صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

woollen cloth. In those patterns in which the colors are blended into one another at the edges, in what is called the rainbow style, they are first blended by a brush on the sieve before being taken up by the block. Stereotyping has been applied to the production of printing-blocks. A small mould is produced from a model of the pattern, and copies are then made by pouring fusible metal into it. A number of these plates are joined together, and mounted in a stout piece of wood, and thus form a printing-block.

A machine called the Perrotine, in honor of its inventor, M. Perrot, of Rouen, is in use in France and Belgium as a substitute for hand-block printing. It is thus described by Dr. Ure: "Three wooden blocks, from two and a half to three feet long, according to the breadth of the cloth, and from two to five inches broad, faced with pear-tree wood, engraved in relief, are mounted in a powerful cast-iron framework, with their planes at right angles to each other, so that each of them may, in succession, be brought to bear upon the face, top, and back of a square prism of iron covered with cloth, and fitted to revolve upon an axis between the said blocks. The calico passes between the prism and the engraved blocks, and receives successive impressions from them as it is successively drawn through by a winding cylinder. The blocks are pressed against the calico through the agency of springs, which imitate the elastic pressure of the workman's hand. Each block receives a coat of colored paste from a woollen surface, smeared after every contact with a mechanical brush. One man, with one or two children for superintending the color-giving surfaces, can turn off about thirty pieces English per day, in three colors, which is the work of fully twenty men and twenty children in block-printing by hand."

Copper-plate printing, similar to that used in the production of engravings, has also been applied to calico-printing; but the perfection to which cylinder-printing, next to be described, has been brought, rendered the extension of this method unnecessary.

The invention of cylinder, or roller-printing, is the greatest achievement that has been made in the art, producing results which are truly extraordinary: a length of calico equal to one mile can, by this method, be printed off with four different colors in one hour, and more accurately and with better effect than block-printing by hand. One cylinder-machine, attended by one man, can perform as much work in the same time as one hundred men attended by one hundred tearers. The effect of this beautiful machine has been greatly to cheapen cotton prints, and to create an enormous demand for them, so that, while apparently superseding labor in one direction, it creates a demand for it in all directions.

The invention of this machine is attributed to two persons, who had no connection with each other: the one is a Scotchman named Bell, who, about the year 1785, practised at Monsey, near Preston, Eng

land; the other was named Oberkampf, a calicoprinter at Jouy, in France. We will endeavor, with the assistance of a diagram, to explain the principle of the machine as arranged for printing a pattern in three colors. The cylinders upon which the pattern is engraved, one cylinder for each color, are shown

in section at c, and a view of one of them. Each cylinder is mounted on a strong framework, so as to revolve against two other cylinders, D and e: the cylinder e is covered with woollen cloth, and dips into a trough i, containing the coloring-matter properly thickened, so that as e revolves it takes up a coating of color and distributes it over the engraved roller c. D is a large iron drum covered with several folds of woollen cloth, so as to form a somewhat elastic printing surface: an endless web of blanketing a a is made to travel round this drum, which serves as a sort of guide, and defence, and printing surface to the calico b b which is being printed. Now it is obvious from this arrangement, that the cylinder e in revolving must spread the color uniformly over the engraved cylinder c, whereas it is wanted only in the depressed or engraved parts; the excess of color has therefore to be removed before the roller comes in contact with the calico, or instead of being ornamented with a pattern it would be disfigured with an unmeaning patch of color. The superfluous color is removed by a sharp-edged knife or plate d, usually of steel, called the doctor.

* The origin of this term has been explained by Mr Baines in his "History of the Cotton Manufacture:" When Mr. Hargreaves, a partner in the factory at Monsey, near Preston, where cylinder-printing was first introduced, as already noticed, was making some experiments with the process, one of his workmen said, "All this is very well, sir; but how will you remove the superfluous color rom the surface of the cylinder?" Mr. Hargreaves took up a common knife, and pressing the edge parallel with the axis of the revolving cylinder, at once showed its action in removing the color. After a short pause, the operative exclaimed, "Oh, sir, you have doctored it!" a common phrase for "You have cured it;" and the contrivance has ever

[merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small]

Our large engraving is a view of a cylinder-machine for printing colors. Some of the machines are very complicated in appearance, as many as eight colors being printed at once by one machine; but this complication is only apparent, for it is produced by the repetition of similar arrangements eight times over, each engraved roller, provided with its own color trough, &c., revolving against the

since retained the name of the doctor. Another account is, that the word doctor is a corruption of the Latin, abductor.

iron drum D; but very great nicety of arrangement is required to bring all these rollers to bear upon the cloth, so as to print at the exact spots required for forming a complicated pattern; but when the proper adjustment is made, a machine for printing eight colors acts with as much precision and regularity as a machine arranged for a fewer number of colors.

As fast as the calico is printed, it is drawn through a long gallery or passage, raised to the temperature of nearly 200°, by means of a furnace flue which traverses its whole length. The upper surface of

the gallery is covered with rough plates of cast-iron which radiate heat upon the printed goods. A piece of calico of twenty-eight yards is drawn through the gallery in about two minutes, during which the colors become dried and set.

The printing cylinders vary in length from thirty to forty inches, according to the width of the calico: the diameter varies from four to twelve inches. Each cylinder, A, and in section c, as shown in the following figure, is bored through the axis d d, and

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

accurately turned from a solid piece of metal. For
some styles of pattern the engraving is done by
hand; but, as this is expensive, it is usual to adopt
Perkins's method of transferring engravings from
one surface to another by means of small steel rol-
lers, E.
The pattern is first drawn upon a scale of
about three inches square, so that this size of figure
being repeated a number of times will cover the
then engraved
printing cylinder. The pattern

upon a roller of soft steel about one inch in diame-
ter, and three inches long, so as to occupy its sur-
face exactly. This small roller, which is called the
die, is next hardened by heating it to redness and
suddenly quenching it in cold water. The roller
thus hardened is then put into a rotatory press, and
made to transfer its design to a similar small roller
in a soft state, called the mill. The design which
was sunk in the die, now appears in relief on the
mill. The mill in its turn is hardened, and being
put into a rotatory press, engraves or indents upon
the large copper cylinder the whole of the intended
pattern. This is, of course, a work of time, and re-
quires considerable care to make the numerous
junctions of the small roller exactly fit each other
upon the printing cylinder. By this process, how-
ever, a pattern may be imparted to a large cylinder
at the cost of about one-eighth of what it could be
done by hand. By the method just described, a
worn cylinder can be renewed and made equal to a
new one. The pattern is also sometimes produced
by etching, in which case the cylinder is covered
with a thin coat of varnish, and on this the pattern
is traced with a diamond or steel point. Aqua-fortis
is then applied to the surface, which bites into or
corrodes the parts which have been removed by the
point. This point or tracer is sometimes applied in
a manner similar to that of the eccentric chuck of a
lathe, by which means the surface is covered with
patterns, or a groundwork for patterns of great
variety and beauty. The electrotype has also been
used for producing the design on the printing cylin-
der. The design is also sometimes cut in relief
upon wooden rollers; or formed by the insertion of

9

flat pieces of copper edge-wise. This is termed
surface printing, probably from the circumstance of
the thickened color being applied to a tense surface
of woollen cloth, against which the cylinder re-
volves and takes up color. A combination of
wooden and copper rollers forms what is called the
union printing-machine.

Another method of calico-printing remains to be
described, namely, press-printing, by which several
The cloth to be
colors can be printed at once.
printed is wound upon a roller at one end of the
machine, and the design, which is formed in a block
of mixed metal about two and a half feet square, is
supported with its face downwards in an iron frame,
and can be raised or lowered at pleasure. The face
of the block is divided into as many stripes, ranging
cross-wise with the table, as there are colors to be
printed. If, for example, the pattern be made up
of five stripes of different colors, and each stripe be
six inches broad, and as long as the breadth of the
cloth, the colors have to be applied without min-
This is accom-
gling or interfering with each other.
plished in the following manner: The side edges of
the table are furnished with a couple of rails similar
to a railway, and upon this is a shallow tray or
frame, capable of moving backwards and forwards
upon wheels. Within this frame is a cushion of
about the same size as the printing-block, and by
its side are five small troughs containing the thick-
ened colors. By means of a long piece of wood,
formed so as to dip into all the troughs at once, the
tearer applies a small portion of each color to the
surface of the cushion, and spreads them evenly
into five portions or stripes, taking care not to mix
them;
but making their breadth equal to that of
the stereotype rows on the block. The cushion
being prepared, the frame is rolled along the rail-
way until it is immediately under the printing-
block, which the pressman then lowers upon the
cushion, by which means the five stripes of the block
become charged, each with its proper color. The
block is then raised, the frame rolled away, and the
block brought down upon the cloth, which it prints
in five rows of different colors. On raising the
block, the cloth is drawn forward about six inches
in the direction of its length, or exactly the width
of one stripe on the block; the tearer again pushes
forward the cushion with the colors renewed, and
the block is again charged and applied to the cloth.
Now, as a length of the cloth equal to the width of
a stripe is drawn from under the block at each im-
pression, every part of the cloth is brought into con-
Great care is
tact with all the stripes on the block.
required so to adjust all the moving parts of the
press, that the colors may not mingle and distort
the pattern.

The mechanical portion of the art of calicoprinting having occupied so much space, we will have to give the chemical portion in our article next month.

SIR HENRY SIDNEY.

THE following letter was written by Sir Henry Sidney to his son Philip, then twelve years of age, at School at Shrewsbury:

"I have received two letters from you, which I take in good part; and, since this is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I will not that it be empty of some advices, which my natural care of you provoketh me to wish you to follow as documents to you in this your tender age.

"Let your first action be the lifting up of your mind to the Almighty God by hearty prayer; and feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer, with continual meditation, and thinking of him to whom you pray, and of the matter for which you pray; and use this at an ordinary hour, whereby the time itself will put you in remembrance to do that which you are accustomed to do in that time. Apply your study to such hours as your discreet master doth assign you, earnestly; and the time, I know, he will so limit as shall be both sufficient for your learning, and safe for your health. And mark the sense and the matter of that you read, as well as the words; so shall you both enrich your tongue with words, and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow as years groweth in you. Be humble and obedient to your master; for unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others how to obey you. Be cautious of gesture, and affable to all men, with diversity of reverence, according to the dignity of the person. There is nothing that winneth so much with so little cost. Use moderate diet, so as, after your meat, you may find your wit fresher and not duller, and your body more lively and not more heavy. Seldom drink wine, and yet sometimes do; lest, being enforced to drink upon the sudden, you should find yourself inflamed. Use exercise of body,

but such as is without peril of your joints or bones; it will increase your force and enlarge your breath. Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of your body as in your garments; it shall make you grateful in each company; and, otherwise, loathsome. Give yourself to be merry; for you degenerate from your father if you find not yourself most able in wit and body to do anything when you be most merry. But let your mirth be ever void of all scurrility and biting words to any man; for a wound given by a word is oftentimes harder to be cured than that which is given with the sword. Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, than a beginner or procurer of speech; otherwise you shall be counted to delight to hear yourself speak. If you hear a wise sentence, or an apt phrase, commit it to your memory, with respect to the circumstance when you shall speak it. Let never oath be heard to come out of your mouth, nor word of ribaldry; detest it in others, so shall custom make to yourself a law against it in yourself. Be modest in each assembly; and rather be rebuked of light fellows for maiden-like shamefacedness, than of your sad friends for pert boldness. Think upon every word that you will speak before you utter it, and remember how nature hath rampired up, as it were, the tongue with teeth, lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and all betokening reins or bridles for the loose use of that member. Above all things tell no untruth; no, not in trifles. The custom of it is naught; and let it not satisfy you that, for a time, the hearers take it for a truth; for, after, it will be known as it is, to your shame; for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted a liar. Study, and endeavor yourself to be virtuously occupied, so shall you make such a habit of well-doing in you that you shall not know how to do evil though you would."

THE FIRST TRIBUTE.

BY REV. H. HASTINGS WELD.

THE child's first tribute! Surely He who spake
His kind approval of the widow's mite
Shall hold this "first fruit" precious in His sight!
Train up the child to love, for Jesus' sake,

The suffering and the poor; to feel and know
The claims of penury, and the rights of woe.
Whoso, the Lord hath promised, in my name

The poor, imprisoned, and the sick shall seek, The wounded comfort, and raise up the weak, And, in the fulness of a Christian heart, Blessings to these, my brethren, shall impart, Bearing the cross, and fearing not the shameThe almsdeeds that he doth shall counted be

(See Plate.)

As precious gifts bestowed, through my beloved, on me.

A small thing that the humble righteous hath
Is better than the wealth of godless pride:
A cup of water many sins may hide,
If given for Christ's sake, and in modest faith;
While he to whom all human praise is given,
Whose ostentatious bounty sounds abroad,
Finds in that human fame his sole reward,
But stands in naked guilt before just Heaven.
Oh, rather train the child to seek His ear

Who hears in secret, and to court His eye
Who marks the humble paths of poverty:
Teach him to give-but not for human praise,
But seek high witness, and the thoughts to raise

To God in Heaven, nor heed what men may see or hear.

FANS.

BY MRS. C. A. WHITE.

WITH the aid of literary and historic association, "trifles as light as air" become charmingly important; but perhaps none more so than the subject of our paper, every fold of which is replete with interest, and filled with classic and poetic memories.

Incentive in itself to pleasant talk, the fan leads us by the short cuts of imagination to its place of origin, the East, where nature, in the leaves of the fan-palm-tree, seems to have set the type of its fashion, and where, in all probability, these natural screens preluded the use of artificial ones.

In the Orestes of Euripides, the Phrygian slave who relates the death of Clytemnestra, was employed in waving round the fair shoulders of Helen a fan like a palm branch, or open leaf, when the matricides burst into the wretched queen's apartment; and in the Elgin Saloon of the British Museum, we find a bas-relief representing Hygieia feeding a serpent out of a patera, and holding in her left hand a fan in the shape of an ivy-leaf.

But these primitive and simple forms appear soon to have given place to others; and from the descriptions of Propertius and Claudian, feathers mounted, as well as fans made of linen stretched over a light frame and painted, were generally used. Sometimes we find th made by simply fastening together, back to back, a pair of wings, and attaching them to a handle; but in every case, according to the editor of the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," however elegant in form, or delicately colored, or costly in material, they were stiff and of a fixed shape, incapable of being furled or unfurled; nor were they carried by the ladies themselves; "Flabellifera," or female fan-bearers, forming, when Plautus wrote, part of every fine lady's retinue.

Not that such attendants were confined to women, for the minions of the tyrant Aristodemus at Cumæ, are described by Dionysius Halicarnassensis, as followed, whenever they went to the gymnasium, by female slaves bearing fans and parasols, the use of both of which had been borrowed from barbarian nations.

Occasionally, beautiful boys held this office, and in the luxurious passage of Cleopatra on the Cyd

nus,

"On each side of her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid, did."*

Antony and Cleopatra.

Even Augustus himself seems not to have been a shade less luxurious than this "triumphant lady," and the "curled Antony," for Suetonius describes him in the heat of summer reclining in his peristyle with a slave fanning him while he slept.

But though the waving of the flabellum so as to produce a cooling breeze was the especial duty of an attendant, it was gallantry in a gentleman to take it in his own hand and aake use of it in compliment to a lady. Fans appear to have had a religious use amongst the Egyptians from a very early period; they were suspended from the roofs of the temples, like the punkas of India at the present day; and were also employed to keep off flies from the sacrifices, as well as for the purpose of exciting the sacred fires.

[ocr errors]

Mention is made, in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities" before alluded to, of a painting of a sacrifice to Isis, in which the priest is seen fanning the fire upon the altar, with a triangular flabellum, such as is still seen in Italy.

Stavely, in his "Church History," informs us that in the middle ages fans became part of the church furniture, for the purpose of chasing away flies from. the holy elements during the administration of the Eucharist; and Moreri has described a magnificent fan of this kind, preserved in the Abbey of St. Philibert de Tournus, which resembled those used by ladies, but was much larger, and with a longer handle. It was richly decorated with images of saints, and bore inscriptions in bad Latin verse, abounding, after the manner of the monks, in false quantities. These fans were held by the deacons on either side of the altar, as they continue to be in the Greek Church during the celebration of the sacrament.

In Japan, where Siebold informs us, neither sex wear headdresses to shade the face, the fan is seen in the hand or girdle of every inhabitant, and even priests and soldiers wear them.

His fan is to the Japanese dandy what the whalebone switch is to the London exquisite. Ladies and gentlemen receive and offer presents on them; the schoolmaster uses his in lieu of the ferule; the beggar who asks an alms holds out his fan for its acceptance, and it is even said that when presented on a peculiar kind of salver to a high-born criminal it becomes the warrant of his death.

But the most absurd service in which we have found the fan figuring is that suggested by a sepulchral tablet in the Egyptian Room of Antiquities at our Museum, representing Tete, flabellum-bearer to the Sun!

« السابقةمتابعة »