the last century, and were called the Guitard Pinon, from the chief who wore a red velvet belt with a silver buckle containing the emblems of agriculture, given to him by the king's intendant in the reign of Louis XVI.

The women employed to tend flocks and herds still wear a broad-rim straw hat worked with their own hands. This hat is tied over the head with a ribbon, and is a perfect protection from sun and rain. The pleats of their coarse woolen gowns are formed by the strokes of a mallet, which is one of the necessary instruments of the tailor.

The section of Puy-de-Dome was finished with a collection of archæological objects connected with the history of costume. The first seen was a bundle of distaffs of carved wood, painted by the mountain shepherds. They came from villages near Clermont, and were fashioned like those used in the Pyrenees and in Algeria. The next object was a Celtic belt, very curious, from the village of Corent, once a walled town of Gaul. On the medals connecting the brass links were crosses carved by hand to consecrate the articles. They must go back to the time when Christianity was introduced into Auvergne by St. Austremoine. These chains were used up to the commencement of the present century to carry house and trunk-keys on. There were also clasps, buckles, and sleeve-buttons of Celtic origin, and these are now imitated in sleevebuttons with Vercingitorix's horse stamped on them. The old jewelry of Auvergne, that will certainly come into fashion again, must also be mentioned.

VENDÉE.-La Vendée was portioned into three sections, the woods, plain, and sea-coast. The committee went to a great expense in the exhibition: it sent three genuine costumes, but all tended towards the same model except the winter cloak of the St. Gervais fish-women and the women's caps, much like those of Rochelle. The men's dress is more original; it is the true type of the old Vendean with his broad hat, short coat, and tight breeches; no socks, but straw in his hard, heavy, wooden shoes. The costume is not often seen now, but it is very char. acteristic.

The Lower Pyrenees had three specimens from the valley of Ossau; the women wore a flounced skirt, high gaiters, and a red hood; two herdsmen had red caps; one was knitting as if watching his flocks; the other had a lute and flageolet, and he played both at once.

ARIÉGE.-Baron Bardis sent a male costume from the valley of Oust, a man and woman from the valley of Massat, and a woman from the valley of Bethmale. These costumes are still worn in the contiguous valleys, and the cloth is made in the country. In the snow mountains the leg-gaiters leave the knee-joint free, so as not to hinder progress through the snow, while they protect the lower leg. Men wear the broad hat common to the country, or the cap called the berette. In winter the women add a hood to their cloaks to keep their heads warm.

LOWER RHINE.-The department committee sent a man and woman

from the neighborhood of Strasburg, and two costumes from the vicinity of Wissemburg; but Alsace might have sent many more. These came from a Protestant region, as might have been seen from the woman's deep green petticoat and the man's vest of the same color. Catholics always wear red.

CHER.-Berry had also many souvenirs, chiefly from Asnières-lesBourges, a small village three miles from the capital, where the people are Protestants. The manners and customs of that part of the country have not altered since the edict of Nantes. The old men still wear the dress of the time of Louis XIV, and yet they all know how to read and write. It is singular they are so attached to the dress of the olden time.

LOWER CHARENTE.-Mr. Fournier sent a Rochelle and Marenne female costume, with magnificent head-dresses, made of tulle and lace, resembling those of La Manche, exhibited by Mr. LeMaillier. They had a domestic look to the eye of a stranger, and were very different from those of Normandy. The head-dress tells the province here and it becomes a science, but it is unfortunate that we see the Norman bonnet now only on the heads of old women, and on Sunday another obsolete head-dress, found chiefly in the departments of the Aube, was called the tocca. It might be called a large crown of lace, very pretty and graceful in form.

YONNE. The departmental committee sent a country costume of Avallon, the general type in all the central departments of France, and well known in Paris through the Morvan nurses that have made it popular. This coquettish costume requires a good figure to show it.

The house of Babin furnished several well-made costumes for the Exposition; among the most notable were a girl of Guéméné, one of Bressanne, and a Corsican laborer.

We must give a few words to the cases containing the jewels. Most of them, as the Norman crosses of General Hecquet and Mr. Singer, are of Alençon silex; they are collars, brooches, and ear-rings of Provence and Dauphiné. These adornments of the last century have become rare, and are only found in the hands of amateurs. The articles of provincial gold jewelry, still sold in remote districts, are quite interesting as curiosities in Paris, and show the difference between what was formerly used and what is now made for fashionable people. We would recommend the adoption of these old fashions for the benefit of modern industry.

CHAPTER II.

MATERIALS FOR CLOTHING REPRESENTED AT

THE EXPOSITION.

COTTON FABRICS FROM FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN, AND OTHER COUNTRIES-COTTON MANUFACTURE IN THE UNITED STATES-LINEN AND LINEN FABRICS, ENORMOUS CONSUMPTION OF, IN FRANCE-VARIOUS STYLES OF LINEN GOODS SHOWN IN THE FRENCH SECTION-RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE LINEN MANUFACTURE IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES-FLAX AND LINEN IN ITALY-MANUFACTURE OF WOOL AND WORSTED-THE BRITISH ARTISANS ON WORSTED AND MIXED TEXTILE FABRICS-SILK AS A MATERIAL FOR CLOTHING-THE SILK TRADE OF FRANCE-SERICULTURE IN FRANCE-GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON THE SILK INDUSTRY OF VARIOUS COUNTRIES-RIBBONS.

COTTON FABRICS.

In the present age, cotton fabrics being the cheapest and most universally used materials entering into the production of clothing, are naturally the most important to the largest mass of consumers.

France, being very properly ambitious to have every department of her wonderful industrial interests well represented in an exposition projected and carried out in her great metropolis, surpassed all other countries in completeness of exhibition in this department. For the same grade of goods made by other nations, the French, as a general rule, use a better quality of cotton, and twist their yarn more evenly and with a harder twist than other manufacturers.

In all grades of shirtings, fine cottons, calicoes, lawns, and muslins, the French maintain an acknowledged ascendency. Their exports of these goods for the five years ending with 1865 were as follows: 1860, $13,920,000; 1861, $11,280,000; 1862, $12,660,000; 1863, $17,640,000; 1864, $18,740,000; 1865, 18,700,000; and 6,250,000 spindles furnish the yarns from which these fabrics are woven.

It appears that, from some cause or other, many leading staples of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain were not represented. But the capacity of British manufacturers to meet the requirements of the world at large is attested by the facts that she exports of yarns over $50,000,000 worth, of calicoes over $115,000,000, other printed goods, $80,000,000, and of sewing cotton upward of $3,000,000-in all a value of $218,000,000; yet none of these branches of the trade were represented to any extent in the Exposition.

Our own manufacturers in this department of industry declined to appear; a case of sewing-cotton from the Clark Thread Company being the only article exhibited in the class of manufactured cottons.

The Oriental nations, with the exception of Persia, were scarcely represented. Persia contributed, after the date at which they should have

been received, some very rich fabrics, among which were some printed goods in the traditional style of the country.

Italy, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Wurtemberg, Baden, Prussia, and North Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, were all more or less extensively present in the examples of this class, and generally with credit to themselves.

The manufacture of cotton goods is the most prominent feature of the textile industry in Wurtemberg. This branch has been developed mainly within the past fifteen years, and supports twenty-one establishments engaged in cotton-spinning, employing about 245,000 spindles, and 3,550 hands; consuming 5,600,000 kilogrammes of raw material, valued at $3,222,613 84.

COTTON MANUFACTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

The very comprehensive report of my colleague, Commissioner Nourse, renders the presentation in this place of statistics of the cotton supply and manufacture of the United States superfluous. It will be sufficient to direct attention to the fact that the country did not make that display of cotton manufactures which justice to this important industry required; and also to the fact that notwithstanding the great increase of production of all kinds of cotton goods, the demand is not supplied.

The average annual value of foreign cotton manufactures imported, from 1821 to 1839, inclusive, was $10,624,687; and from 1840 to 1856, inclusive, $16,795,418; the yearly exportation for the same period averaging only $909,114. From 1854 to 1856, the average annual imports amounted to $28,811,966. These values, during the later periods, consisted largely of piece goods from Great Britain. Of plain white British calicoes alone our importations increased from 10,000,000 of yards in 1846 to 85,000,000 in 1856, and of printed or dyed calicoes, from 13,500,000 yards in the former to 97,000,000 yards in the latter year; and in 1860 we received from that country altogether 226,776,939 yards of cottons; but in the first two years of the late civil war, 1861 and 1862, this importation creased to 74,680,537 and 97,375,709 yards, respectively.

This industry, so vast and important to this country, and which deserved so prominent a place at the Exposition of 1867, was practically unrepresented there. It is not, however, to be inferred from this omission to appear in the greatest of industrial competitions, that the American manufacturers lack confidence in their ability to compete in the quality of those classes of cotton goods which form the great staple fabrics demanded by the masses of mankind; but a vague impression that the relative cost of production was to be taken into account in deciding upon the question of comparative merit, seems to have influenced them in withholding their fabrics.

The very general and earnest efforts which have been and are being made by the government and manufacturers of the United States to ameliorate the condition of the laboring classes by the payment of