RIBBON MANUFACTURE. Ribbon, or Riband, is the well known name for a long narrow web of silk worn for ornament and use. Ribbons of linen, worsted, and gold or silver thread were formerly included in the term, but it is now generally confined to those made of silk. Paris, Tours, Lyon, and Avig non, were originally the chief seats of the ribbon trade ; the two last cities were rivals until the year 1723, when, partly owing to tie regulations which the jealous Lyonnese bad prevailed upon the government to make in their favour, and partly to a plague of two years' continuance, the trade of Avignon was ruined, and in great measure transferred to Lyon. At Paris the master ribbon-weavers were incorporated into a company, under the designation of assailers rubaniers of the town and suburbs of Paris. Figured ribbons were made chiefly at Paris. The ribbons called' double lisse (double warp), which were con sidered the richest and best, were made at Tours. Before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the ribbon-looms of Tours amounted to 3000; but this measure, which banished the Protestants, banished with them their trade, and both Tours and Lyon suffered severely from its effects ; but the trade of Lyon afterwards revived. In 1831 the number of ribbon manufacturers at St. Etienne and St. Chamond was 200. The number of ribbon looms in these towns and the surrounding district, which in 1812 was 9000, had increased to 23,000. Their daily produce was 350,000 ells. There are three kinds of looms in use in that district ; 1st, the old unimproved single-hand loom called basselisse, employed for plain satins and sarsenets. 2nd, the single band loom called hautelisse, generally applied to produce large patterns. 3rd, the h-la-bar, or bar loom, employed in sarsenets, velvets, sarsenet galoons, stout and light satin, and striped gauzes. There are now few ribbons made at Lyon, many of the ribbon-looms being now employed in weaving shawls. The best ribbons made in France are chiefly for the English market ; the home consumption being of the less costly kind.
The making of ribbons and small articles in silk long preceded in England that of broad silk. The trade was principally in the hands of women ; and, like a sickly plant of foreign growth, it appears to have constantly demanded props and support, which have however been removed by recent reforms of the tariff.
Coventry has become the principal seat of the ribbon manufacture in this country, The weaving is done on several systems. We shall-describe these somewhat in detail, as the ribbon trade illustrates the chief points in the silk manufacture generally. The Undertaking System applies now only to the single-hand trade in the country districts,— Bedworth, Nuneaton, Hartshill, Sze, : it is the same that the French have employed since the days of Colbert. According to this plan, the undertaker, or master-weaver, receives the silk dyed in the hank from the manufacturer, and returns it in finished ribbons to his order; all the Intermediate operations being included in the price of weaving—two-thirds of which Are paid. to the journey-hand for his labour. Three-fourths of the single-hand weavers are women, and nearly one half of the remainder are youths under 20. Boys and girls are con sidered competent weavers at la or 17. On the Journey-Work System, by which the great proportion of the in Coventry and its neighbourhood are worked, the manu facturer gives the silk, already wound. and warped, to the ' first-hand journeyman,' who is also the owner of the looms, The shoot silk is given in hank, for the winding of which the manufacturer allows ld. per oz., besides the price for weaving, in which is included the filling,' or the winding of the shoot on the small revolving pins within the shuttles. About one-fourth of the hands employed on this sys tem are women. On the Hand-Factory System the manufacturer is the owner of the looms. The journey-hands work them in the ' loom shop' of the proprietor, who gets the winding and warping done at his own charge, leaving only the filling to the weaver, which is included in the price of his work, and is often done by very young children. A modern innovation, encouraged by the lastsystem, is the employ ment of two hands to a loom, the one being occupied. uninterruptedly in shooting-down,' or passing the shuttle and making the ribbon ; the Other in picking up,' or fastening broken threads, picking out knots, &c. On the Steam Factory System the manufacturer gets every preparatory process done ; and by the steam power one half of the weaving process itself —the shooting down ; all that is left to the weaver being the picking up and super intendence.