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Page 12
The reel is now put into movement, and winds the thread formed by the
union of the filaments. It is at this moment that the real
difficulties of the reeler begin. She has now to maintain the size and
regularity of the thread as nearly as possible by adding new filaments
at the proper moment. The operation of adding an end of a filament
consists of throwing it in a peculiar manner on the other filaments
already being reeled, so that it sticks to them, and is carried up
with them. We may mention here that this process of silk reeling can
be seen in operation at the Manchester exhibition.
It is only after a long apprenticeship that a reeler succeeds in
throwing the end properly. The thread produced by the several
filaments is itself so fine that its size cannot readily be judged by
the eye, and the speed with which it is being wound renders this even
more difficult. But, in order to have an idea of the size, the reeler
watches the cocoons as they unwind, counts them, and, on the
hypothesis that the filament of one cocoon is of the same diameter as
that of another, gets an approximate idea of the size of the thread
that she is reeling. But this hypothesis is not exact, and the
filament being largest at the end which is first unwound, and tapering
throughout its whole length, the result is that the reeler has not
only to keep going a certain number of cocoons, but also to appreciate
how much has been unwound from each.
If the cocoons are but slightly unwound, there must be fewer than if a
certain quantity of silk has been unwound from them. Consequently
their number must be constantly varying in accordance with their
condition. These facts show that the difficulty of maintaining
regularity in a thread is very great. Nevertheless, this regularity is
one of the principal factors of the value of a thread of "grege," and
this to such an extent that badly reeled silks are sold at from twenty
to twenty-five francs a kilogramme less than those which are
satisfactorily regular.
The difficulty of this hand labor can be still better understood if it
be remembered that the reeler being obliged to watch at every moment
the unwinding of each cocoon, in order to obtain one pound of well
reeled silk, she must incessantly watch, and without a moment of
distraction, the unwinding of about two thousand seven hundred miles
of silk filaments. For nine pounds of silk, she reels a length of
filament sufficient to girdle the earth. The manufacturer, therefore,
cannot and must not depend only on the constant attention that each
reeler should give to the work confided to her care. He is obliged to
have overseers who constantly watch the reelers, so that the defects
in the work of any single reeler, who otherwise might not give the
attention required by her work, will not greatly diminish the value
either of her own work or that of several other reelers whose silk is
often combined to form a single lot. In addition to the ordinary hand
labor, considerable expense is thus necessitated for the watching of
the reelers.
Enough has now been said, we think, to give a good idea of silk
reeling, as usually practiced, and to show how much it is behind other
textile arts from a mechanical point of view. To any one at all
familiar with industrial work, or possessing the least power of
analysis or calculation, it is evident that a process carried on in
so primitive a manner is entirely unsuitable for use in any country in
which the conditions of labor are such as to demand its most
advantageous employment. In the United States, for instance, or in
England, silk reeling, as a great national industry, would be out of
the question unless more mechanical means for doing it could be
devised. The English climate is not suitable for the raising of
cocoons, and in consequence the matter has not attracted very much
attention in this country. But America is very differently situated.
Previous to 1876 it had been abundantly demonstrated that cocoons
could be raised to great advantage in many parts of that country. The
only question was whether they could be reeled. In fact, it was stated
at the time that the question of reeling silk presented a striking
analogy to the question of cotton before the invention of the "gin."
It will be remembered that cotton raising was several times tried in
the United States, and abandoned because the fiber could not be
profitably prepared for the market. The impossibility of competing
with India and other cheap labor countries in this work became at
least a fact fully demonstrated, and any hope that cotton would ever
be produced in America was confined to the breasts of a few
enthusiasts.
As soon, however, as it was shown that the machine invented by Eli
Whitney would make it possible to do this work mechanically, the
conditions were changed; cotton raising become not only possible, but
the staple industry of a great part of the country; the population was
rapidly increased, the value of real estate multiplied, and within a
comparatively short time the United States became the leading cotton
country of the world. For many years much more cotton has been grown
in America than in all the other countries of the world combined; and
it is interesting to note that both the immense agricultural wealth of
America and the supply required for the cotton industry of England
flow directly from the invention of the cotton gin.
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