A short treatise on homespun, chiefly in its relation to
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A SHORT TREATISE ON HOMESPUN, CHIEFLY IN ITS RELATION TO SUTHERLAND. BY HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. EVER since this dying century has passed its prime, and the discoveries of the wonderful power of steam, and of electricity, have become part of its existence, we have learned to associate the centres of the great industries of the world with the hideousness, the squalor, the restlessness, the crime, which are the natural result of human ascendency, in a world that was planned to be Divine. Heavily hangs the smoke of countless chimneys over the brick and mortar erections that do penance for the woods and hilly fields of long ago: pitilessly revolve, madly, unceasingly, the countless wheels of a machinery which in its iron grasp crushes the art of dead centuries, flinging it out to a self-satisfied generation, that to its own crude fancy moulds the shapeless wreck, crying "see, see"- triumphant as the gutter child over its first mud pie. Mr. Arnold White in his volume on "English Democracy" says, "the folly and wickedness of those who destroyed the spinning jennies, the engines, and the printing machines, at the time of their introduction, have been denounced with so unanimous a voice that it would be futile to suggest that the ignorant peasants, or delirious mechanics, who obeyed the first instincts of their nature, were animated by a true sense Page 78 of self-preservation, however careless they may have been of the future of the human race." Mr. White reluctantly makes an admission. It was the prophetic spirit of self-preservation that had inspired those men, in the intuitive knowledge that not all the advantages of affluence and power to the minority--not the rise of a few poor to riches, a few rich to millionaires-not the undeniable freer circulation of gold-could compensate for the sufferings of thousands, who, tumbling pell mell into our great cities, thirsting for the employment scattered broadcast by these marvellous inventions, had found, all too late, among the curses of their half-starved children, the bitter results of such impetuosity far out-weighing its blessings. Whilst the larger portion of the world looks on in sullen indifference at this tottering state of things, there are others, tired of cackling speculation over quack remedies, who in real earnest have attempted to rescue some of the spoils of better days, as they are borne along on the flood of time. Perhaps foremost in importance among these poor little rescues comes the Hand-Spinning and Hand-Loom Weaving Industry of the United Kingdom. In England it exists only in the tiny oasis which men like John Ruskin, steeped in artistic feeling, and thirsting after the old order, have established under personal supervision, but in Ireland and Scotland the last decade has seen an extraordinary reaction, bringing the hand made tweeds and linens again into the world of demand, and likely to produce lasting benefit to the peasantry of each country. The general processes connected with the manufacture of cloth are well known, but a few remarks may be permitted as to specialities of method, and the following extracts Page 79 from a paper written by the Rev. Dr. Joass of Golspie for the Chicago Exhibition will prove of undeniable interest. "The wool packets being opened out and roughly sorted or stapled according to quality and length of fibre, of which there is considerable variety in the same fleece, the wool is cleansed from the grease derived from contact with the sheep (and the various protective `dipping' or `bathing' processes to which that animal is in autumn subjected) by steeping in a hot liquid. Dried and shaken up and still further `sorted' the wool is then passed through the process of carding and combing, to lay its fibres in the same direction. This is effected by means of a pair of implements like hairbrushes, with the handles at the sides, and set with metal teeth. It is now nearly ready to be spun into thread. The distaff and spindle were, from very early times, used for this purpose. The former is a staff, about four feet long, fixed in the waist-belt on the left side, or, more commonly, in the up-turned outer skirt, which thus forms a pocket in front for carrying the clews or balls of thread. To the projecting head of the distaff, the wool, previously cross-carded into inch-thick cylinders, (in which the fibre has now assumed a sort of spiral arrangement) is tied in an open bunch or bundle. From this it is fed out by the left hand of the spinster to the spindle, held at starting in (and afterwards swinging from) the right. This is a rounded piece of wood, about a foot long and half an inch in diameter, loaded at the lower end by the whorl, which acts as 'fly-wheel,' and is generally made of stone, often a disc of steatite, about the diameter of a bronze penny, and weighing over an ounce and a half. Some wool, drawn out from the store on the distaff, to which it still remains attached, is twisted into a Page 80 kind of thread and tied to the middle of the spindle, from which it passes upwards and is fastened by a simple hitch to a notch near the spindle-head. This is then twirled by the right hand, and as it spins it twists (as it is allowed to drop slowly towards the ground) all the wool up to the distaff, the hands regulating the speed and further supply, and thus determining the thickness of the thread. From time to time the thread is coiled around the shaft of the spindle into a ball, and a new hitch made till the clew is large enough to be slipped off and a new one begun. From the number of whorls found in connection with prehistoric remains in Sutherland their use must be very ancient, yet the spindle is still to be seen at work on the hillsides of Assynt, in the north west of this county, employed for its original purpose of spinning. On the east coast it is used occasionally for twining together different colours of thread, all the spinning being done by the well known spinning wheel. The next process is dyeing, and whether this is done `in the wool' or `in the thread ' there is a final treatment in an ammoniacal liquid, called by the Highlanders 'fual,' which removes the last traces of oleaginous matter and prepares the wool for receiving and retaining the dye. The securing of uniformity of tint or shade has hitherto presented some difficulty, and this is partly due to the imperfection of the apparatus in common use, and to the usual habit of measuring the dyeing material merely by the handful. Mineral dyes are now mostly used instead of those of vegetable origin. A list of the latter, some of which are in local use, is here given as collected from various sources of information. Page 81
Page 82 The dyed thread, washed in salt water if blue, or in fresh if of any other colour, is next woven into a web either at the cottage hand-loom or a small cloth mill driven by water power. The next process is that of `felting' or thickening, called 'waulking' in the north, probably from its being chiefly effected by the feet. The microscopic projections on the fibre interlock when the web is beaten wet, and as the 'waulk-mill' is apt to overdo the work, turning out a texture hard, stiff and heavy, the old process is still preserved in the west Highlands of Inverness and Ross, and in some parts of Sutherland, and secures a fabric soft, supple, and sufficiently dense to be wind and weather proof. The following description by A. Ross, LL.D., late Provost of Inverness, is taken from a paper read before the Gaelic Society there in 1885. "In the Highland districts women make use of their feet to produce the same result, (felting), and a picturesque sight it is to see a dozen or more Highland lassies set around in two rows facing each other. The web of cloth is passed round in a damp state, each one pressing it and pitching it with a dash to her next neighbour, and so the cloth is handled (? footed), pushed, crushed, and welded as to become close and even in texture. The process is slow and tedious, but the ladies know how to beguile the time, and the song is passed round, each one taking up the verse in turn, and all joining in the chorus. The effect is very peculiar and often very pleasing, and the waulking songs are very popular in all the collections. "I have on various occasions" he continues, "watched the waulking process, but seldom in recent years. It is often the occasion of a little boisterous merriment and practical Page 83 joking, for, should a member of the male sex be found prowling near by, he is, if caught, unceremoniously thrust into the centre of the circle and tossed with the web till, bruised with the rough usage and blackened with the dye, he is glad to make his escape from the hands of the furies." While to this method` of `felting' the web, something of the softness of the genuine `homespun' is due, it is also worthy of mention that the longer stapled wools are less liable to become matted and hard under the thickening process, of whatever kind, than those which are of shorter fibre. Now it is only with the longer fibred wool that the Highland wheel can work. Its very imperfection then as an implement, or rather machine, becomes of advantage as a guarantee of durability as well as of comfort in connexion with the work which it turns out, for whereas the mill can use up almost any sort of wool, however short in the fibre and inferior in quality, the wheel can only use the best and this is, in the end, the cheapest." A transition time, through which several of the northern counties had already passed, fell upon Sutherland about the first quarter of this century. For a long time previous the people were content to be clothed in their native homespun, and the demand occupied the time of the thrifty housewife and the female members of the household, when the closing year brought relief from the more pressing labours of the croft or the farm. The opening up of the county by roads and the influx of apparently cheaper and finer fabrics introduced a change of taste and the old home industries flagged. There was reason to fear that this would come to be regarded as but an eddy which attended the stream of Page 84 progress, and that the check to fireside winter-work, though sad, was inevitable, and must be endured because of compensating advantages. It also seemed not improbable that it might be set aside as only a woman's question. This indeed it has eventually become in the widest sense, mainly on account of the kind of sympathetic impulse required to initiate a remedial domestic movement, and the special skill and careful personal supervision, which, from the nature of the work, is needed to encourage and direct it. As good, that has once been personally experienced, rises again to the surface, even after a tempestuous lifetime of evil, so, notwithstanding the contamination of southern influence, every year increased appreciation of the artistic merits and practical usefulness of their hand-made tweeds, is returning to the northern people. The thatched, chimneyless roof of the cabin, once the only dwelling of the industrious weaver, now more often than not shelters his sleek cow; the weaver himself sitting snugly between slates above and white-washed walls around, and it is not too optimistic to assert that the webs of moss-green, heather-red, and sky-blue, peacefully rolled out from his purring loom, could, if correct in quantity, and perfect in quality, be sold trebly over, even were the number of weavers doubled throughout the county. From parish to parish busy committees are forming themselves, for encouragement and communication with the market, and while there is no idea of competing with the great woollen factories of Bradford, Huddersfield, etc., either in pattern or in price, the orders from London tradesmen for genuine homespun goes on, like the mountain stream, torrential in the proper season, and silent at others. Page 85 In common with men-women cyclists and women pedestrians, have discovered its advantage for comfort and durability, but is it fantastic to add, that in the touch and smell of these tweeds there is a quality that enslaves them, by its appeal to the nobler sensation of sentiment? In their close proximity, imagination conjures up the scent of autumn heather, mingling with the peat smoke from the scattered homesteads, curling out to the wide swell of the Atlantic; the mind's eye pictures the wild hill-tops bathed in the mist of a passing shower the covey of grouse whirring to the hollow by the deep swift salmon river - and beyond, in the glorious rainbow light of the August sunset, the startled listening hinds, motionless against the sky line. Surely under such conditions, the Scottish Highlands reveal in effect the enchanted summer-land of the world. 
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