value of 700Z. sterling.”

Of the two kinds of ground used in Brussels lace, thebride had, a century back, 24 been replaced by the reseau,and was only made to order. Nine ells of “Angleterre abride” appear in the bills of Madame du Barry. 25 Sometimes

33 It is often sold at 2401. per lb., andin the report of the French Exhibitionof 1859 it is mentioned as high as 5001.(25,000 fr. the kilogramme). No wonderthat so much thread is made by machi-nery, and that Scotch cotton thread is sogenerally used, except for the choicestlaces. But machine-made thread hasnever attained the fineness of that madeby baud. Of those in the Exhibition of1862, the finest Lille was 800 leas (atechnical term for a reel of 300 yarns),

the Brussels 600, the Manchester 700;whereas in Westphalia and Belgiumhand-spun threads as fine as 800 to 1000arc spun for costly laces. The writer haBseen specimens, in the Museum at Lille,equal to 1200 of machinery; but thisindustry is so poorly remunerated thatthe number of skilful hand-spinners isfast diminishing.

34 “ Dictionnaire du Citoyen,” 1761.

35 “ Comptes de Madame du Barry.”Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 8157 and 8-