. MUSLIN.
Neteldoek, . . . DUT. Moussolina, . . . IT.
Mousseline, . . . Fa. Sans sells; . . . POL.
Musselin, . . . GER. Kissea, . . . . RUB. Nesseltueh Moselina, . . . . Sr. Malmal, Saila, . . HIND.
A fine cotton fabric, extensively manufactured in India, in Europe, and America. There are in commerce a great variety of kinds and qualities, hs book - muslin, cambric - muslin, mull - muslin, etc. Until the middle of the 19th century, from the earliest times India was famed for the delicacy of its cotton fabrics. The work of its looms was of a splendour unknown to European weavers. The gold and white, gold and purple, white and silver muslins, for colour, taste, and delicacy of arrangement, were artistic triumphs. Some of them of gossamer transparency, were used for the dresses of the Indian princes; and of their families.
After the conquests of Alexander, Greek art undoubtedly exercised an influence on oriental architecture and sculpture, perhaps on oriental imagery generally, more particularly that of Persia. But the Indian textile splendours are of oriental origin, and the Greeks adopted the beautiful combinations and fabrics after they got a hold on Asia Minor ; and as imperial Rome adopted the arts of Greece, and absorbed every clement of luxury that the world could offer, the light and transparent textiles of India found their way to the wardrobes of the patricians, and the way in which men as well as women adopted such transparent draperies in open day became a theme for the strictures of moral writers of thetime.
The muslins made in Dacca in Bengal, and Arnee in Chingleput, were long celebrated, Dacca especially, for its webs of woven wind employed thousands of bands ; but it was with great difficulty that the specimens of the fabrics sent to the Great Exhibition of 1851. were pro cured. The kind of cotton (which is very short in the staple) employed was little grown, and scarcely a loom then existed which was fit for the finest fabrics. Dacca muslin was. made from cotton grown in the vicinity, the thread from which does not swell.
Chicacole and Upada, a few miles north of Cocanada, formerly produced fine muslins.
At Maderpak in N. Arcot, the thread used in weaving muslin of the finest kind is spun from a peculiar kind of cotton, known by the vernacular name of Pu Parthi. The weavers purchase this thread ready spun from a colony of Pariahs who have settled in the neighbourhood, and who have the speciality of its preparation. After the cotton is carefully cleaned and picked, it is laid by in cloth bundles for two or three years, when it is rolled in plantain bark and then wound off.
For the exceedingly fine Dacca muslins, the Ab-rawan or running water, and Shab-nam or night-dew, there is now no demand. The native nobility of India do not patronize the finest sort, and there is no market for them elsewhere. In 1862 there was only a single family of weavers in Dacca who could manufacture the very finest quality ; and it took them six months to make up one piece, but even for this piece they got no orders. Besides, the particular kind of cotton, supposed to be finer than the finest New Orleans staple, from which alone the thread was spun, is now never grown. The principal varieties of muslins manufactured at Dacca are Malmal Khas, Shab-nam, Khasa, Jhuna Circar Ali, Tan-zeb, Alabullee, Nynsook, Buddun Khas, Turandam, Sarbuti, and Sarbund,—names which denote fineness, beauty, or transparency of tex ture, or the uses to which they are put. There were exhibited also Charkhana. Chunderkoora Malmal, Junglekhassa. Kurnool muslin.
Striped or Dooria. Maderpak muslin from N.
Spotted or Bootee. Arcot.
Jamdanee, figured muslin.
The famous Arnee muslins, of which book muslins are an imitation, are prepared at Arnee in the Chingleput district. They sell according to quality. At the 1851 and 1862 Exhibitions, Dacca muslins stood successful in comparison with those of Europe, and the Industrial Museum at London had a piece 20 yards x 1 yard, weigh ing only 7i oz. An excellent specimen of Dacca manufacture, shown in 1851, proved to be of No. 357s. yarn, and that of 1862, 380s. Some machine made muslin in the 1851 and 1862 Exhibitions was superior in point of fineness, according to the mode of computation adopted.