STRAW HATS
THEIR HISTORY
AND MANUFACTURE

BLOCKING MACHINE
“CARRE VIVE BROCHIER”

Inventors and Makers of other special adjusting, dressing and pressing machines and accessories for the manufacture of STRAW BOATERS of perfect and correct shape

SOCIÉTÉ ANONYME DES ETABLISSEMENTS

J. B. BROCHIER, 8 Rue de la Viabert, LYON

COMFORT IN HATS

Amongst the allied trades associated with the Straw Hat Industry must be included the production of the Pneumatic or Easy-Fitting Sweats or Leathers, which during the last 25 years have been the chief means of establishing the Straw Boater as the most popular Summer Head-wear.

THE HAT MANUFACTURERS’ SUPPLY CO., LTD.,
of Stockport, England, make claim to be the producers of the best of these kind, and many of their patent productions have a place in the History of the Straw Hat Industry; the following have stood out prominently: “IVY” and “MARVEL,” but apparently the zenith was reached with the production of the World-famed—

Patent
“BON-TON IVY”

This patent Comfort Leather is acknowledged as the “LANDMARK” in Head-comfort for any Hat. And considerably over twenty millions have been sold for Straw Hats alone, which fact must undoubtedly prove that this Leather has been greatly instrumental in aiding the progress of the Straw Boater; so much so, that the Patentees have appointed manufacturing agents in various parts of the World to cope with the increasing demand.

The latest production in these Easy-fitting Leathers is the—

(Patent)
“NEW BON-TON IVY”
(introduced 1921)

which is suitable for any kind of hats and, like its well-known parent patent, guarantees Perfect Fit, Comfort, and Ventilation.

It is worth bearing in mind that all genuine “Bon-Ton Ivy” leathers have adjustable Elastic Fitting, also see name Stamp on the leather.

Patentees and Sole Manufacturers, at the
HEADQUARTERS FOR HATTERS’ SPECIALITIES.
Gold Printers, etc.

THE
HAT MANUFACTURERS SUPPLY Co., Ltd.
PRETORIA WORKS, STOCKPORT, ENGLAND

Samples on Application.

Téléphone:
No. 829

Télégrammes:
BURGISSER, FLORENCE

Soc. An. Burgisser

ITALIAN
Milans and Fancy Braids
Men’s and Ladies’ Leghorns

— — — —
Fancy Bodies Novelties
— — — —
BLEACHING and DYEING
— — — —
FLORENCE
VIA MASACCIO 149
— — — —

SOLE REPRESENTATIVES—
E. T. RABAN & SONS
3–6 Australian Avenue, London, E.C.1

Established over 100 Years

Benjamin Bennett
LTD.

Manufacturers of

Ladies’ and Children’s Hats, Trimmed and Untrimmed—Velours, Felts, Straws, and Fancies, also all kinds of Strawboard and Leatherboard Boxes

Factories:
Connaught House, Upper George Street, Luton
17 & 22 High Street, Dunstable

Showrooms & Offices:
61 George Street, Luton

Telegrams: Beebee Luton
Telephones: Luton 921 (2 lines); Dunstable 3

H. GODFREY & CO.
ENGINEERS TO THE HAT TRADE

Makers of the Keston Blocking Machines

14a STUART STREET, LUTON

The London Varnish and Enamel Co., Ltd.
Successors to Conrad Wm. Schmidt (F. A. Glaeser), Ltd.
City Works
Carpenters Road, Stratford
London, E.15, England

THE ORIGINAL AND LARGEST
——MANUFACTURERS OF——
STRAW HAT POLISHES
IN ALL COLOURS

LUTON

BRAND

TRADE MARK

These Spirit Hat Polishes were introduced in 1878 and have been extensively used ever since in Luton, London, and all Hat Making Centres throughout
——the World——

A.B.C. CODE 4th and 5th EDITION USED CABLE ADDRESS: “LOVARNAMEL, LONDON”

H. Spratley
(Late H. SPRATLEY & SON)

16, 18 & 20 Barber’s Lane, Luton

The Oldest Established Firm in the Trade for the making of
Ladies’, Gent’s,
and
Children’s Shapes
for
Straws and Felts
in
Wood, Plaster, Iron, Spelter and Aluminium Pans and Dishes. All Accessories for the Trade

The Noted Blockmaker for High-Class Work

Tel. 778

ESTABLISHED 1866

Colling & Company
Proprietor: Chas F. Colling

Plain and Fancy Silk, Satin and Cotton Goods

Manufacturers of all kinds of Hat Linings

39 King Street, Luton
Telegrams: “Colling, King St., Luton”
Telephone: Luton 17

PITMAN’S COMMON COMMODITIES AND INDUSTRIES SERIES

Each book in crown 8vo, illustrated, 3/- net

• TEA. By A. Ibbetson
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STRAW HATS

Always leading for Style and Quality

Model as worn 25–30 years ago
MANUFACTURED BY
FRANK HARDEN

Frank Harden, Ltd.

Manufacturers of
LADIES’ HATS
of all descriptions
WHOLESALE AND SHIPPING ONLY

58–62 Bute Street
Luton

Telegrams: Harden, Luton
Codes: Marconi and A.B.C. 5th edition

Model as worn 1922 season
MANUFACTURED BY
FRANK HARDEN, LTD.

FINISHING, LINING AND TRIMMING STRAW HATS

Frontispiece

PITMAN’S COMMON COMMODITIES
AND INDUSTRIES

STRAW HATS
THEIR HISTORY
AND MANUFACTURE

BY
HARRY INWARDS
EX-PRESIDENT LUTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

LONDON
SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD.
PARKER STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2
BATH, MELBOURNE, TORONTO, NEW YORK

PRINTED IN BATH, ENGLAND
BY SIR ISAAC PITMAN AND SONS, LTD.

TO
MY WIFE
EMILY INWARDS

A
LOVING TRIBUTE

Cable Address:
“Attention, Luton.”

Codes: A B C (4th, 5th & 6th Editions)
A1, Bentley’s, & Marconi

Henry Durler
and Son, Ltd.

Importers, Exporters,
Bleachers & Dyers
of all kinds of
Chinese and Japanese
Straw Plaits
for
Hat Manufacture

Luton, Bedfordshire
ENGLAND

FOREWORD

It will be noticed throughout this book that the author has deviated from the dictionary methods of spelling words illustrative of the action of plait.

The Oxford Dictionary reads—

“Plait (pleit, ploet, plit) ... see also plat.”

“Plat. To form hats, etc., is now a less usual spelling than plait.”

“Plat-ting, the action of plat.”

Nuttall gives the pronunciation of plait as plate, and that of the action word plaited as plated.

In the district where the manufacture is sufficiently ancient to have established a claim to its regular pronunciation, plait, as it is invariably spelt, has always been pronounced plat, and the action words plat-ter, plat-ted, and plat-ting.

That this is not a local solecism of pronunciation is proved by the renderings given under the headings plat and platting in the Oxford Dictionary, and further, a literary and ancient example can be found in “A Lover’s Complaint,” where Shakespeare speaks of “a plat-ted hive.”

The author thinks it is time some definite method, in proper accord with the custom of the industry, should be adopted, and he proposes a precedent, which he claims to be well founded and sensible, viz., to continue to use the word plait (pronounced plat) as the substantive, and to establish the spelling plait-ter, plait-ted and plait-ting as designations of the action words properly interpreting the universal pronunciation.

I should like to express grateful thanks for assistance and information given me in the course of my work, to Messrs. Murry Barford (Mayor of Luton), of Barford & Sons, Luton; Percy Currant, of Currant & Creak, Luton; Henry George Draper, of Walsh & Sons, Luton; George Field, of Luton; Henry Gregory, of Gregory & Sons, Barbican, London, E.C.; Charles Hubbard, of Luton; Thomas Mann, of Vyse Sons & Co., Luton; James Saunders, F.L.S., of Saunders & Son, Luton; Frank E. Shoosmith, of Luton; John Irving Wright, J.P., of Luton; all of whom have intimate knowledge of the straw trade and its machinery; and to Mr. T. Maw, Librarian Luton Public Library.

The help of these gentlemen has materially added to the correctness of many details, of which my knowledge was uncertain.

HARRY INWARDS

Luton.
31st March, 1922.

CONTENTS

ERMEN & ROBY’S
COTTON
IS LUTON’S FAVOURITE
BRAND

White and Black on 10,000 Yard Reels
All Colours on 5,000 Yard Reels

ILLUSTRATIONS

EVERY DESCRIPTION OF STRAW HATS
OF
GUARANTEED
EXCELLENCE

English
Boater
Genuine
“Luton
Lodge”
REGD.

English
Boater
Genuine
“Walsh
Luton”
REGD.

Established 1862

ROWLAND CUNNINGHAM
(Wm. Walsh) LIMITED
STRAW HAT MANUFACTURERS
STUART LODGE HAT WORKS
LUTON, BEDS

Telegraphic Address:
“WALSH LUTON”
Telephone: 132 LUTON

Code A B C 4th & 5th Editions
MARCONI’S, BENTLEY’S

STRAW HATS

CHAPTER I
ORIGIN AND CLASSICAL HISTORY

The origin of what is known as a “Straw Hat” is lost in the mists of antiquity.

Ambiguous references to what may have been hats of vegetable materials are to be found in the works of almost all ancient writers, but very little that is specific can be discovered. Perhaps one reason for the paucity of information on this subject may be that the home made hats of plaitted straws or rushes were probably worn only by the common people. With society, as it existed in early days, if such were the case, the matter would be considered almost too vulgar for the classical writers to mention.

Doubtless in the earliest stages of human development any kind of convenient material was utilized by primeval man in the endeavour to keep his head or body warm or cool as the case might require.

Now the mere fact of the shelter afforded by trees would create some inducement towards using leaves for covering the body, for one may assume that even before vegetable products were gathered and used, say, as thatch, for collective shelter, some of them were adopted for individual protective purposes.

The earliest reference to such is the well-known account of the “aprons of fig leaves” mentioned in the third chapter of Genesis. This primitive method of clothing was soon followed by the use of skins (as noted later in the same chapter), but even in this record the vegetable product was used by man before that of animals, and shows in a most unmistakable, even if allegorical, manner, the natural trend of all development, viz., that articles easiest to procure are those that are first used.

Fig. 1
PETASUS, FROM PARTHENON FRIEZE (ELGIN MARBLE) BY PHIDIAS (circ. 450 B.C.)
Shaded part is now broken.

It is, therefore, not unfair to assume that the manipulation of vegetable fibres, such as leaves, rushes, straws and other similar products, was really the earliest textile operation. That once conceded, it is no long step to the use of the “plaitted” article as a head covering.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its articles on “Costume” and “Hats” states that the “modern hat can be traced back to the Petasus worn by the ancient Romans when on a journey”; and similar hats, known as Kausia, were also used by the ancient Greeks on like occasions.

The Greek Kausia and the Roman Petasus are described as “hats of a pliant material which could be bent down at the sides like that worn by Atalanta.”

La Croix, a French writer on the subject, assures us that the early Romans and Franks “sought Bast and Straw of which to make them hats,” and there is an antique statue of Mercury in the Vatican at Rome, which has for head covering a hat of a “wide-awake” nature, sculptured in close imitation of a finely plaitted straw.

The Goddess Hera (the Grecian name for the Roman Juno), Queen of Olympus, is depicted on ancient vases, coins and statues wearing a Stephanos [one of the statues, the original of which was by Praxiteles (350 B.C.), representing Hera Teleia standing, is known to moderns by copies to be found in the Vatican and other museums]. Pausanias (c. 160 B.C.) speaking of the coins of Argos, specifically describes Hera as wearing a Stephanos. This was a head covering consisting only of a crown, similar in shape to a modern Turkish fez inverted, of the same breadth and height all round, and was made of various vegetable products.

Fig. 2
STEPHANOS, FROM TERRA-COTTA (700 B.C.), BRITISH MUSEUM

In the British Museum is to be seen a small terra-cotta figure seated wearing the above sketched Stephanos in which the plaitting marks of coarse vegetable fibres are very distinct. This is probably the earliest extant record, in the plastic art, of a straw hat.

“Wicker work (poloi kalathoi) was also used by the ancient Greeks to make brim-less hats.” (Gerard. Antike Bildwerke.)

The ancient Etruscans wore what was known as a Tutulus, a brimless hat with a high pointed centre to the crown; and a broad brimmed hat similar to the Petasus, but with a pointed top like the Tutulus.

Etruria covered the district now occupied by the Italian straw plait and hat makers, but while there is an extreme likelihood, from the shape of the hat in the accompanying sketch, that the denizens of this fertile champaign, producing as it does, and probably did, unlimited materials that could be plaitted, made these hats of straw, there is no definite information as to their being constructed of any vegetable fibres.

Fig. 3
ETRUSCAN HAT (circ. 440 B.C.), HEAD OF PELEUS FROM PAINTING ON EARTHENWARE DISH FOUND IN A TOMB AT VULCI

Another very important link of classical interest with the remote past is shown in the two sketches of hats and bonnets as worn by the ancient inhabitants of ill-fated Pompeii.

The mural decorations of this long-buried city illustrate in a far more cogent manner than any other known examples, the probable actual appearance of the people who lived there before its catastrophe, and the hat shown on the head of Penelope is a model that has been imitated during the last thirty-five years. The little knob on the top is, however, quite novel.

The other example from Pompeii is from a comic fresco in which two men, dressed as women, are having an altercation, and here the artist has not only shown the lines which indicate the ridges of a woven vegetable fibre hat, but this painting provides the first known drawing of a Bonnet. Note the tilt at which it is worn, and the portion cut out at base to admit the neck, and also the absolute resemblance to what is known as a “Granny” Bonnet.

Fig. 4
HAT WORN BY PENELOPE

Fig. 5
BONNET

A very famous writer of antiquity (perhaps the one best known, except Caesar, to all scholars of Latin), Virgil, makes allusion in his Pastorals to the “plaitting of osiers and willows.”

Probably there is no race of men that has so closely maintained to the present time its ancient forms of clothing, as have the Arabs; and they occasionally wear a hat made of twisted bands of straw similar to a beehive. They are the only Moslems that do, and there is no trace of any other people of that religion wearing a similar head covering.

All this evidence from the Graeco-Roman and other ancient sources proves that the making in some way of straw hats was fairly general even in the earliest times in the countries of Asia Minor and south-eastern Europe, but some writers on the subject favour the claims of the Black Forest of Germany as having been the birthplace of the industry. This, of course, may be so, although no Germanic or Teutonic writers of equal antiquity have handed down such direct evidence as that of the Graeco-Romans.

But it seems a little invidious for any special part of the world to make such a claim, for doubtless the weaving of vegetable fibres was not confined to any particular area, but that primeval man all over the world practised the operation for his own needs.

There are no British records of straw hats until A.D. 1459, when it is narrated that Sir John Fastolfe died possessed of “ij Strawen hattes”; the “Promtorium parvulorum” of about that date renders the “hatte of straw” as capedulum.

Spenser, Shakespeare and Thynne, brilliant luminaries of the Elizabethan period, all make allusions to the straw hat.

Spenser, the Poet Laureate of Good Queen Bess (who herself is said to have worn a straw hat that may still be seen at Hatfield House), quite early in the sixteenth century says—

“Some plaid with straws,” etc.:

while Thynne, about 1570, in his “Debate between Pride and Lowliness” writes of a man with

“A strawen hatte upon his head

“The which was fastened underneath.”

Shakespeare in The Tempest (Act IV, Scene 1) makes Iris say—

“You sunburned sicklemen, of August weary

“Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;

“Make holyday: your rye straw hats put on

“And these fresh nymphs encounter every one

“In country footing.”

In A Lover’s Complaint, the immortal bard still further emphasizes the use, which apparently was fairly general, of the straw hat—

“Upon her head a platted hive of straw

“Which fortified her visage from the sun.”

This passage is interesting first on account of the use of the word hive. This object, as used for beekeeping, was without doubt very familiar to Shakespeare, and therefore the maid’s head covering, as it existed in the imagination of the poet, was probably similar to that worn by the Arabs mentioned previously, for she and they wore it as a protection against the sun’s heat. Second, Shakespeare’s spelling of the word “platted” was undoubtedly the method of spelling current at the time and was phonetic. (The author in the “Foreword” bases his reasons for using the double T in “plaitting” or “plaitter” in conjunction with the modern spelling of the word on this and other more recent well-known examples of literature co-eval with the birth of the trade in Great Britain.)

Ben Jonson, the Poet Laureate of James I, about 1630, in an epigram to Lady Mary Wroth, writes—

“He that saw you wear the wheaten hat,” etc.

The inimitable diarist, Pepys, describes an actress at the Duke’s Theatre as “dressed like a country maid with a straw hat on”: and mentions that while staying at Hatfield, “The women (of the party) had pleasure in putting on some Straw Hats, which are much worn in this country, which did become them mightily, but especially my wife!!”

It may be interesting at this point to mention a widely known subject, of which interpretations have been greatly at fault. One of Peter Paul Rubens’ best known paintings is entitled “La Dame au Chapeau de Poil.” The subject is of a lady wearing a large brimmed and somewhat high crowned hat adorned with a sweeping plume of feathers, and many writers on straw hats have endeavoured to show that the hat of the picture was made of straw, arguing that the word “Poil” in the title was an ancient form of the French word for straw, viz., “Paille.” It is true that some old Gaelic writers in mentioning the stalks of cereals have used various methods of spelling the equivalent for straw; “Pail,” “Paile” and “Paill” are to be found in sixteenth and seventeenth century books, but in no case has the word “Poil” ever been used, and quite rightly so, because this word means an entirely different thing, and is used to-day with the same spelling and for the same purpose as it was in the sixteenth century. “Poil” means “nap,” a raised “pile,” which can be obtained on various fabrics. This consists of a sufficient number of the loose ends of the staple, of which the material is woven or felted, being left on the surface, or afterwards raised by means of combs, etc., so as to form either a velvety richness on which the loose ends stand upright, or a glossy finish, like that obtained on a man’s top hat, where the loose ends are smoothed down. The real translation of the picture’s title is “The lady with a Pile hat,” in this case undoubtedly of some felted nature and of which the actual modern equivalent would be either a beaver, flamand or velour.

From this time onwards, as printing became more general, allusions to straw hats became frequent, and, with the advent of periodicals of fashions, etc., for ladies, both letterpress and illustrations confirm their widespread use. Naturally detail began to be given, and the poet Gay (cir. 1714) in his Pastorals sings of

“My new straw hat, thus trimly lined with green.”

In the Ladies Dictionary (1694) under the heading of “Apparel,” straw hats are mentioned as among the things “necessary to feminine adornment.”

Miss Constance Isherwood says that “Straw hats—became the rage among the reigning beauties of Queen Anne’s court and the early Georgian period.”

The Ladies’ Magazine of the eighteenth century has many plates showing various styles of what are certainly straw hats, the design and manipulation of the straws in woven hats and the detail of the plait in sewn hats being very carefully and distinctly engraved.

These excerpts from ancient as well as more recent authorities all tend to show the widespread use of the straw hat, and prove that the term “straw” was, as it is now, a most comprehensive one, and one in no way entirely confined to the stalks of cereals.

But they also show that, although straw hats were made all over the Continent, etc., the work on them was purely individual and local. There were no recognized centres of manufacture or distribution, for, excepting the fact that some localities were more productive of suitable materials for plaitting than others, the making of straw hats was universal, and it is not until the sixteenth century that any reliable information is obtainable of special centres for straw hat production. According to Cesare Cantu, a well-known Italian historian, the manufacture of hats of straw in the neighbourhood of Florence, for distribution outside the locality, can be traced back to the fourteenth century. This is probably quite true, but unfortunately the statement is not corroborated by any contemporaneous evidence. But in the year 1574, Signa, a village near Florence, was entitled “the original seat of the industry.” (From a consular report.) It is, therefore, almost safe to declare that the commercial life of the straw hat began in the district of Florence, and here, probably, for the first time in history, were to be found gathered together in sufficiently large numbers to make their wares marketable, persons both male and female engaged in weaving straws into hats, or capelli, or in plaitting straws into braids, which were called paglia or plait.

From Tuscany to Piedmont is not a “far cry,” and Coryat in his Crudities (a work published in 1611 and consisting of a series of observations made in a journey through Europe) says, “at many places in Piemont I observed most delicate strawen hats, which both men and women use in most places of that Province.”

Again, Piedmont is not very distant from Lorraine, and it is from this latter district, which was the country of the birthplace of her mother, that Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have brought plaitters to Scotland in 1552, and thus to have introduced the art to the British Isles.

Some writers on this subject, failing to discriminate between plait and hats, adduce many adverse arguments (see below) when the claim is made that the unfortunate queen established the trade in the coasts of Britain. These point to the undoubted fact that straw hats were made both in Scotland and England before her time. That, of course, is quite true, but what is not equally certain is whether the hats made in the British Isles before 1552 were hats woven in one piece, or hats made of plaitted braid sewn afterwards in some manner to the required shape. In the old account of the transaction one reads that in Lorraine Mary noticed the people “profitably employed, some in plaitting straws and others in working (sic) the straw plait into hats.” It is, therefore, evident that it was an established industry in Lorraine and that both operations were being carried on. One may also deduce that, while the weaving of hats may have been common in Scotland, the making of plait and the subsequent making into hats was a novelty to Mary, and, therefore, in the interests of her Scottish subjects, she endeavoured to promote a similar industry in which they also might be “profitably employed.”

The late Mr. John Waller, of Luton, a member of one of the oldest families connected with the straw trade, after a careful and apparently unbiased investigation, says that the statement about Mary being the founder of the industry “can only be regarded as pleasing fiction”; and to support this quotes from Oldmixon’s History of England (edition of 1724) “That the manufacture of straw plait had thriven for about 100 years in the neighbourhood of Hemel Hempstead and Dunstable.” But from 1552 to 1624 is a long period, and one can easily imagine the natives of sunny Lorraine feeling none too homelike in “Caledonia, stern and wild.” With the accession of James I (Mary’s son) to the English throne, what could be more natural than the migration of these workers to more genial southerly temperatures, bringing with them their art? As James became king in 1603 there would have been plenty of time for the industry of making plait for sewing into hats being established between then and 1624, which would be exactly 100 years before Oldmixon’s account! And speaking of the advent of the Lorrainers into Beds and Herts, Mr. Thomas George Austin, in his book on the Straw Hat and Bonnet trade of the Luton District, writes, “It is said to be the true history of the introduction of the handicraft into England.”

One must, therefore, come to the conclusion that the system of making hats from plait, as distinct from the weaving the hat in one piece, was introduced by Mary, Queen of Scots, to Scotland, and from thence the method came south, and for reasons which will be set out hereafter, settled itself in the regions of South Bedfordshire, North-east Hertfordshire, and East Buckinghamshire.

CHAPTER II
COMMERCIAL RISE AND GROWTH

The history of a straw hat has thus been traced down to the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Prior to this period all kinds of straws, grasses, and fibres of vegetables had been utilized in the operation, the only limit as to material being the growths peculiar to the locality in which hat-making was carried on, so one may see that, as each locality probably grew different kinds of fibres, the result of the finished hats was different.

This difference early gave rise to local nomenclature, perhaps the first collective term was “Leghorn” (circ. 1650. Tomlinson’s Cyclopaedia, 1867). This now well-known variety of straw hat, woven first in braids and then cunningly put together in spiral sequence to the required shape, is not sewn overlapping, but with the braids laid edge to edge, and a fine tough straw or other fibre threaded through every other head on the impinging edges of the plait, and then drawn tight, so that the opposite heads fitting between and inside each other assumed the appearance of being woven in one piece, except that where the join took place, the thickness caused by the heads of the plait and the threading material, produced a ridge which, starting from the centre and running spirally to the edge of the brim, is one of the prominent characteristics of a “Leghorn.” This term, therefore, embodies, first, the place of origin; second, the material used; third, the method of using. If other local terms were thus early applied to straw productions, they have not, as far as the Continent of Europe is concerned, come down to modern times, all other names now in use (and they are legion) are the products of the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

All the materials used for plaitting up to about 1745 had been worked whole, that is, the fibre whether rush, grass or straw, was plaitted as it was grown, and consequently the hats of coarse weaving largely predominated; there being naturally a preponderance of the coarser parts of any vegetable growth.

Further, the manipulation of the bigger fibres was easier to fingers perhaps only infrequently devoted to the work, and therefore up to this period the majority of straw hats were thick and weighty. There were exceptions such as Leghorns that were plaitted from a variety of bearded wheat or rye (Triticum turgidum) grown in Tuscany. This was light in weight, comparatively tough, and of a fine natural golden colour. The upper part of the straw called Punta (or point) was used for all Leghorn hats, and also for making plait which was called Tuscan, from the locality of growth. When Tuscan was the only straw plait exported from Italy, Great Britain was one of the purchasers, and during the early part of the nineteenth century up to the repeal of the Corn Laws and the abolition of protective duties on other goods, British importers of Tuscan plait had to pay a duty of 8s. per lb. weight.

The desire to produce straw hats of less weight brought the bottom half of the straw column into use. That portion generally has a sheath, protecting it from the sun, which being stripped disclosed the under part of pearly white colour, this from being at the foot was called pedale, and although not so tough as the punta, was sufficiently so for plaitting purposes, and was very much lighter in weight. The first parcel of pedale plait arrived in Great Britain in 1878, and is supposed to have been purchased by Messrs. Carruthers & Co., of Luton.

But even then the quantity of fine pedale straws grown did not suffice for the increasing demands for straw hats.

The Italian straw, being so well established as the best material, caused workers to endeavour to find similar straw in other countries which had adopted straw hat making as a commercial undertaking.

It is probable that the climate of Scotland was not alone the cause for the migration of the Lorrainers; the search for fine white, light, straws, impossible to obtain in the cold north, may have drawn these operatives to the southern parts of England. Whatever the actual reason or reasons, it is certain that by 1624 the neighbourhood of South Bedfordshire (Dunstable), North-west Hertfordshire (Hemel Hempstead), and probably East Buckinghamshire was producing higher grade straw hats than any hitherto obtainable in the British Isles. The district comprises practically the whole of the Eastern ranges of the Chiltern Hills, an area of chalky subsoil. The discriminating Lorrainers quickly discovered the extreme beauty of colour of the Chiltern straws, and it is almost certain that for this reason alone the art of making plait braid was introduced into the locality, which from 1624 onwards has been undoubtedly the centre of the British straw hat industry.

Later on the straw plait making spread to portions of Essex and Suffolk, and although the plaits produced there were of much inferior quality and colour to those produced in the Chilterns, and, generally speaking, were not utilized for the highest class work, they formed a very useful adjunct to the plait stocks required by hat manufacturers when large quantities were needed. Another English centre for straw plaitting was Ripon in Yorkshire, the district around being the seat of quite a fair-sized industry. It is interesting to note this, for it seems to show that the Lorrainers in their southerly migration, had stopped en route, and had sampled the straws grown on the Yorkshire chalk.

But all this evidence tends to prove that the nature of the soil which produced the proper straw for plaitting caused the trade to localize around Dunstable. This ancient borough, practically in the centre of the plaitting districts, situated on the Watling Street, along which passed all the traffic between London and the north-west of England and Northern Wales, at the junction of the Icknield way (another ancient Roman road crossing the Watling Street towards the east and west), was in the middle of the fifteenth century alive all day with the hum of people and merchandise travelling to and fro. Sitting astride of the trunk roads leading everywhere in Great Britain, it is small wonder that this little town, of vast ecclesiastical importance in the Middle Ages, but much decayed since the time of Henry VIII, became the place from whence all the products of the neighbourhood could be dispatched.

And, therefore, the name of “Dunstable,” another of the now world-known local names, was given to the plait, hats and bonnets which emanated from the whole vicinity.

The great preponderance of coarse straws, combined with the increasing demands for hats made of fine plaits, caused straw workers to endeavour to make the straws smaller by splitting the “pipes” (as the whole straw is called) into narrower portions called “splints.” This was done at first with a knife, but the result was generally unsatisfactory, although some skilled workers managed to acquire really wonderful deftness in the operation. It was plait called “Patent Dunstable” made of these split straws that gave this plaitting area its first textile claim to distinction. Some one, now unknown, found out that two fine splints of straw laid together, inside to inside, produced when plaitted an effect equal to that of the whole straw, and yet enabled plaitters to make the finest and narrowest widths of plait. The clumsy method of cutting with a knife was apparently the only possible way of making splints until the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

The French prisoners at Yaxley Barracks, near Stilton, produced “pretty and useful articles such as baskets, workboxes, mats, etc.” (Mr. Alfred Tansley Soc. Art., 1860). These were decorated with “laid work,” a kind of mosaic pattern made of coloured straw splints, cut to various sizes and pasted on suitable foundations. “For the purpose of making these splints, they used a straw splitter made of bone, about two inches long, brought to a point behind which a set of cutters was arranged in a circle, the point entered the straw pipe separating it into so many equal sized splints” (Tansley). This instrument was soon copied by a Dunstable blacksmith named Janes (some authorities say Norman) who made some in iron and turned the cutting parts at right angles to an elongated stem, which could be used as a handle. These were subsequently also made in brass, and in 1815 other varieties, in the form of metal wheels set in wooden frames, appeared. Mr. Tansley says, “To this invention may be attributed the success which in after times has attended the manufacture of straw plait in England.”

The two methods of working straws, either whole or split, opened up a wide field for diversity of plaitting, and quickly novelties began to appear. From 1815 to the present day, at intervals sometimes short and sometimes very long, new designs of plait have been put on the market, and now there is no style of shape that cannot be suitably fitted up with one or more plaits.

British plaitters have not been content to use only the straws grown in the five counties. They have ransacked the world for materials, wood cut into fine shavings or splints, Manila grasses or hemp, manufactured splints of cotton, silk, or similar fibres, stuck together in a flat ribbon called a “lame,” horsehair, bamboo, raffia, and many other articles have been used for the purpose. At one time 30,000 persons were engaged in the plaitting industry, but by 1890 the number had dwindled to under 3,000. The reasons for this decline were manifold. Although the district had produced, and was still producing, straws better than any other continental centre, yet about 1855 the demand for something different from the plaits made solely of straw induced foreign plaitting communities to plait fancy materials which before had been used for other purposes. Switzerland and France began to make pretty and delicate patterns of plait or braid, woven both by hand and by machinery, of all kinds of fancy fibres such as silk, horsehair (or crinoline as termed by milliners), fine ribbons, etc., in various combinations of one or two or more of the above articles either with or without straws. Further attempts in the way of decoration were made by intermixtures of glass beads and bugles.

These very fanciful braids had a wonderful success, for they were especially adaptable for bonnets, which to about 1865 were much more in demand for fashionable wear than hats.

This invasion of a large quantity of displacing material adversely affected the volume of plaitting in England, and still further damage was done when Italy began to send over plain and fancy plaits made of willow shavings, as well as fine straw punta and pedale plaits similar to Twist, which was by then the mainstay of the fine plait trade. (Twist was a 7 end straw with a twisted beadhead made of fine splints, two of which laid inside to inside formed one strand for plaitting.) In 1867 the “last nail in the coffin” of British straw plaitting was driven by the first import of plait from China, and in that same year the distress in and around Dunstable was so great that the then Mayor, Mr. Joseph Gutteridge, called a public meeting to discuss methods for its alleviation.

As the far eastern countries of China and Japan now play such an important part in the world’s straw hat trade, it will be of interest to note how British traders first came in contact with their goods. Doubtless from time immemorial the deft “Chinee” had been accustomed to the weaving of grasses, etc., into hats and mats, and it is stated that the attention of Luton hat makers was first drawn to the possibility of getting plait from China, by seeing some “hats (mats?) which had been used for lining chests of tea.”

Whatever the cause, in 1867, from plaitted samples sent to them, the Chinese were able to imitate, in their native grown straws, the products of England in such an excellent manner and at such a low price, that the fiercest competition was at once created. People engaged in the trade were so exasperated at the circumstance, that they made an effigy of the importer and burned it in the Luton Market Place. The competition of the increasing bulk of China straw plait imports, together with the Italian imitation of Dunstable twist (called at first “Milan,” and now generally known as “7 ends Pedal”) made the plaitting trade in the five counties to decrease rapidly.

“The Society of Arts have at various times rewarded many individuals for successful attempts to introduce bonnets formed of grasses indigenous to Britain,” says Tomlinson, in his Cyclopaedia published in 1867, but all these well meant efforts to revive the industry were unavailing. Neither for price nor quantity (which latter was rapidly becoming almost the prime necessity) could British plaitters successfully compete with the Italians and the Chinese for plaits of narrow grades, although quantities of wider plaits both of plain and fancy designs continued to be made. About 1890 plait began to arrive from Japan, and just as the British straw was better than the Italian and Chinese, so the Japanese was superior to the British. It was of the most delicate pearly colour, it was infinitely lighter in weight, and it could be obtained in far bigger pipes than any European or Chinese growths, and its adaptability both for whole and split plaits was equal to all.

In straw plait, therefore, the Japanese were able to compete successfully, but in a short time they put on the market an article made of wood splints plaitted with three strands, called “Chip 3 ends.” This plait, of Italian make originally, from its extremely low price and colour possibility, was the material backbone of the ladies’ hat trade for some years. In later times a braid made of hemp by machinery, called Tagal or Tégal, originated in Switzerland and Italy. Quickly adopted by the Japanese, they have been able to supplant the earlier producers, and as with the Chip 3 ends, to provide varieties which have almost monopolized the hat making markets for the million.

In 1896 the plaitting trade was in such a bad state that some of the principal hat makers in the district determined to attempt the rescue of the plaitters. For that purpose the “British Straw Plaitting Company” was formed, the writer of this book being appointed Chairman of a very representative Board of Directors. Manufacturers were eager to assist, and for the first twelve months the company showed great promise. A revival of plaitting (although with other materials than straw and of fresh designs) ensued, and better prices were paid so that wages were much advanced. But the Swiss and Italians took fright, and for the next two years so successfully competed by cutting prices, that in 1899 the company was obliged to cease operations.

In fact, not only could better materials for plaitting be found in other parts of the world, but in those parts the natives, who (as the Ency. Britt. says about the Chinese) “could live where an Englishman would starve,” were able to produce plait at prices which made it impossible for plaitters in England to earn a living. But fortunately as the plaitting trade declined the hat and bonnet making of Dunstable and Luton was increasing as fast as its predecessor fell.

In 1865 the first attempts to sew plait by machinery were made, previously all had been sewn by hand, a long and tedious process, when fine plaits were involved.

This took the form of sewing several pieces of fine plait in a parallel form, making strips of an increased width, which were then sewn by hand to the desired shape. A little later an American named Bodsworth introduced a machine which was capable of sewing plait into hats and bonnets, but unlike all subsequent models, which start at the centre of the top of the crown, this machine started sewing at the edge of the brim. This materially lessened the field of shape variety, and although great improvements were effected by skilfulness of working, and although the machine was adopted by Messrs. Vyse Sons & Co., it was not taken up generally by the trade.

The well-known firm of Willcox & Gibbs, makers of a domestic chainstitch sewing machine, had an agent in Luton named Edward Stratford, and about 1870 his wife, in response to a friendly challenge, sewed the first straw hat from centre to circumference. The day following this epoch making occurrence Mrs. Stratford sewed another hat out of a fine make of “English China Purl” (a fine fancy edged plait); this hat is said to be still in existence.

From 1870 the whole trade was revolutionized, all fine plaits eventually were sewn by machine, only the coarsest and broadest widths being sewn by hand. In 1874 Mr. Henry Bland, a Luton mechanic, turned his attention to making alterations to the Willcox & Gibbs’ domestic machine, in order to render it more suitable for sewing straw plait. He took out patents to cover his improvements, which were subsequently acquired by Messrs. Willcox & Gibbs, who issued the new machine to the Trade under the title of “The 10-Guinea” straw hat sewing machine. But this visible stitch machine had a fault which made it unsuitable for the best work, inasmuch as the stitch was prominent on the outside of the hat, and the demand for handsewn invisible stitch continued unabated for goods of the best quality. Various machines were introduced to imitate handsewing, most of them failures, but M. Légat, a Frenchman, patented one in 1875 that even up to the present time has never been surpassed for close resemblance in its work to that done by hand, but although the machine was taken up seriously by the best houses of Great Britain and France, its large initial cost, and heavy charges for maintenance, allowed it only to retain its supremacy pending the advent of a less intricate, delicate and costly model.

In 1878 Mr. Edmund Wiseman (who is still living), of Luton, took out a patent for a machine to sew plaits with a “concealed” stitch. In 1880 some improvements were made, and for some years the “Wiseman Concealed Stitch” machine sold at about half the price of the “Légat,” and by no means as intricate and delicate, gradually displaced the French machine. Between 1880 and 1886, Mr. Bland, of Luton, and Mr. William Walker of Dunstable, both patented concealed stitch machines, but without much success. In 1886 Mr. Wiseman entered into arrangements with the Willcox & Gibbs Co. to produce an improved concealed stitch machine that from its shape and method of action was called the “Box machine.” This, although on the same lines as the first invention with regard to the method of stitch and sewing, was capable of sewing all kinds of plait both fine and coarse, whereas the earlier patent was only really successful on fine plaits. This Box machine has been greatly improved since 1886, but taken on the whole, its general characteristics are the same. In 1895 Messrs. Janes Bros., of Luton, took out a patent for a concealed stitch machine called the “Lutonia,” which has met with a very distinct success. Meanwhile the demand for hats of certain plaits, which were improved by the outside stitch sewing, kept on increasing, and indeed there are plaits on which even the so called “visible” stitches are invisible. Plaits of cotton, silk, ajour, and crinoline are of such nature that the cotton used in the outside stitch machine sewing seems to lose or bury itself in the material of the braid, and there is less likelihood of the needle catching in their tough fibres than there is in the working of the Box machine, where a hook is used; and further for some years plaits of fine chip were the dominant demand, and for these there was less tendency on the part of the fine single needle of the visible stitch machine to cut the narrow wood strands, than if the double punctuation of the Box machine needle and hook were used. In 1879, therefore, the Willcox & Gibbs Co. took out a patent for what is now known as the “17 Guinea” type of visible stitch sewing machines. This model has been closely followed by the “Dresdensia,” a German product of signal value; and “The Singer,” an American competitor, both of which are in the main imitations or copies of the 1879 patent. It is a fact worthy of note that the first successful machine to sew a hat of straw plait from button to circumference of brim was a Willcox & Gibbs, and that the latest word in straw sewing is also, by the arrangement with Mr. Wiseman, a product of the same firm.

Other machinery used for making straw hats consists of a variety of “Blocking” machines. As will be shown hereafter, the most primitive means were adopted at first, but when the hydraulic type made its appearance it soon left no room for any other method. The appliances of Messrs Desbordes, Desireau, Légat, Beresford, Keston, Brochier and Stoffel (described in Chapter XII) have now rendered possible the blocking of all kinds of shapes and materials by machine.

The plait mill, made of both wood and iron, completes the list of mechanical appliances used in making a straw hat.

But at the present time all hat sewing machines, which for at least twenty-five years were driven by the foot power of the operator, are worked by mechanical power, either from a gas or steam engine, or by electrical dynamos.

CHAPTER III
STRAW PLAIT—METHOD OF PREPARING THE STRAWS

The foregoing details, mainly devoted to the classical and historical side of straw hat manufacture, have demonstrated that the word “straw” is very elastic in its meaning when applied to its use for making hats. All classes of vegetable fibres have been included at some time or other in its embrace, and to-day the range of materials technically known as “straws” is larger than at any previous time. But as the industry of straw hat making centred itself in the locality of South Bedfordshire on account of the superior straw, and because the process of splitting and subsequent manipulation effected a total revolution in straw hat working, a description of the processes common in that district will, with a few minor exceptions, serve as an example for all plait making. The straws used in England are principally those of wheat, the exceptions are very small. They are specially grown by careful methods of tillage, and at the proper period are cut either with the sickle or with the scythe, the mowing machine being likely to bruise the stalks. They are tied into suitable bundles, considerably smaller than the usual sheaf, with the ears of corn as nearly level as possible; these are then cut off and used for grain purposes. The bundles of straw are carefully “combed” with a coarse wooden comb to rid the stalks of all the loose portions and thin blades. They are then cut into the standard lengths, about 10 ins. long, and are ready for sizing. This is effected by working through a series of sieves, with somewhat deep sides. As the straws have been carefully gathered with ears uppermost, it naturally follows that all the similar thicknesses of stalk are together, and therefore the process of sorting becomes a fairly speedy one. The cut lengths now become straw pipes, and they are first placed on the largest end in the largest grade sieve, the pipes smaller than the mesh fall through, leaving only those of the coarsest dimensions. This process is repeated until all the varying thicknesses of straw have been sorted into their respective sizes. They are then tied up carefully into bundles of about 5 ins. in diameter, and are ready for the plaitter.

In Italy, where the straw is grown solely for plaitting purposes, the process before sorting is a little different. The sowing of corn (Triticum turgidum, or Triticum oestivum, which is a species of rye) is done very thickly, so as to produce thin and short stalks. It is gathered when the ear is in a soft, milky state before the final stages of ripening. It is then thinly spread over the ground in fine, hot weather, and afterwards tied in bundles and stacked, so that the resultant heat may drive off all moisture. After remaining stacked for about a month, it is spread out and exposed to the action of dew, sun and air, in order to bleach it. During the exposure, which varies according to necessity, the stalks are frequently turned. When the bleaching process is sufficiently complete, the lower joint of the straw stripped of its outside thin sheath is divided from the upper one, which is still allowed to retain the ear. This process provides the punta and the pedale. The straw is then subjected to the action of steam and the fumes of sulphur. When this bleaching process is complete the assortment into sizes by sieves takes place, and the graded straws are then ready for use.

From this stage for making plaits of the whole or unsplit straw, the processes adopted by both England and Italy are in the main identical; Italy, however, has not generally adopted the splitting processes for plait making on account of the fineness of her straws. But the British plaitter reserves the sulphur bleaching of the straws until the plait is actually made, for, with the excellent colour of the straw, in many cases this can be dispensed with until the need for hat making arises. The first processes of plaitting, either of hats or of braid, were undoubtedly of the unsplit stalks, and all “English whole straw” plaits were so made. It has been shown how and why the splitting of straws arose. The plaitter, having determined on the variety of plait to be made, acquired a sufficiency of suitable sized pipes. With the splitter, the point of which, inserted in the end of the straw, and pressed downwards, the tube of straw coming against the radially set cutters, the pipes were divided into splints of equal widths of a fineness according to the plaitter’s requirements. These were then wetted so as to render them a little tougher and more amenable for manipulation and bending. The plaitter, with a bundle of splints under the left arm, and generally a few in the mouth, through the lips of which they are drawn to keep moist, commences operations. Any description of all the methods of plaitting would be tedious, all the operations consisting of a constant under and over locking of the splints, but in the split straw making of the “Patent Dunstable” the plaitting, instead of being of either one straw or splint, is of two, wetted and laid together, and in the varieties known as “Splits” the splints are plaitted singly, leaving alternately, or in a spaced pattern, according to the design required, the inside and the outside of the straw; the outside of silicate being shiny, and the inside with its slight pith (or rice as it is termed) being dull. The “Whole Straw Dunstable,” the first plait made in the neighbourhood, was of seven entire straws, “Patent Dunstable” or “Twist” was of seven doubled strands, or ends, formed of fourteen splints. Rice similarly made, but with the splints inside out, making a plait of a dull white which was extensively used for bonnets for weddings. “Split” was formed of seven single split straws, presenting the varied appearance mentioned above, and was naturally the lightest of British fine plaits. “Luton” was made like “Patent Dunstable,” but without the “Twist” head, making a flat plait similar to split but with both sides alike. “Bedford,” made of eleven single or eleven double ends of twenty-two splints, similar to and in imitation of the Italian plait “11-end Tuscan,” and “Rustic,” a plait of four whole or split straws plaitted to show pointed serrations on both edges. These plaits form the base from which all other straw plaits have developed; their composition and methods are to be found in every variety whether made in Great Britain or abroad, and although other hand-made plaits have larger or smaller numbers of “ends” (from three to almost any number upwards) their basis of treatment remains the same.

The two primary homes of plaitting straws into braids, Italy and Great Britain, had many features in common in the conditions and methods by which the plait was made. In both countries the whole of the industry was carried on by peasants and their wives. The males, who were generally agricultural labourers or small traders in rural districts, for the main part saw to the growing of the straws and their preparation and distribution for plaitting, followed after the braids were made by the marketing of the work done by their female friends or relations. In some districts, such as the environs of Florence and of the South Beds and neighbouring counties, these occupations were of such magnitude as to give constant employment to many.

In all the districts the main labour of plaitting was undertaken by the womenfolk, although men at times took a hand, and in the middle of the nineteenth century it was a real feature of village life in the plaitting centres, to see the good wives and daughters, after the household work was done, standing at their cottage doors, swiftly and dexterously plaitting and at the same time distributing that gentle and yet satisfying gossip that was so dear to rustic life. In this manner by far the greater bulk of the plaits of Italy and Great Britain were made, although in the latter country since about 1825, some extra means of production were employed. Instead of the art being taught from mother to daughter, as was the earlier practice, schools of plaitting were instituted. These were generally arranged in the cottage home of one of the most expert plaitters, who for a small fee taught the youthful aspirants all the intricacies of the trade, while at the same time the instructor contrived to keep at work on her own particular plaitting. The view of a portion of a plaitting village, on a fine day, with its generally picturesque surroundings framing an active rustic group of women engaged in plaitting, was such as should have commended itself to many an artist, yet strange to say the pictures extant of either Italian or British plaitting scenes are very few and far between. These pleasant, pastoral occupations seem to have gone for ever from Great Britain, although one may still see in Italy the once familiar signs. Hand plaitting has migrated to the Far East, and there in China and Japan one can to-day see, with the changes consequent on the different setting of the scenes, the sights which seventy-five years ago were common to the countryside around Dunstable, Hemel Hempstead, and Luton.

Fig. 6
STRAW PLAITTERS AT WORK—A BEDFORDSHIRE VILLAGE SCENE IN 1870

Machine-made straw plaits have never been produced in quantities in England, although patents for plaitting have been taken out; but in Italy and Switzerland machinery has been in use since 1840, producing plaits of straw mixed with other fibres, such as horsehair or silk. Fiesole, a village near Florence, became a centre of machine-made plaits of Tuscan straw woven in Wattle fashion with strands of silk and cotton, and gave its name to all similarly made plaits.

The other continental centres making straw plaits were Switzerland and Belgium. By the former practically all the straws used were imported from Italy, only quite a small portion being home grown; but Belgium produced some beautiful straws, and the “Split” and “Piping” made in that country have never been surpassed. The “7 end cord,” of same detail as “Patent Dunstable,” although excellent in make and colour, missed the sharp twisted head (from whence the name “Twist”) peculiar to the British made article, the straws being of too soft a nature to retain the desired effect throughout the hat-making processes. The methods of gathering and preparing the straws in Belgium closely followed the British.

China, the first Far Eastern straw plait competitor, is able to count on almost limitless quantities of straw, and the plaits made there are, as far as appearance is concerned, second to none. But while the British plaitter inserts only one or say two straws at a time, the Chinese frequently insert what is known as the whole sett; this naturally causes a greater weakness at the junction than is found in British plait, and for that reason many Chinese patterns, although beautiful to look at, are very difficult to work, and the probability of some of these setts coming undone and the consequent raggedness of the speels (as the loose ends are called) make these plaits undesirable for the highest class work. But the Chinese, although not too adaptable, are nothing if not deft, and a few makes of plait are put on the market, which from their altered “setting” are known as “speelless.” “Speelless Maslimpo,” an imitation in very fine whole straws of Italian 7 ends pedal is one of the most beautiful fine plaits made, and although it seldom entirely justifies its adjective, in the main it is the least difficult Chinese plait to work up. The methods employed by the celestials in preparing the straws are tantamount to those employed in Britain, and the methods of splitting them are identical.

Japan occupies a unique position in the cultivation and production of straws for plaitting. The soil is extremely fertile, and the geological condition of the country is volcanic. The straws when grown attain to a great size of tube, even as much as ¹⁄₃ of an inch in diameter, and plaits have been made of Japanese straws, split only in one place, which when opened out form a splint an inch wide, making braids of only 4 or 5 ends, about 3 ins. in width. The volcanic nature of the country seems to have permeated the soil with some bleaching agent. Sulphur is usually a product of volcanic eruption, and although its fumes are deadly to the growth of cereals, straws grown on volcanic soil acquire a colour which is unobtainable elsewhere. And the colour of the Japanese straw is entirely unlike, and at the same time vastly better than, any other known variety. Its rapid growth also engenders a special lightness of weight, and although not tough as the Italian or British, it is sufficiently so for any plaitting purposes. In this case the preparation of straws for working is simply the drying and sorting.

Cereals only have as yet been described, but two other vegetable products can almost claim by user to be classed as straws, as the straw hat making industry has adopted them in a very whole-hearted manner. One of the first vegetable plaits, other than those of actual straw, was made of fine splints of the wood of willow. This was sufficiently seasoned in plank, a finely planed surface obtained, and a planing cutter, with scoring knives set to the requisite width, was made to take a very thin shaving. This naturally produced the shaving in very narrow strips that were the media from which 3 ends, 5 ends, 7 ends and 9 ends “Chip” were plaitted by hand. Also wider splints of willow shavings were used to make fancy patterns of plait, the number of which is legion. This branch of the industry emanated from Italy, and Saxony and the Black Forest subsequently did some business in chip plaits, but their shavings were not equal to the Italian, being more woolly and less glossy, and they enjoyed mainly a local success. About 1890 the Japanese began to make chip plaits, their wood was equal to the Italians, and their prices vastly lower, so that for some years, while the plait known as “3 ends Chip” monopolized the great bulk of the hat making requirements, Italy and Japan were keen competitors. As in the birthplace of chip plaits, so in Japan were subsequently made all kinds of fancy designs, which for some time nearly extinguished the Italian trade.

The other vegetable fibre is hemp. This was first used by the Swiss in the manufacture of a machine made braid similar in appearance to the hand plaitted 9 or 7 end chips.

The fibre from which the first braids were woven was derived from an aloe-like plant Sansaviera Zeylanica (or bow string hemp) which grew in the island of Java in a district called Tégal. This particular hemp when prepared was exceedingly lustrous and tough, and when put on the market in braids was called by the name of its native place. The name has been corrupted into several forms, Tagal, Tagel, Tagle, etc., but the proper name is Tégal, and this is still retained by the French, while in England the most popular form is Tagal. The method of weaving was to plait into braids, strands formed of one, two or three, or even more fibres of the hemp, and plaits were marketed conveying those features, such as “13/2” (which meant 13 strands of two fibres), or “13/3” (thirteen strands of 3 fibres). This shoelace like braid was soon followed by a design similar to Italian 7 end Pedal, and was at first known as “Tégal Picot,” but is now more generally called “Pedal Tagal.” When worked this plait has a very close resemblance to its model, and like all the other hemp plaits, will take a softly brilliant and regular coloured dye.

The Japanese soon copied all these Tagal braids and quickly made it almost impossible for any other competitor, although at first their reproductions were extremely faulty. While Italy, that also made hemp plaits, and Switzerland yet enjoy a small trade, it is probable that at least 95 per cent of Pedal Tagal emanates from the “Land of the Rising Sun,” which has found means to utilize other varieties of hemp, and has also incorporated silk fibres into the plaitting, and at the same time is now producing qualities that are not surpassed by either of the European varieties. The only merit of continental Tagal above the Japanese is that the braids are somewhat firmer and squarer in make.

Hemp fibres, like almost all others, have been extensively used, either by themselves or in conjunction with other materials, in making fancy braids of a thousand and one varieties. One feature of all Tagal plaits is that there is no other known medium which combines such toughness and wear-resisting qualities.

Further, plaits have been made from the naturally produced vegetable fibres, Raffia, Cuba Bast, Yedda (a particularly light stripping from an exotic plant), Sinnet or Palm leaf, Rushes of all kinds, and various similar growths.

Mechanically prepared fibres from vegetable growths such as cotton, jute, etc., have been pressed into the making of various braids of close and open designs, while silk and imitation silks of cellulose nature have enjoyed great popularity as plaits for making fancy hats.

The only purely animal product used in making plaits is horsehair. This material, so extremely liked by the highest classes of wearers, is now most difficult to obtain owing to the rise of the motor car and the subsequent decline of the horse, but in spite of its origin it has been, since at least sixty years, included as one of the materials that can be classified as a “straw hat.”

All the plaits mentioned, with very few exceptions, such as the cellulose, visca, cotton or black horsehair varieties, require bleaching or dyeing before being ready for sewing. In a few cases these processes take place where the plait is made, but generally speaking they are done at the places where plaits are made into hats.

CHAPTER IV
STRAW HOODS—METHOD OF PREPARING AND OF WEAVING THE FIBRES

The previous chapter has dealt with the materials used in plait and the incidental processes necessary to the preparation of the fibres, because plait is undoubtedly at the present day the principal medium for the fashionable straw hat. As the opening chapter proves, the earliest periods of the use of vegetable fibres for head coverings were entirely devoted to the weaving of the hat in one piece, as, for example, a basket is woven. In fact, the use of plait braid has been adopted only for about 400 years, but, although large quantities of woven hats still continue to be made, plait has gradually taken the premier place. But any description of the straw hat trade would be incomplete without a proper account of the woven hat or “hood,” as it is termed in the trade, the word “hat” implying the finished article. In the first place the fibres that can be made into plait can also be made into hoods, for any fibre capable of being manipulated in plaitting can be woven. (The term “woven” is used in want of a better, because the action needed is really more what is generally known as “weaving” than “plaitting,” although both processes are done by hand, with one or two minor exceptions.) There are, however, several fibres that are woven into hoods that are not generally utilized for making plaits, although quite suitable, but their nature is such as to demand a different preparatory treatment to any of those essentially straw. These are the “Panama” and the Panama imitations or substitutes. Among the substitutes are “Curaçoas,” “Bowens,” “Jipi-Japas,” etc.; and the imitations are “Javas,” “Bankoks,” “Brazilians,” “Manilas” and “Paper Panamas” made from strips of paper rolled to imitate, and they do imitate very closely, the natural fibre used in the real Panama. A description of the true “Panama” fibre will give an insight into the nature of all the substitutes, the preparations for weaving being nearly identical in every case. The origin of the Panama hat is obscured in oblivion, but the source of supply ranges round about Central America, and from Ecuador claims are made that in the province of Manavi, a native named Francisco Delgado first made a Panama hat about 300 years ago. This very Spanish name for a native evokes a suspicion that the date given was the first Spanish record of the matter, for it is most probable that the making of grass fibre hats in the Western Hemisphere was, like it has been shown to be in the Eastern, of the most remote antiquity. But researches made by our Consular Office can only supply the above information. The material used is derived from a kind of native palm or palm grass known as paja toquilla, and resembles, in its fan like shape, the saw palmetto. Cultivation usually takes place in selected low-hung wet lands, and the seed is planted in rows during the rainy season. When the grass attains a height of 4½ to 5 ft., it is cut just before ripening, boiled in water, and after being thoroughly dried in the sun, is sorted through very carefully. The actual selection of fibres for the best class hat is most thorough, and all unlikely leaves are rejected.

Those finally selected are in some districts, such as Manavi, dampened with water to make them tough, pliable, and amenable to stripping into the required widths. In Columbia, where the “Palmicha” is used, the leaves are boiled for a certain time till they soften and turn a light yellow in colour. This process of boiling is an art in itself, and seems to present greater difficulties without corresponding advantages to the simple damping. The leaves done by either method are then separated and hung to dry in a current of air, but not in the sun. Before they are quite dry the splitting operation commences; this is still done in some districts in the primitive method by the thumb-nail of the operator, in others a Y-shaped wooden tool is used. The splints, when being split are made to curl slightly at the edges, causing the fibre to assume a roundness. The subsequent drying causes this roundness to become permanent. They are then made into suitable bundles, and wrapped in clean damp cloths to protect them from the dry atmosphere as well as from the light. The hood weavers commence at the apex of crown and continue the weaving in a circular and transverse manner, until the edge of the brim is reached, when a double “return” is made to give strength and form to the hat. Some centres use wooden blocks, on which the hood is shaped during its progress of weaving, others follow simply the primitive method of rule of thumb, but during late years the demand for larger head entries to Panama hats has caused a more general using of either the wooden block or a suitable template in order that the size of the crowns may be more uniform.

In some places the various parts of the hood are made by different operatives, thus the crown or the top only may be woven by one, the side of crown by another, and the brim by a third; generally there are two.

Fig. 7
PANAMA HOOD MAKING—TYPICAL OF WORK ON ALL WOVEN STRAW HATS

In order to achieve the best results the weaving has to be done in a very humid atmosphere, and to take advantage of that condition, and to ensure continuity, the work is sometimes accomplished between midnight and 7 a.m. during the dry season. Some writers on this subject assert that Panamas are woven under water, the operator using a bowl; some may have been, but this was probably a freak experiment, as in all the many districts where hats of this kind are made the only desideratum is full natural humidity. When the hood is finished the ends or “speels” of the strands, where the setts-in and the setts-out take place, are carefully pared off with a sharp knife or scissors, and the hat is battered all over with a small wooden mace in order to make it as smooth as possible. It is then washed, in some places with clean cold water only, in others with soap and water, and in some with soap and water combined with lime-juice; drying in the sun completes the operations of making the hood. What are here known as “Jipi Japas” are so closely allied to the true Panama that only an expert can differentiate between them. The material used is almost always identical and is prepared in the same way. There is, however, a slight difference in the method of weaving, and the finish generally speaking, is not of such a high standard. They are made principally in the province of Manavi, in Ecuador. Another variety, very similar, taking its name from the district in which it is made, is called “Suaza.” The really fine specimens of the Panama hat appear to be produced in Columbia, and are made in the departments of Santander, Antisquia, Cauca, and Tolima.

The local generic name for all these hoods is “Jipi-Japa,” but the name “Panama” was applied to them because Panama was the port from which they were shipped, and this name for the best quality obtains generally throughout the world. A really fine hood would take two or three months to make, but the bulk probably do not exceed two or three weeks’ work. Some districts look to the making as regular employment, and the operatives work the whole available time in the day, while others regard it as a side line, and utilize only their spare time. A very similar arrangement to this was common among the straw plaitters of England, and in both cases the bulk of the workers were women. Latterly in the Central American States men have been more employed in the industry.

The “Curaçoa” (or as it should properly be spelt Curaçao) comes from the island of the same name in the Caribbean Sea. When made the hoods are of a light creamy fawn colour, and are made out of fibres imported from the neighbouring mainland of Venezuela. The method of weaving is similar to that of Panama hats, but the strands are of a much coarser texture.

“Bowens” or “Pandans” are made principally by Chinese labour in the island of Sumatra. They are generally, although some are of split fibres, made of a whole natural raffia-like grass which is indigenous. They are extremely low in price, and although coarse looking are very serviceable hats. When properly bleached, after going through a variety of chemical colour changes, they assume an excellent white.

Another variety of hood, of which only a limited quantity have been used, owing to its many undesirable features, is the “Hinoki.” This is made of Chinese raffia by native labour, and is similar to the “Bowen,” but the nature of the fibre is such as to make it decidedly inferior among the Panama imitations. “Javas” are perhaps the most peculiar and wonderful in their working. They are made of perfectly flat splints obtained from bamboo-like palms, and are woven in all degrees of fineness, but their great peculiarity lies in the fact that they are double, the hoods when marketed having a finely woven exterior and an inside lining much coarser in texture attached only to the outer one at the edge of the brim. At one time they commanded a large trade, but demand for them has greatly diminished in Europe. “Bankoks” are similarly flat splint hoods of one thickness, but the fibre of which they are composed is an inner one, the outer and harder portion being taken away. They have the merit of extreme lightness of weight and can be successfully dyed in any colour but with little sheen. “Brazilians” are not unlike “Javas,” but are of one thickness only, and the fibre used is more stubborn than that of the “Java.”

“Manilas” are also woven in like manner to a Panama, but they can be obtained both single and double like a “Java.” The fibre used for them is hemp, the “splints” of which are fine strips of two or more strands of hemp laid flat. This variety of hood is capable of being dyed to any colour, and unlike either of its confrères, has a brilliant sheen when finished. All these “imitations” derive their name in some way from their places or ports of origin.

“Paper Panamas” are the latest Japanese production, imitating some models first made in France. By appearance alone they can hardly be selected from the real article except to experts, it is only the difference in weight and greater regularity of colour, that discloses their nature. But they have not the same wearing capabilities, for while a real Panama can, and often does, last longer than its wearer’s lifetime, the sham one is nearly worthless after the first season’s use.

Other hoods are made of “chip” (generally of wider splints than those used for making plait); of “rush,” “yedda,” “raffia,” and other similar materials, in fact each succeeding season generally sees some novelty of fibre introduced. Of rush hoods there are two varieties, one of the fine, rather hard, but very tough rushes that usually grow in England by the wayside; these are made in the greatest quantities in China, and wonderful ingenuity is displayed in their finish. The other variety is that of the pithy “rush” such as one may gather in the Fens, and which is to be found in quantities in the Lombardy marshes; these are used for making both plait and hoods which are very light in weight.

“Yedda” is the inner cuticle of an exotic plant, which has great toughness and is very light in weight, but, owing to the growth of the plant, can only be obtained in very short lengths, this of necessity making both plaitting and weaving more difficult.

“Raffia” is the substance known to gardeners, and makes an excellent medium for plait and hoods on account of its lightness, its toughness and the great length of its staple. There are other natural fibres that have been utilized for hood weaving by hand, but the above-mentioned are the principal ones. In addition there are some hoods made of machine woven plait of hemp, cotton, silk, or imitation silk fibres. Although the first named is frequently worked alone, the others are generally woven with other materials. A hood of straws machine woven with the aid of a cotton, hemp, or silk fibre emanates from Switzerland and Italy, and is extremely light in weight. Sometimes the straws are utilized whole in these hoods, but more generally they are split. In both cases the straws are dyed or bleached before weaving.

All these hoods are utilized for making men’s or ladies’ hats, and except in a few cases they are imported in the natural colour, requiring bleaching or dyeing before entering the actual hat making process.

It is perhaps necessary to add that hoods of splints cut from palm leaves imported from Cuba, were made during some years at St. Albans. The result was similar to a “Brazilian” (in fact, they went under that name), being woven by hand in the villages round the city, and blocked into proper shape and trimmed in the St. Albans factories. The trade languished when French competition arose, Strasburg and Nancy being the most successful European competitors. “Panamas” or hoods made from the fibre imported from the West Indies have also been made in these last mentioned centres.

CHAPTER V
STRAW PLAIT AND PLAITTING

Having briefly described the nature of, and method of preparation of various plaits and hoods, some detailed account of the method of working those which have largely contributed to the creation and augmentation of the Straw Hat Trade will be necessary.

The first plaits made were, as has already been said, of whole pieces of rush or straw. They were plainly plaitted without any attempt at producing what is termed a “head,” i.e. the straws or rushes were simply folded over flatly at the edge of the plait. Plaits were made of varying numbers of “ends” or pieces of straw, from three to seven was probably the favourite scale. The “ends,” let us say three, are fastened together by twisting in a fanlike manner, the right-hand one is first bent under towards the left in a flat fold at a widish angle, under the middle “end,” this then becomes parallel to the left hand “end” which in its turn is folded under the now middle end towards the right, becoming consequently parallel to the right-hand “end”; this completes the operation, which to make lengths of plait is repeated ad libitum. The plait produced is now known as “3 ends plain.” To make a “head” on one edge of the plait, instead of folding flatly from the right, a “twist” or half turn is given to the “end” at the extreme edge and point of turn, before folding under the middle strand; as this always to a certain extent buckles the round pipe of straw or rush, a shell like effect is produced which greatly adds to the effectiveness of the plait, and is called “Twist” or “Picot” edge.

To make “five ends” plait, five strands are required; these are also set out in a fan like shape, but four of the ends lie parallel towards the right, and one only towards the left; the plaitting begins by turning with either the twisted or the flat fold, the right hand “end” under the “end” nearest to it, over the next one, and under the third, when the left hand “end” is turned under the one just brought from the right, which then becomes the left hand “end,” again beginning with the now right hand “end” and repeating the operation as before. These two processes form the basis for all plaitting, and although any number of “ends” may be used up to the holding capacity of the plaitter and although any change of making the “head” may be adopted, the under and over method is common to all plaitting of braids and hoods. The demand for novelty has caused many variations to be created; the “Twist” head has been described, in addition there are the “one” “two” or “three” or even more “Purl” (or “Pearl”) heads. A “Purl” is a double kind of “Twist” which may occur at every other head or greater intervals. This twist consists of two of the strands or split straws being turned spirally for a sufficient length to form a little half shell at the edge of the plait, the further length of the strand being plaitted into the foot at the desired distance, giving to the finished braid, which is generally of a narrow width, a very pretty effect. Another variety of head which has different applications of the same principle is known as “Feather.” This, although it can be made with whole straws, is generally, and is most effective, made with split straws, and its pattern is a loop or loops of a slightly curved nature formed on the edge of the plait by allowing the right hand “end” or “ends” to miss one or more turns of plaitting, so that when at regular intervals it is, or they are, loosely brought into use, they will form a kind of scalloped edge to the plait.

There are also heads which are known by the number of times plaitting is missed to create a fancy edge. These vary from two to ten, and are made from a sufficient number of “ends” to leave the head of “Under-two” or “Under-ten” or intermediate numbers, as the case may be, with a sufficient “foot” to keep the plait firm for working; the resultant appearance of this method is a plain succession of parallel straws at the plaitting angle to the “foot,” which gives, when sewn, the “foot” being covered, according to the medium used, an entirely “matt” or a brilliantly glossy surface. These “under” plaits can be made with any reasonable number of “ends,” but they are seldom found plaitted with more than sufficient to produce the “under ten.” In order to preserve absolute regularity of length in these head straws, which are actually “in the air,” they are turned over a suitable template, be it of bone, metal, or any thin hard wearing material; this is withdrawn as the plaitting progresses to the further stages of development, but in some cases, especially with split straws, which would not retain any regularity without some support, the template used is a strand of split straw of sufficient width for the number of “under heads,” and is left in the plait to form a permanent strengthener to the pattern. It is completely hidden from sight by the heads folded over it, and although in the wider plaits it is very undesirable, being extremely difficult to turn in small circles, in the narrow grades the objectionable features are more easily overcome.

In addition to these, there is the “saw” edge, a peculiarity of “Rustics,” and of which, as its name implies, one edge, or both edges, present that angular serration which is common to saws. There are also innumerable fancy edges, having as their foundation one or the other of these generic patterns.

The “Foot,” or other part of the braid as distinct from the head, is made in so many ways that room forbids any detailed account: some plaits have none, and one of the most remarkable of this variety may be described. In “English Brilliant,” a widish plait made of a varying number of ends, there is really no “foot,” the plait, of split straws, being all head or pattern. The individuality of “Brilliant” is that once the turn is effected the split straw instead of laying flat across the pattern is made to stand on its edge, giving to the design a look similar to a honeycomb; this is probably the lightest in weight of any straw made plait.

These few types form the basis on which nearly all plaits are made by hand. There are, of course, many others in actual use, one not yet mentioned which, although plaitted in the same way as ordinary flat head 7 end braid, is made with single strands of split straw. The result is a kind of chess board pattern, which shows alternate squares of the outside and the inside of the straw. This has a generic name of “split,” and was one of the earliest developments of English plaitting. Naturally, it is very light in weight, and enjoyed a great sale for many years, being most suitable for “Granny” bonnets.

Other plaits have been made of what is called “Cordinette.” This consists of two strands only, and is plaitted one over the other in recurring fashion, so as to make a kind of narrow concertina. It was at one time used for making small bonnets, but its general application has been for the embellishment of some of the wider grades of plait.

The straw plaits of China, and especially Japan, are all made on the above lines, their extra beauty and lightness, combined with the width of straw possibilities, rendering them the successful rivals to our insular produce. In these Far Eastern lands many fancy digressions of plait making have been made, some of them of beautiful design and effect, but all of them embodying one or more of the methods already described as peculiar to hand plaitting, and generally speaking have been copies of patterns sent out from Europe.

The other branch of plait making that has now revolutionized the trade is that of machine made braids. Some few entirely straw plaits have been made by machine. A Luton inventor named Barrett designed a mechanical plaitter, which really did make fairly good whole straw plaits, but the invention came at a time when lightness was considered most essential, and the machine failed to do justice to either single or double split straws. Italy has for many years produced a straw plait woven with cotton or silk, of which there are many patterns, but which are all given the generic name of “Fiesole,” from the original place of manufacture. This Italian plait of fine Tuscan straws has been in use for many years, 1840 is supposed to have been the date, and the plait was made on looms imported from Switzerland. Both Italy and Switzerland have since produced innumerable patterns of plaits in which straw is combined with one or more suitable weaving media. But all these machine-made patterns, although legion in number, and extending over more than three-quarters of a century, cannot compare as a straw hat success with the machine woven braids of horsehair, cotton, silk, viscose, hemp and other similar fibres that have emanated from Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Japan.

Probably the first machine-made braid (soon adopted and classified as “straw”) was that known as “crinoline.” This has as its basis horsehair, and is made both of hair alone and of hair mixed with many other fibres. The plain braid can be composed of odd numbers of strands of horsehair from five upwards, in series of numbers divisible by four, plus one; thus 17 ends, 21 ends, 25 ends, and so on; the finest used in the trade is 17 ends, which is about ¹⁄₈ of an inch in width, but 21 and 25 ends are the most in request for making the Crinoline hat so well known in the most fashionable quarters. Bonnets were extensively made about fifty or sixty years ago of “Crinoline Fancy” plaits that were a mixture of the hair with silk, or straw, or Tuscan, or any similar fibres. They were also adorned with glass beads or bugles, and with silken knots and small tassels. This trade is now nearly extinct owing to the scarcity of hair, but its place is fully filled with imitations made of various kinds of artificial silk, cellulose, viscose, and the like.

A cheaper competitor to crinoline was brought out about 1870, when imitations in cotton fibre braids were put on the market, but these missed entirely the delicate open work of the real article. Similar effects were subsequently made in hemp. But about 1890 the Germans began to make cotton braids in an open, or as it was termed ajour, manner, imitating very closely the true effect of crinoline. This had a tremendous success, for the cost was very small. This was followed by the silk imitations mentioned above, and they have now reached such a stage of perfection of make and colour as to entirely outvie their progenitor. About 1892 the Swiss people put on the market the first “Tégal” braids, to be quickly followed by an Italian copy. This rapidly spread to Japan, and the product of that far eastern country soon took the premier place, which at the time of writing it still holds.

Another product, largely used in the trade, although strictly speaking neither a plait nor a woven hat, is “Sparterie.” This is wattle woven of fine willow-chip splints into various sized sheets for the different requirements of the trade; it is mainly used as a foundation for making hats to be covered with some delicate plait that will not stand any method of wet stiffening. It is extremely light in weight, and can be moulded to almost any shape, it will stand stiffening, and may be made as firm as stiff buckram. This emanated first from Italy, but now for some years the Japanese have been competing for the trade.

CHAPTER VI
DYEING

The dyeing and bleaching of the various plaits are the next important processes towards making a straw hat.

The dyeing of straw plait in England, done individually for some time on a small scale, commenced as a separate industry about 1845, when a Mr. Randall opened some dyeing works at Sundon, a village about four miles from Luton. Black, and a very poor brown and dark blue, were the only colours then dyed. Shortly after Mr. Thomas Lye, who came from Kirkby Malzeard, near Ripon, Yorks, which was a plait making centre, started business as a dyer in Luton. His gamut of shades numbered only four or five, and the standard of colour then demanded was very low. Mr. Lye’s first signal success was a “grey,” which at that time no other competitor had attempted. In 1857 his business was transferred to its present site. Other colours quickly followed, and the invention of aniline dyes revolutionized the old “vegetable dye” processes, of which the ingredients were madder, indigo, logwood and fustic. These wood dyes required a long and costly process, and involved the use of mordants to prepare the straw for the different colours, and their somewhat cumbersome methods rendered them at all times rather uncertain in their results. With the advent of the more easily handled synthetic dyestuffs the operations of wood dyeing became less frequent, and although to-day black is still produced from logwood chips, practically all colours are dyed with one or the other extracts of coal tar, etc. The main considerations of dyeing are brilliance of shade with perfect evenness of colour, and penetration of the dye right through the straw. Unlike some textile fabrics, fastness either to light or even to water is not insisted on; but absolute penetration is a necessity, for should any part of the straw when plaitted become abraded, if the colour were only on the surface, the worn part would show a lighter tint; and also if when the “button” or centre of the hat was made, the turning of which being in such tiny circles, the straws are disturbed to their utmost, and the light coloured spaces which would result would impair the regularity of colour. And the dyeing penetration of straws or straw plait, composed as it is of such diversity of elements, the hard flint like exterior and the soft pappy inside, is a matter of considerable difficulty, even if dyers had not to contend, first, with the extreme hardness of water which is common in the South Bedfordshire district, and second, the constant cleansing necessary on changes in fashionable colours necessitating the use of coppers, the chemical effects of which in some instances need counter action to achieve a good result.

The question of penetration of the straw is one that has keenly exercised the minds of straw dyers from the inception of the industry. Many are the opinions as to the best medium for rapid and regular penetration. And many are the formulae given as being most suitable agents. It is probable that straws, grown on different geological formations and thus having different varieties of silicate exteriors, require different baths of softening chemicals, and that one bath, excellent for the straw plaits of China, would be inefficient for the straw plaits of Italy. Generally speaking, however, these baths are formed of water with some neutral salt, such as sodium acetate; or of an alkaline solution of sodium carbonate with ammonia. But the less that is done in the way of such softening before dyeing the better; because the longer straw plait is boiled the more it is impoverished. And as these preliminary processes involve boiling in every case, impoverishment must take place, and where alkaline solutions are used the results are especially poor. Another objection to the use of softeners is that they tend to loosen the straws of the plait, and as each process involves manipulation, the handling of the loosened plait tends to break it considerably.

Yet another objection is that certain shades of colour are most adversely affected by the previous use of such agents, in fact some tones cannot be produced at all on plaits thus treated. While in a few cases it is perhaps necessary and advisable to employ a softener, in by far the greater number the best results are those obtained from that formula which involves the fewest processes and the shortest time of boiling, and this can best be obtained where dyestuffs are used that do not require any previous preparation of the plait.

The dyeing of straw is almost invariably done at the boil. The dyeing matter, with any necessary addition, is put into the vat or copper and well mixed with the requisite amount of water. The plait is then introduced and laid carefully and regularly so that when pressed down the solution may cover it.