The best white hair is generally used for the manufacture of toilet-brushes, and fancy artiolee of similar classes, in which transparency constitutes an element of quality. Inferior whites are utilized in the production of paint-brushes, fishing-lines, &c., colour being then of minor import.
Hair Cloth.—The most important purpose to which horse-hair has been adapted is the manu facture of hair seating. A century ago, its qualities were highly esteemed in this application; but the invention of the Jacquard machine, and its application to the production of upholstery textiles, such as damasks, brocades, tapestries, &c., has caused hair cloth to be relegated to humbler classes of furniture than of old. Its cleanliness, durability, and coolness will, however, always ensure its retention as an upholstery fabric iu warm climates.
By far the largest proportion of hair cloth is black, but it is sometimes made in colours, brocaded and figured, by means of a simple form of Jacquard apparatus, mounted on a hand-loom. This class of goods is a specialty of E. Webb and Sons, Worcester, who have also recently introduced a novelty in horse-hair fabrics, called the " Worcester carpet," mai:1%k similarly to a " Brussels," but having the pile-warp composed of horse-hair. As may be inferred from the nature of the material, it is very durable.
In hair cloth, the warp is necessarily formed of a different fibre, most generally strong cotton or linen yarns. These are dyed and polished. The length of the hair decides the width of the cloth, as there can only be one hair to a pick. To knot the hair, in order to obtain a greater width, would seriously depreciate the quality, if not render it altogether unmerehantable.
Until within the past 20 years, this fabric was everywhere manufactured on the hand-loom, requiring a "server " to pick out thehairs singly from a lock, and hold one end, whilst the other was drawn across the warp by the hook of the weaver. This loom is still occasionally used, but has been generally superseded by a plan which dispenses with a server, the weaver working both baton and book by means of a treadle, and supplying the hair for weft from her own hands. The "one-armed " loom, worked by means of a crank handle, or a long foot-lever, has come into extensive use in cottages, and in factories in which steam power has not been introduced.
To the ingenuity of the Americans we are indebted for an invention by which the above primi tive process was first superseded. The chief difficulty arose from the nature of the material. The filling or weft employed not forming a continuous thread, an arrangement was required capable of picking up and laying in the warp shed each single hair as required, and to accomplish this with certainty and regularity. The wire motion of the carpet-loom undoubtedly suggested one method of overcoming a part of the difficulty. But this was not all that was needed. The arm or rod analogous to the of the carpet-loom was made so as to operate like a finger and thumb, to grasp the hair when presented to it, but it possessed no power of taking up single hairs. Further mechanism was needed to secure this object, and many years passed before it was perfected.
In the Pawtucket loom, the work of picking up and presenting each separate hair to the receiving-rod is performed by a piece of mechanism at the side, containing a pair of nippers, called a "picker," one jaw of which has a groove or alit, almost invisible to the naked eye. This picker dips into a bunch of hair, and seizing one by the end, draws it up out of the bunch, and presents it to the before-mentioned rod, by the fingers of which it is carried transversely between the threads of the open warp. The motion of the picker is arrested until the hair has been laid between the warp, when it is again set free, and descends for another hair. A clever arrangement also provides that should the picker fail to seize a hair at the first dip, it can make a second or third before the receiving•rod cornea for the hair.
Iu the factory of the Pawtucket Hair Cloth Co.. where thi; invention was perfected and applied, a young girl is able to superintend 10 looms, thus performing the work of 20 persons when engaged upon the old hand-looms. The Pawtucket loom has been brought into extensive use, both in this country and on the Continent, for weaving hair cloth.