In Southern India this art is practised, chiefly at the towns of Tanjore, Madras, and Secundera bad, on lace, tusseli, silk lace, 'muslin. The Tanjore and Madras works are very superior in quality, and consist of a variety of fancy articles, particu larly pocket-handkerchiefs, worked muslin dresses, scarfs, which show great taste in the patterns and beautiful finish.
The Chinese are famous for their skill in silk embroidery, and in Canton are shops for its sale. Buddhist nuns largely embroider silk. The ekill of the Chinese, says Mr. Williams (Middle Kingdom, p. 123), in embroidery is well known, and the demand for such work to adorn the dresses of officers and ladies of every rank, for embellishing purses, shoes, caps, fans, and other appendages of the dress of both sexes, and in working shawls, tablecovers, .ete., for exportation, furnishes em ployment to numbers of men and women. The frame is placed on pivots, and the pattern is marked out upon the plain surface. All the work is done by the needle, without any aid from machinery. There are ninny styles of work, with thread, braid, or floss, and in oue of the most elegant the design appears the same on both aides, the ends of the threads being neatly concealed. This mode of embroidery seems also to have been known among the Ilebrews, from tbe expression in Deborah's song (Judges v..30),
of ilivers colours of needlework on both sides,' which Sisera's rnother vainly looked for Iiim to bring home as spoil. In China, books are prepared for the use of einbroiderers, containing patterns for them to imitate. Tho silk used in this aft is of the finest kind and colours ; gold and silver thread is occasionally added to impart a lustre to the figures ou caps, purses, and ladies' shoes. A branch of the embrolderer's art consists in tho formation of tassels and twisted cords for sedan's, lanterns, etc., and in the knot* or conled buttous worn on the winter caps, made of cord inter twisted into tho shape of A ball. Spangles aro mado from brass leaves, by cutting out a small ring by means of a double-edged stamp, which at one drive detaches frotu the sheet a wheel-shaped disc ; these are flattened by a single stroke of the hammer upon an anvil, leaving a minute hole in tho centre. Another way of makiog them is to bend a copper wire into a circle and flatten it. The neetlles are very slender, but of good metal. In sewing, the tailor holds it between the fore finger aud thumb, pressing againat the thimble on the thumb, to push it into the eloth.—J. B. Waring, Masterpieces of Industrial Art, Exit. of 1862 ; Aliddle Kingdom, p. 123; Royle, Arts of India, etc., pp. 506, 507 ; Rev. Canon Royle.