Renaissance of the Humble Rag Carpet
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SPINNING WHEEL OF TODAY.
X I Industrial world, products of th;
1 liiimnn Vi-iti.1 n r.l 11 tr ! i n in thi
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tore. Handicrafts are sin-inK-ine
ud on every side. Not in
competition with or antagonistic to the
machine, which has done so much to brinw
utility ana beauty into lives that
might otherwise have never known
either, but as a natural expression of in
dividuality, are handicrafts multiplying.
Periodicals devoted to hand made arts
threaten to become as formidable as trade
journals. It Is the Inevitable result of
two growing factors In American life.
Educated wealth Is spreading, and with It
desire to possess exclusive objects of art
which bear the Impress) of Individuality
and which can not be duplicated, as aro
machine made things. Educated wealth is
learning to recognize and appreciate the
intrinsic value of human skill as mani
fested in the various handicrafts.
Ready to meet this taste and demand
upon the part of educated wealth are men
:and women of ideas who have learned to
think and to execute for themselves.
Breaking away from he employer and the
salary, they have set up their tools under
their own roof tree, and from designs of
their own fashioning, out of clay, brass,
copper, wood, straw, rags, leather and
other mediums, they are making for util
ity and beauty articles that bespeak the
thought that is within them.
In out of the way corners of large cities
are numbers of little handicraft shops
where a single worker creates and stamps
his or her hand made work, as did the
Henneventu Cellinis of the middle ages,
with their personal signature or trade
mark.
Knowing no taskmaster but the satisfac
tion of their Individual sense of the true,
they withhold their work from Jie uuyer
until it realizes as near as possible their
id al. Their own designer, executor, task
master, their salary is their profits. These
little shops nestle for the most part under
sky roofs, or are burled in cellar basements.
So rapidly have they increased in number,
and of such superior excellence is the work
they turn out, that In more than one large
city dt pots have been estalilU-hid for their
exhibition, with hope of commanding a
larger market than is possible in the se
cluded shop or studio.
In this refreshing revival looms a long
discarded art the weaving of rai; carpets.
As the dean of caipet weavers swings his
gaily-tilled chut ties those days he marvels
at the change in the clientele that find.s its
way to his basement home, where his loom
of nearly forty years' service has long been
a curiosity to the passerby. In lieu of an
occasional housewife or the matron of a
charitable institution comes now. to the
old man's p-rplexity, my lady's maid with
balls of cut rags, or a monogramed. per
fumed note asking him to call at No. S i
and So and collect material prepared for
the weaving of a carpet, rug or portiere.
"It's tl'.e Americans the rich Americans,"
c hiu kli s ihe old weaver, "who have t t mj
loom a singing in its old age."
When the dean came from Havaria with
his good frau less than forty years ago he
found In New York more than 1,000 carpel
weavers, all doing a thriving business. "1
owned four looms," sighed the old man with
a blink in hifi merry brown eye. "All the
big stores bought my carpets, and great
ladies living in fine houses in Bond Btreet
and Lafayette place used to bring me their
fine gowns cut up Inta strips to weave into
carpets not for the kitchen, I would have
you know, but for their own beautiful bedrooms."
WEIGHING THE RAGS.
With the coming of the machine-made
carpets, among the first to desert the hand
weaver were the foreigners. Today th
dean knows of but three hand looms on tin
East Side of New York and doubts if there
are a dozen weavers who make their bread
swinging the shuttle.
"The old wenvers have nearly all died
off, and their children would not learn tin
trade. It was too slow. They followed the
trend of the times and took to the machine
or fought work in other fields.
"Ach! 'Tis.hard, hard work," said t hi'
dean's frau, threading the loom. "All i
so big and heavy and clumsy."
"Come, come," laughed the dean, "you
would not give up threading this, old lady,
and sorting out the bobbins and wenvim;
romances around each pretty bit of silk or
volvcit for the wealth of the Vanderbilt s."
"Wealth is all very good," continued the
philosopher, light-hearted as a boy, despite
his seventy years, game eye and Avenue A
basement home, "but it's not everything.
There was a weaver in my town in Itavaria
who made soap by day and spuu carpet by
night. The lilt of the shuttles always set
him a singing, and in song he forgot he was
poor or tired or lonely. There was a very
rich man lived near by who could nut sleep
at night for the weaver's song. He sent
for him one day and asked why he sang all
night.
" 'Because it makes me happy," said the
weaver.
" 'And it makes me unhappy,' said the
rich man, 'for it will not let me sleep. 1
give you $100 if you do not fcing at night.'
" 'Four hundred dollars,' said the poor
weaver, who had scarcely owned as many
pennies at one time in his whole life. 'I
take your money and I sing no more.'
"When people heard the story they came
from all Bides to see the weaver. Every-
THE DEAN OK THE l.OOM.
one had a new way for him to invest his
moneys, until the poor weaver he knew not
what to do. Every day he hid his mniey
in a new place. He could not eat nor
sleep, thinking some one wi uld find It. He
put it iinid" his shirt tin I it burned him.
Every time he threw Ihe shuttle his throat
parchul for want of song. The m niey
and tin- song bursiing to be mil made him
si. sad lie could no more eat nor drink nor
sleep. lie was like a ghost, and the ear
pels he wove lost their color. Hue il ay
he could stand it no more. He took th"
money and he went to the ri h man's
house.
" 'I gives yi u yi ur money,' said th"
weaver to the rich man. 'I keep my
rung.' "
"He, he. he." "buckled I lie frau. weighing
uriat balls of rags sent in by an uptown
hispital. "Money cannot buy a light
heart."
"But it send- us customers," said the
dean; "rich customers, where once we had
only the very poor." Turning to the long
bin In hind his seat at Ihe loom, he tossed
up merrily the sorted colors of th" bob
bins waiting to be woven Into a carpet to
catch the footprints of children of wealth.
The mainstay of th" surviving hand lo ma
are Ihe charilable Institutions. To keep
inmates or convalescent patients employed
cast off garments are given them to cut Into
stripes and prepare for the weaver,
for rag carpet strips are always usi fail In
large institutions. Where formerly tene
ment denizens found it more profitable to
buy machine-made carpels, since old rag
brought prices almost equal to that asked
for the machine carpet, which t tiggit d
luxury, they find today it does not pay to
save them for the rag man, so mightily
has the price fallen, owing to thi' substitu
tion of wood for rags in the manufacture of
paper.
tin Ihe other hand, reudy-iuadc garments
have been brought to such perfection in Un
making and at so small a cost to the con
sumer that once, where wealth found il
profitable to dispose of cast off garments
to second -hand dealers, they now receive to
little that, in lieu of poor relations or send
ing them to Institutions, tiny are, in com
pliance with fashion's behesl, culling them
up into rag carpets.
Hoes life oiler a more literal way of
tramping its vuuities under fool!
Much of the durability of a rag carpet de
pends upon the quality of lis warp. Cotton
warp wears belter and is much llruier than
wool or linen. Tlio beauty of u rag curpet
lies largely in the quality of the material
used and the deftness with which the
weaver throws the shuttle. Carpets con
fined lo one material cotton, wool or silk
- are more effective and durable than those
of varied stuffs. Silk is the favorite fabric
for decorative rugs, always prized by the
lover of skilled handicraft. One yard width
is the limit of Ihe carpel loom, which is not
designed to weave large portieres. They
call for a separate apparatus. While the
old-fashioned hand loom does not admit of
Ihe weaving in of designs after the manner
of tapestry, the trained weaver hi; of color
percept ion and arllsllc can achieve won
ders in the blending of the bobbins. Two
pounds of rags are allowed to one yard of
curpet. Thirty cents a yard is the price of
weaving one yard.
Kroin the time the rags, cut and sewed
into strips, generally of an inch width and
wound into great bulls, are brought to I lie
weuver, until he finally rolls It into carpet
for delivery to the customer, it has six sep
arate handlings. Consider this labor, and
that one yard un hour is Ihe largest output,
at 30 ceuts a yard, and well may it be said
that, for the band loom weaver. Time was
made for slaves and Weulth Is a chimera.
Episodes and Incidents in the Lives of Noted People
i tie- nrsi minister 10 ine uniieu
I I States from the repubMc of Cuba,
iioiiaiu ue iutsuua, is ui uu uiu
revolutionary family of the island,
whose name has been prominent
In every effort made for the liberation of
iCuba from Spain, by rebellion or filibuster
expeditions alike. Mr. Quesada came to the
United States as agent of the Cuban repub
lic In 1897, but was of course unrecognized,
.as his accrediting government had no ex
istence. He Is still in the 30s and earned
many friends in his previous sojourn In
Washington.
In some parts of Germany the Inns In
small towns are accustomed to substitute
chicory for coffee a practice not altogether
unknown to American landlords, It la bty
lieveJ. Bismarck arrived at such a place
one day and asked the landlord if he had
any chicory. The host answered affirma
tively and the chancellor eald: "Bring it all
to me." The landlord did so and Bismarck
aid: "Is this all the chicory you have In
the house?" "It Is, meinherr," was the re
ply. "Then," said the man of blood and
Iron, "bring me a cup of coffee."
Lord Lovat, whose scouts were bo suc
cessful during the war In South Africa, is
to receive a Highland welcome on his re
turn to Scotland from the Clan Fraser, of
which he is chief. This is not the first
time that the head of the Fraeer clan
has raised men for the British army. A
regiment called the Seventy-eighth Fraser
Highlanders was raised in 1757 by Simon
Ijord Lovat as a mark of his gratitude at
getting back to his native land after exile.
'Thlt regiment served In America. Again
in l"7i Lord Lovat raised a Fraser regl
m nt the Seventy-first which also fought
in America and was discharged In 1783.
It Is said that only once was Mr. Marshall
Field known to lose his nerve. After the
great fire of 1S71, relates the Saturday
Evening Post, a prominent Chicagoan en
tered the room in which Mr. Field and hla
partners were taking stock of their misfor
tunes. The latter were urging the feasi
bility of continuing the business, but Mr.
Field could not share their hopeful outlook.
"What's the matter, Marshall?" Inquired
the kindly caller.
"I tell them it's no use," responded the
young merchant. "We've lost everything
and there's no such thing as going on with
the business. Why, we couldn't do It with
less than a million dollars!"
For a moment the caller was silent; then
he quietly remarked: "Well, Marshall,
you can have your million and you'll come
out all right, too."
This man was the late Cyrus McCormlck,
and he kept his word, with the result that
Mr. Field is today recognized as one of the
foremost merchants of America.
British public opinion is strongly in favor
of keeping Lord Kitchener at home in
stead of sending him to India. His lord
ship does not stand so well with the aris
tocracy, to many members of which he has
given offense by refusal to meet their
wishes. For instance, there is one great
nobleman who desired that his favorite
son be sent home from South Africa. So
he telegraphed to Kitchener: "Please send
my son home at once; urgent family
affairs" Kitchener replied: "Your son
cannot return at all; urgent military
affairs." ?.
The street car conductor with a talent
for icpartee of the neat and polished order
Is rare, and note should be made of him
when found, says the New York Times. A
dissatisfied passenger found one out In the
neighborhood of Bronx park last week,
when two women who had been trying to
get to the zoological show complained of
the difficulty they had had In eliciting any
Information about its whereabouts.
"Yes, madam," the dissatisfied man a
stranger to them chimed In, "I can quite
sympathize with you. The fact Is, I don t
believe these conductors know the differ
ence between botanical gardens and zoo
logical. I doubt If any of them could even
tell a monkey from a man."
"Fares, please," said the conductor. In
terrupting the conversation Just at that
point. "Fares, please. None of our busi
ness what you are so long as you pay your
fare. Two, ma'am?"
Kiankla, descendant of a long line of
distinguished Indian chiefs, died a few
days ago in a little hut In a se
cluded spot near the shores of the
Raritan river, about two miles from Flem
ington, N. J., and with his passage dis
appeared the last of the once great and
proud tribe of the Delawar. s. Arthur
Tenbroeck of New York City, who ha spent
many summers In the neighborhood of
Flemlngton, and who made the acquaintan?e
of the aged chief of an extinct tribe about
three years ago, superintended his burial
and says that his wishes that he shnulJ b-
laid away under the shadows of un ancient
elm, where once his forefathers fat In
solemn council were carried out. Mr. Ten
broeck says that Kiankia Informed him
soino time before his death that he was 'J.1
years old. "It was generally supposed,"
sa d Mr. Tenbroeck, in discussing the death
of the last of the Delawares, "that old In
dian Anne, who died In Mount Holly In ls94,
was the last of the famous tribe, but it was
not known then that her brother, Kiankia,
was still alive."
George S. Boutwell tells in his recently
published book of reminiscences that he
was present at an Interview between Gen
eral Joe Hooker and Charles Sumner, to
whom Hooker applied to assist him In ob
taining a Massachusetts regiment on tho
plea that he was a native of that state. "In
the course of tho conversation Hooker said
that if he could obtain a regiment he would
come to the command of the army and take
Richmond." This was in May, 1 SCI ; Hooker
"had then recently arrived from California
and his appearance indicated poverty. Ills
dres was worn and his apparel was that of
a del ayed man of thu world."
At the time of King Edward's recent
operation the nurse who had been present
to assist left the room on his recovering
consciousness, but not before the king had
caught sight of her face. Directly after
he asked one of his physicians who she
was, for ho had seen her somewhere, and
quite lately. The doctor admitted that
this was so, for but a Bhort while before
his majesty bad presented this same nurse
a medal for her work in South Africa.
Tb gift ha& been rendered doubly
precious to Us recipient, for the king
asked for the nurse and shook hands with
her, saying at the same time: "1 have
proved for myself how well you deserved
that medal."
Naglyaupe, a full-blooded Sioux Indian
from Fort Shaw, Mont., has just been
elected It adcr of the municipal baud of
Carlisle, Pa , and thus enjoys the distinc
tion t being the first red man to assumo
dictatorship of a musical organization
composed entirely of whites. Nagiyanpe,
wh: is a modest and unassuming young
fe.l'jw, bus assumid tlio name of Robert
Iliuce in his inter. ourse with the pale face.
He is an excellent performer on the trom
bone and has I ecu a professional musician
for some time.
When liion Iloutieault was playing "The
Vampire" at tho Princess theater in I.oulon
h:: nave a gnat deal of attention to the
opining scene, which represented an Alpine
landscape with a distant thunderstorm. The
thunder was pnnlu cd us usual, and some
remarkable fine moonlight effects were In
troduced. One night whin the s as u was
at its height a tremendous clap of thunder
startled the audience and interrupted Mr.
H. ucit ault in the middle of a speech. low
ering his voice so that he could be heard
only by the property man, he said:
"Mr. I'avies. you are making more mis
takes. ' Thai thunder came in the w rong
place."
Mr. Uavies replied in tones which could be
plainly hard all over the auditorium:
"No t a ul t of mine, sir, it wasn't my thun
der. Thunder's real i ul of doors; perhaps
yi u i an stop it there."
