BENGAL STRIPES, known also by the appella tion of Gingham, is one of the numerous varieties of the cotton manufacture which have been derived from Indian sources, and recently cultivated to very great extent in Britain. A very near relative of the writer of this article, was the first person who manu factured them to any extent, for the purpose of sale in Scotland ; and their introduction in Lancashire, where they have been carried to a prodigious height, is still more recent. The Bengal or gingham, is a stout but generally rather fine fabric, of coloured striped cotton ; and these stripes are sometimes cros sed, with either similar or dissimilar stripes, by the woof, so as to form a check. The fabric of the Ben gal stripes is generally designed to assimilate it to the heavier kinds of, printed cottons used for women's ap parel. A kind of a much denser fabric, and generally of much larger patterns, is also manufactured for hangings of beds, window curtains, sofa and chair covers, and other kinds of domestic furniture. A great part of their excellence, when well manufactu red, consists in strength of fabric and brilliancy of co lour. Of the fabric, as it was first practised in Scot land, a very near idea may be had by taking about No. 32 for a 1200 reed, and, in this dense fabric, ta king the proportion already stated, (as the squares of the reeds, so are the numbers of the warp,) the deviation from actual practice will not be great. The great expense of the Turkey red dye, which is the most prevalent colour, renders this article very ex pensive when the dyed is bold and coarse ; and this circumstance has occasioned a very great falling off in the quality of these stuffs. The first expedient generally practised, is to make the coloured warp very considerably finer than the white ; for, as the price of the dye, which is charged by the weight, greatly exceeds the original cost of the yarn, it be comes a great object in point of price, to save as much as possible in this respect. But, when the coloured warp is very disproportionally finer than the general body of the texture, besides the deterioration which the general fabric sustains, the brilliancy of the colour is inevitably lost ; . for the dyed warp is so sunk and concealed in the density of the general fabric, as only to produce a very faint effect. The whole fabric, par
ticularly in the Lancashire goods, is sometimes also made extremely flimsy, and the defect is concealed from the superficial and ignorant observer, by the mode of dressing and finishing the goods, so as to give them an appearance of at least tolerable density of fabric ; but the illusion is completely dissipated by the first wetting to which they are afterwards expo= sed. This mode of finishing consists merely in starching the cloth when bleached with a very thick mucilage, which completely insinuates itself into every vacancy between the threads ; and then either dres sing it with the paper or pasteboard cylinders, which will be descrihed in the article CALENDER, or giving it high glazing with wax and the flint, as also described in the same article. In this state, when stiffened with the mucilage and well smoothed, it has a beautiful and glossy appearance ; and really, in some respect, re sembles the appearance of a sheet of well made wri ting paper ; but whenever the starch, with which every part is fully saturated and impregnated, is dis solved by moisture, the thinness and poverty of the fabric is fully detected. The stripes which are made for furniture, requiring greater strength than those for garments, are more dense and close in the fa bric than the others. If No. 24 of cotton yarn be taken for a 1200 reed, and other fabrics cal culated by the same analogy as the former, something very near what takes place in common practice will be found. In the latter article, the colouring of the stripekis generally much heightened, by making that part of the texture of tweeted, instead of plain cloth. As the fast colours, such as purple, claret, Turkey red, blue, and buff, are generally employed, the fa bric, if less susceptible of great ornamental variety than printed cloths, is generally very superior in the greater requisites of brilliancy and durability ; and hence it is in higher estimation with those who study economy, and prefer durability to show. In an eco nomical comparison with prints, among other advan tages which loom woven stripes possess, is their be ing totally free from the excise duty of three-pence halfpenny square yai-cl, which attaches to the former ; and, in coarse articles, forms a very heavy tax, being often above 20 per cent. ad valorem.(J. D. )