enthusiasm. The nature of the climate, joined to other local advantages, promise a favorable result to the endeavors of the company on this island. The growth of the mulberry tree in Malta, where attention has been paid to its cultivation, is said to be more rapid by at least one third than in Italy.

The recent experience of this company leads to the conclusion, that if our moist and variable climate do not in itself offer a sufficient obstacle to the success of attempts at rearing the silkworm, there would still remain another objection, which, though fatal to such an undertaking, cannot on any account be deplored, namely, the high price of labor. Silk requires so much care and attention for its production, and so great a number of persons must be employed in an establishment for rearing silkworms, that it is only in countries where the number of the poorer class is great in proportion to capital, and where, consequently, labor must be extremely cheap, that the silkworm can be reared at an expense which offers successfully to compete with other regions. Even then the superior skill and knowledge of people to whom the silkworm has long been an object of attention will always insure them a superiority over novices in the art. This was one cause of failure in Ireland. Unhappily, labor is not much better paid there than in Italy; but the ignorance and awkwardness of the Irish peasantry, in bestowing the necessary attentions upon the silkworms, an avocation totally differing from any to which they had previously been accustomed, afforded sufficient reason for rendering their employment unprofitable to the growers.

In the year 1826, some silkworms' eggs were sent to the island of St. Helena, that the production of silk might be attempted on that isolated spot. It is said that mulberry trees are already flourishing there, and that success may be expected to follow the experiment.

For a very long period silkworms have been reared in England as objects of curiosity or amusement; and almost every schoolboy can testify the success which has attended his cares in tending them. There is, indeed, no doubt, that with an equal degree of attention silk may be produced in England as well as in other countries, situated in an equally high latitude; but the high price of labor will always prevent its culture becoming a source of profit to the producer in England.

Although the great increase of our manufactures, and the importance of our trade in and consumption of silk, are fully shown in another chapter, yet the history of silk cannot per

haps be better concluded than by drawing the reader's attention to the enormous quantity of this material used in England alone, amounting in each year to more than four millions of pounds' weight. Fourteen thousand millions of animated creatures annually live and die to supply this little corner of the world with an article of luxury! If astonishment be excited at this fact, let us extend our view into China, and survey the dense population of its widely-spread region, who, from the emperor on his throne to the peasant in the lowly hut, are indebted for their clothing to the labors of the silk

worm.

CHAP. IV.

TRADE OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES IN SILK.

China, France, Italy, Sicily, Turkey, Switzerland, Prussia, Russia.

THE preceding chapters have shown the times and modes in which silk was first introduced into different states and kingdoms. It is now proposed to give a brief sketch of the present condition of the trade and manufacture in some principal foreign countries.

China is still as productive of silk as in more remote times: it continues to form one of the principal internal trades of the empire, furnishing employment to a greater number of individuals than any other occupation. Sir George Staunton tells us, that women only are employed in Han-choofoo in the fabrication of flowered and embroidered satins, as well as other varieties of the finer tissues, and that a vast number of workwomen are thus engaged in very extensive factories.*

The silkworm is reared in China, for the purposes of manufactures, south of the Yellow River, but not far beyond it; the most southern parts of the empire being unfavorable to its growth. Silk is produced in the greatest quantity in the neighborhood of Nan-kin, in about the thirty-second degree

of north latitude.

The Chinese faculty of imitation continues to be successfully exercised in the manufacture of silks: of this the American merchants are accustomed to avail themselves profitably,

* Staunton's Embassy, vol. ii. p. 432.

sending French patterns to China, which are there copied with an exactness which makes these imitations, in every respect save one, quite equal to the original fabrics. Being great economists, the Chinese are more sparing in the use of their materials, and the weight of the goods is perhaps one fifth less than that of the French: the latter, indeed, are considered to be unnecessarily prodigal of their material; and the Chinese imitations present more than an equivalent advantage, being obtained at far less cost than the French fabrics.

England imports a vast amount of both raw and wrought silks from China. The latter description is included in the official custom-house returns with Indian goods, on which account its quantity cannot be accurately stated. The importation of raw silk from China in the course of the year 1829 amounted to 600,000 pounds' weight.

The growth of silk in France is still confined exclusively to its southern provinces. Lyons, which is the greatest silk manufacturing city of France, furnishes very few silks of its own growth: it is, however, the great emporium whence the merchants of Paris and other cities obtain supplies; as all silks brought from other places, either by land or sea, are obliged at least to pass through Lyons. In the year 1540, Francis I. granted to this city the privilege of being an exclusive depôt, which was continued by various royal ordinances down to 1717. The rate of duty was altered by almost all these ordinances; but no documents are to be found whereby to ascertain what effect any of the different changes produced upon the silk trade or manufacture.

For a short period (from 1720 to 1722) the privilege of import and deposit was extended also to Dunkirk; but in the latter year it was again confined to Lyons, with the additional regulation, that no foreign silk should be imported into France by any other port than Marseilles, or by land except by the bridge Beauvoisin. This ordinance also decreed, that all silk grown in France should be sent to Lyons for sale, where it was subjected to a duty of three and a half sols per pound, while silk of foreign growth was burdened with the heavier impost of fourteen sols per pound. The regulations which thus favored Lyons at the expense of every other part of the French kingdom were not adopted with the view of obtaining revenue for the state, but with the single object of benefiting that one city. The amount received in duties was ap propriated towards the payment of its municipal debts, which would appear to have been somewhat considerable, as the

privilege was continued down to the period of the French revolution.

When Lyons was in its most flourishing state, it was computed that, on an average number of years, 6000 bales of silk, each weighing 160 pounds, passed through the city annually. Of these 1400 bales came from the Levant, 1600 from Sicily, 1500 from Italy, 300 from Spain, and 1200 from Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphiné. In the zenith of its former prosperity it had been reckoned, that Lyons employed 18,000 looms in silk manufactures. But the disastrous effects of the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 gave a serious blow to this prosperity; and in the year 1698 the number of looms amounted only to 4000. This manufacture afterwards revived, and a great part of Europe long drew supplies of brocade and rich silks from Lyons.

The decay of the manufacture at Tours was not less remarkable. This city, before the revocation, could boast of possessing 800 mills for winding and preparing silk, and 8000 looms for weaving it; while 40,000 persons were employed in the manufacture: 3000 looms were then at work in the manufacture of ribands alone. But soon after the period mentioned, Tours employed only 70 mills, 1200 looms, and about 4000 workmen; while the consumption of silk, which in the time of its prosperity had amounted to 2400 bales of 160 to 200 pounds' weight each, had decreased to 700 or 800 bales.

The revolution, of necessity, caused much alteration in the general state of manufactures in France; but Lyons, although its exclusive privileges were withdrawn, remained, and still continues to be, the principal seat of the silk manufacture. At a very early period, this city had acquired celebrity for the brilliancy of its dyes, which were used, not only for its own manufactures, but also for those of Paris and Tours. So much jealousy did the government evince of retaining this superiority, that it prohibited the exportation of dyed silk, lest other countries should imitate and rival the beauty of French manufactured goods: a senseless prohibition, which obliged the silk merchants of France to forego a present advantage, lest at some future period it might possibly escape from them.

At the period when Savary wrote, it is stated that the manufacture of ribands had very much retrograded in France. Those made in Paris were considered as the best; but considerable quantities of an inferior quality were manufactured at Chaumont and St. Etienne. English ribands, which were then admitted into use in France, subject to a duty of four livres per pound, were greatly preferred by the Parisians to

those of their own make, and we consequently enjoyed a considerable trade in them until the year 1701, when the importation of foreign silk goods into France was wholly prohibited.

The first frames used in France for weaving silk stockings were introduced into Paris, from England, in 1656. This manufacture spread so rapidly, that in sixteen years from that time the stocking weavers were considered of sufficient importance to be incorporated by royal ordinance, which at the same time indicated the kinds of silk that it was permitted the manufacturers to use in their construction. Various arrêts were issued by successive monarchs to regulate this branch of industry: from these it appears, that extensive stocking manufactories were established in numerous towns, to which, in the usual meddling spirit of the government, they were restricted in the year 1700. The stocking manufacture no longer exists in the greater part of those towns, but is principally carried on in the Cevennes.

It is stated, in the "Commerce du 19me Siècle," that between the years 1688 and 1741 France annually exported to England manufactured silks to the amount of 124 millions of francs. In 1765 the English government commenced its system of prohibition against the introduction of foreign silk goods; and to this circumstance it must, perhaps, be ascribed, that in the year 1784 the exportation of wrought silks from France to all countries amounted in value to only 25,600,000 francs. In 1789 it had increased to 29,745,000 francs.

Immediately after this, and during the early years of the revolutionary war, the quantity fell off very much; but after a time the trade somewhat revived.

In 1801 the value of exported wrought silk was 39,314,000 francs; in 1820 this had increased to 123,063,000 francs; in. 1821 it was 111,689,000 francs; in 1822, 99,063,000 francs; and in 1823, 84,302,000 francs.

In 1786 Lyons employed 15,000 looms; the ferment of the `incipient revolution reduced this number in the year 1789 one half; when there were 12,700 workmen employed. The state of the manufacture cannot be well ascertained during the convulsions of the revolution; but it is known that among the effects of that dreadful event, the number of silk looms was reduced, that in the year 1800 they amounted to no more than 3500, employing only 5800 artisans in the manufacture. After that time the trade greatly revived. In 1812 it employed 10,720 looms, and 15,506 workmen. In 1824 the silk looms of Lyons were said to amount to 24,000, employing 36,000 men. A Lyons newspaper of 1825 gives the

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