The History of the Shoddy-trade: Its Rise, Progress, and Present Position |
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amongst appears Batley Carr billies blankets bulk carders carpets character chartism chiefly cloth manufacture colours considerable cotton warps demand Dewsbury druggets Earlsheaton Elland employer and employed engaged especially extent fabrics fact Factory Act Felted cloths fictitious capital formerly fulling stocks Gomersal Greetland hand Heckmondwike Huddersfield important increased interests jenny kind labour latter Leeds locality London materials mills Mirfield mohair Morley mule mungo rags neighbourhood nominal horse power operation Ossett paddings panic period pilots population power loom present principal probably progress prosperity qualities rag and shoddy rag machines rag-wool railway rate of wages regards river Calder scribblers shillings per yard shoddy and mungo shoddy cloth shoddy manufacture shoddy trade soft rags spindles spinning Stainland staple steam supply tion town township of Batley ufacture union cloths wapentake weaving weft whilst witneys wool woollen manufacture writer
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Page 20 - Total .. .. £756,000 This sum may be deemed expressive of the utility of the great rag and shoddy laboratory ; the greater part of it represents what has been paid for labour, the value of the uncollected rag being less than half its final cost. We see, in the case before us, the principles of economy forcibly and pleasingly illustrated in practice ; and materials regarded at one time as almost worthless, converted, by the improving processes of manual labour and machinery, into valuable elements...
Page 21 - ... of potash, a valuable agent in dyeing. Shoddy dust too, which is the dirt emitted from rags and shoddy in their processes, is useful as tillage, in like manner with the waste which falls under scribbling engines; the latter is saturated with oil, in which consists mainly the fertilizing property.
Page 18 - ... swifts are used to grind soft rags, viz., stockings, flannels, carpets, &c., into shoddy ; the finer set ones, to tear cloth rags into mungo : these swifts perform six or seven hundred revolutions per minute, and would travel, if running over the ground in a straight line, at the rate of eighty or ninety miles per hour ; it is in fact the rapidity of the swift's motion, which is the primary cause of its effectiveness. The produce of a machine, formerly, was small, being only about one-fourth...
Page 21 - ... the latter is saturated with oil, in which consists mainly the fertilizing property. Waste is of more value than dust, even for farming purposes, the former having been generally about double the price of the latter ; but dust has of late increased in value, so as to be. well-nigh equal to waste. A large quantity of these] materials is annually sent from this district into Kent, and other counties, to till the soil.
Page 20 - Gd. per lb., and reckoning the latter staple to constitute a third part of the whole, we find the entire quantity to amount to upwards of three-quarters of a million of money ; the items of the account stand thus : — 25,920,000 lb.
Page 29 - Mungo," may appear a very odd one to persons not accustomed to it, for though the term is understood in the trade, it appears •very unmeaning, and to have no necessary or natural affinity with the commodity designated ; the origin of the term "mungo" is said to be this — one of the dealers in the newly- discovered material was pushing the sale of a small quantity, when doubts were expressed as to its likelihood to sell, to which the possessor replied with emphasis, " It mun go,
Page 32 - ... of buyer and seller. There are usually two sales per week, which are conducted alternately, on different days, by the two auctioneers through whose hands the bulk of shoddy and mungo sold publicly passes. The quantity falling under the hammer weekly may be fairly estimated at 60,000 or 70,000 lb., comprising a range of all qualities and colours, varying in price from under one penny to upwards of one shilling per pound ; in addition, wool, hair, waste, and rags are sold. These sales have attained...