In Burma, the manufacture of silk is a lucrative avocation, and many parts of the country are well adapted for it. But the production of raw silk necessitates the destruction of the insects, an act which is looked upon by pious Buddhists with horror. Many years ago, in the wars between Burma and Assam, large numbers of Cathays and Manipurians of both sexes were taken captive to the Burmese capital, where the royal household dress invariably in silk garments. The putsoe worn by men and the ta-ming worn by women are silk, and the Manipurians and Cathay captives were put to weaving. Cathay and Manipurian families have since moved down the river under British protection, and silk twist from t'lle Straits and China has found its way into their hands. All their weaving is done with the hand-loom. They have only a simple loom and a spinning-wheel. The silk is imported in hanks. It has then to undergo a process of winding and cleaning and spinning and doubling, of throwing and reeling. If the colour of the silk is to be changed, it must then be dyed, washed, dried, and wound on bobbins, a delicate series of manipulations through which it must pass before it can be woven. The patterns are a mere matter of personal taste, and they can be woven after any fashion or design. The price of silk varies, but the weaver generally doubleti it as the value of his work. An orna mented piece of Bunnure silk is sold at from two to three rupees per cubit. Ten cubits make an ordinary putsoe, and six a ta-ming. The silk fabrics of Burma look coarse, compared with European manufactured articles, but they are very strong and durable. These Cathay weavers understand ornamental work, and when they am obtain silver and gold thread, such as tassels and fringes as made up in England, they are able to work them up, to blend them up with silk, so as to make a very handsome pattern of an orna mented putsoe or ta-ming. The humbler classes among the Burmese are passionately fond of gay and flashy colours, while those about the palace prefer garments which are rich and chaste, to mere gaudy splendour.
British. India seems to have developed within its own bounds the arts of obtaining the raw silk and of manufacturing it into cloth. None of the many languages of this region, nor in the tongues of Persia and Arabia, have names for silk in any way like to that by which it is known in China. The Indian product appears, however, to have been obtained from wild moths ; and the continuous efforts which have been made to extend the eulti vation of the domesticated mulberry-feeding silk worms of the genus bombyx, have not met with permanent or prolonged success. In the early years of the East India Company silk was an article of trade. But Indian silk was not held in such great esteem as the silks of China, Japan, Siam, and Persia. The earliest of the Madras records, dated 9th November 1670, notifies the !despatch of four factors ou 125, and seven writers on £7 per annum, of whom one factor and one writer, well skilled in silk, were destined for Cassim bazar. The planting of mulberry trees was urged on the zamindars of Bengal, and in 1769 a staff of reelers WaS sent to India from Italy, to introduce into the Bengal filatures the system pursued at Novi. The first consignment of the silk prepared in the Italian 'method reached England in 1772. In Madras, an attempt in 1793 to fost,er it failed, and was abandoned in 1798. During the efforts made by the E. I. Company, the improvements in the reeling and drying were great, but none in the cultivation of the mulberry trees ; and in British India, wherever the mulberry has been depended on, the worms have often been starved, and disease has broken out. Even in Mysore, where the climate is not unsuitable, and great, though fitful, efforts have been made in the Bangalore, Kolar, Mysore, and Tumkur districts, there has been little permanent success, and throughout the country the woven silks have been chiefly from the wild insects, or from the raw product imported from China and Siam. The Mysore Administra tion Report for 1870-71 states that 31 per cent. of the cultivated land was under mulberry, and the value of the silk produced in the province was estimated at 5i lakhs of rupees. The Nundidrug division was said to have exported 4610 maunds (Madras maunds probably).
The East India Company's imports into London of raw silk from Bengal were continuous. From 1793 to 1835, the quantities from Bengal by the Company and private dealers fluctuated greatly from year to year, between 88,219 lbs. in 1797 to 1,387,754 lbs. in 1829. In the eleven years 1850 51 to 1860-61, the value of the silk goods exported from India ranged from £122,787 in 1850-51 to £355,223 in 1860-61. In the last few years, British India has been receiving silk goods from foreign countries to a greater extent than the value of its exports, as will be here shown.
In almost every district of British India, there is silk produced either from the domesticated or wild insect.
Silk thread piece-goods imported into India— Yards. Rs. Yards. Rs.
1874-75, 6,970,667 68,46,991 1881-82, 10,737,731 1,10,60,480 1878.79, 7,350,804 82,28,406 1882-83, 8,518,119 89,02,260 Seven-eighths of it from the United Kingdoni and China, and in nearly equal quantities.
Silk goods of silk mixed with other materials imported into India— Yards. Rs. Yards. Rs.
1874-75, 168,186 1,16,672 1881-82, 1,461,428 10,32,125 1878.79, 1,536,965 9,87,459 1882-83, 1,153,142 8,38,480 Five-sixths of the value from the United King dom. The importation is chiefly into Bengal and Burma.
Silk, raw, imported into India— Lbs. Rs. Lbs. Rs.
1874.75, 2,469,255 87,29,269 1881-82, 1,760,595 74,92,107 1878-79, 1,813,993 66,72,364 1882-83, 2,386,150 1,07,41,556 Three-fourths of it from China.
Hyderabad in the Dekhan.—The chief seat of the tasar manufacture is the town Mandapore, on the right bank of the Godavery, in the Rainghur Circar. The tasar cloths produced at Manda pore are, in durability and fineness, very inferior to the cloths of the same kind manufactured in Bengal. The tasseh worrn-breeders are a class quite distinct from the weavers, and. are either Telingas of low caste or Gonds • the former reside principally at Chilpore, Mandapore, and Chinnore. The cloth is prepared principally for the Hyderabad market. The tassel' breeder never thinks of keeping up the breed of the insect throughout the year. When the leaf is off the tree about the middle of March, be deems his occupation gone, and he leaves the object of his former excessive care to shift for itself ; but with the rains returns his toil. If he can gather a dozen of promising cocoons, which his experience tells him are of females, he is quite satisfied. Care fully does he watch the bursting of the cocoon, and much care does he take of its winged inmate, havino• previously prepared for it a house of teak leave:dried. The male is not tardy in approaching. Impregnation takes plaee, the male dies, and in four days after laying her eggs, the female also. The eggs are in number about sixty ; of these one half prove abortive, while the others are hatched in teu days. The small insect is fed on the tender leaves of the Careya sphmrica, and in six weeks spins its cocoon. The first brood are spared and allowed to burst their cocoons to supply a suffi cient quantity of ova for the tasseh harvest. The same process as described is again gone through, with this exception that the young worms are at this time fed on the feaves of the Pentaptera tomen tosa, as those of the Careya spbmrica are by this period of the season.supposed to have acquired some influence noxious to the insect. During the progress of the worm from the egg to the formation of the cocoon, everY energy of the Cisseh breeder is called into action for the preservation of his charge. Ants destroy them, kites and crows prey on them, snakes devour them and squirrels are said to make a repast of them. The tassel] breeder ascends the Pentaptera tomentosa tree ; he carefully clears every branch of tho different speciea of ants by which they may be infested, preventing the access of others by surrounding the trunk of the tree at its foot with ashes. Tho other enemies aro kept off by shouting, throwing stones, firing guns, etc. ; and it rouses the apa thetic peasant of Telingana to eloquence when he recounts what privations ho undergoes, what pleasure he derives, and what incessant labour he incurs, while watching the rearing of the worm and the perfecting of its work. The tri.sseh moth of the Dekhan is a species of Saturnia. From four to five hundred of tho cocoons are sold to the banya and weavers for one rupee ; the moth is killed by means of heat. There are three tasseh harvests, ono at the end of the rains, the other two in the cold season: The winding of the silk is accomplished by boiling the cocoons, separating the floss, of which no use is made, aud twisting eight or ten filatm.es from as many cocoons on the middle of the thigh with the left hand of the workman, and to be wound on the instrument. This instrument, the middle bar of the wood, is held lightly in the hand of the workman, and made to move in a semicircle. An ounce and a quarter of silk is the average daily winding of a single workman ; his wages are at the common rate of one pie,e for winding the silk of fifty cocoons, about three pice a day, as ho cannot wind more silk than from a hundred and fifty cocoons. The pice, however, are large, and go there by eight to the rupee. The only dyes used for the tasseh silk are the flowers of the 13utea frondosa and turmeric ; by the former the usual familiar colour is produced ; by the latter golden yellow is brought out after the threads are for some time immersed in a solution of ashes. The warp threads are stiffened with rice congee.