Note 467 — Chapter II · SPINNING AND WEAVING—MARVELLOUS SKILL DISPLAYED IN THESE ARTS.

The manufacture of fine muslin, was attempted both in Lancashire and at Glasgow, about the year 1780, with weft spun by the jenny. The attempt failed, owing to the coarseness of the yarn. Even with Indian weft, muslins could not be made to compete with those of the East. But when the mule was brought into general use, in 1785, both weft and warp were produced sufficiently fine for muslins; and so quickly did the weaver avail himself of the improvement in the yarn, that no less than 500,000 pieces of muslin were manufactured in Great Britain in the year 1787. In a “Report of the Select Committee of the Court of Directors of the East India Company upon the subject of the Cotton Manufacture of this Country,” made in the year 1793, it is said, that “every shop offers British muslins for sale equal in appearance, and of more elegant patterns than those of India, for one-fourth, or perhaps more than one-third, less in price.” “Muslin began to be made nearly at the same time at Bolton, at Glasgow, and at Paisley, each place adopting the peculiar description of fabric which resembled most those goods it had been accustomed to manufacture; and, in consequence of this judicious distribution at first, each place has continued to maintain a superiority in the production of its own article. Jaconets, both coarse and fine, but of a stout fabric, checked and striped muslins, and other articles of the heavier description of this branch, are manufactured in Bolton, and its neighborhood. Book, mull, and leno muslins, and jaconets of a lighter fabric than those made in Lancashire, are manufactured in Glasgow. Sewed and tambored muslins are almost exclusively made there and in Paisley.”—Encyclopædia Britannica.