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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 3, 1902)
THE SUNDAY OREG0NIA2?, PORTLAND, AUGUST 3, 1902. AMEBIC A7N eOTTON I7N ENGLAND HOW IT IS SOLD AND MADE INTO CLOTH FOR THE WORLD J L STEAMSHIP DISCHARGING AMERICAN COTTON AT MANCHESTER 20,000 DALES AT THIS LOAD. 1 i MANCHESTER, England, July 19. (Special correspondence.) I have spent the greater part of today in kn& nt Via lorcroef rn f f rtn mtllo rtf Vnn. Viee.toT TVifti r!tv In ti a renter nf the ' cotton-eplnning of the world and the place "where more than half of all tho caw cotton -we sell Is handled. The prod uct Is brought to Liverpool or up the ship canal to Manchester, and from there distributed over this little cotton district Df "West England. The district is only 76 miles long and from 10 to 40 miles -wide. Taut it is' so spotted with mills that it might be called one vast cotton factory. Not only in Manche&ter, but in the hun dreds of villages and towns near by, the spinning, dyeing and weaving goes on. The very air is filled with the smoke and the streams are so discolored by the dyes that they eeem to flow Ink. In the town of Oldham there is a point where you can count 600 factory chimneys without mov ing. Blackburn, where Hargreaves set up the first spinning Jenny, still makes cot Ion, calico and muslin, and at Bolton, "where Crompton Invented the spinning mule, there are enormous cotton mills find bleaching and dye works. The first cotton mill was put up at Rochedale in 1795 and now thero are 23,000 looms anA 1,750,000 spindles at work there. This region woo noted for its woolen (manufacturers before cotton making by machinery began, and it got its start -through Its natives being the inventors of foundation tools for cotton weaving ,and Jblnning. The business grew more, however, through the advantages of the climate. The mill men here tell me that thero is no place In the world where the conditions are so favorable to the mak ing of cotton cloth. The air has just tho right amount of moisture, the water i excellent for dyeing and the colors are tfast. As a result tho cotton Industry has steadily grown, and it is today bigger !than ever. The Increase of the trade of 1900 over that of 1899 amounted to more 'than $60,000,000 in value, and new mills 'are etlll being built. "Where John. Ball Beats Undo Sam. It is in tha cotton trade that John Bull (Jias tho advantago of Uncle Sam. How llong he will hold it remains to be seen, Jbut so far his grip has not loosened. Ho Jis now producing about 5500,0)0,000 worth tof cotton manufactures yearly, and more 'than two-thirds of this product is ex ported. As far as the world's trade in Icotton manufactures is concerned we are biot in it, although we grow nine-tenths (of the world's cotton and are now put Jtlng up our factories right in the cotton (fields. England is thousands of miles from any place whero cotton is grown. UNCLE SAM AS A STORY-TELLER CURIOUS TALES TOLD BY HIM TO HIS PEOPLE EVERY DAY OU remember, no-doubt, that Haroun . Y Al Raschld and his Vizier and all i tho Kings and Princes who used to )call on them, were great story tellers, Jfmd always ready tc- narrate some won Werf ul happening that -they had witnessed leomewhere In tho world. That was away land away back in the dim times that wo 'call romantic and for which we often pine ow. Yet even while we are pining, and ..lshlng that our own times were not so prosaic, our very own Undo Sam ls touslly telling us stories every day. And fie tells them to all who choose to listen, tend not only to tho few favored ones who kised to hear Haroun Al Raschld. For 'Uncle 6am has his stories printed and pent everywhere. He calls them "Trado Reports," and other dry names like that, and It frightens many good folks who never like to read anything that does not look perfectly easy. So they do not cream what delightful and remarkable talcs Uncle Sam tells. Thus one day last week one of Uncle Sam's employes, a Consul, sent him a lit tle story from away out In Mesopotamia, Jwhere Nebuchadnezzar once lived, little .thinking that one day a Yankee would be prodding around that way. This Con sul told how a German exploration expe 'dltlon had uncovered what was part of Nebuchadnezzar's great dining hall, the very one where the writing of fire on the wall struck his guests dumb with fear one night. And ho told also how the railroad was progressing that is to connect the Medi terranean Sea with the Persian Gulf. Now here was a story that every child In "the United States ought to have read at once with deep pleasure. For that rail road ls to run through the land of the .'Arabian Nights." It ls to run into Bas sorah Bassorah the ancient, where once all,, the ships used to come In from the Land of Pepper. There it was that Sin bad eet sail for the Land of Fire. It was to Bassorah that he returned with his wonderful tales of the great bird Roc, the valley of diamonds and tho Old Man of the Sea. Isn't it queer to think of a real, clang ing, hooting, smoking railroad rushing Into that wonderful city of dreftsas, that but it supplies' its own cotton goods and has C6 per cent of the world's exports, while we have only about 5 per cent. Great Britain pays us 1150,000,000 and up ward for our raw materials, but if cells its product for at least three times the amount It pays us, so that it really makes about twice as much out of that part of our crop as we do. In the Cotton Exchanges. The most of our cotton now comes to Liverpool, although the shipments via the Manchester canal are increasing, and it is at Liverpool" where the bulk of tho j American product is sold. The sales are in the Cotton Exchange, where every day i there aro hundreds of buyers and sellers. ! Tho cotton is taken from the ships to the warehouses of tho various brokers, each of whom has a sample room with exhibits of the grades of cotton on-hand. The samples are rolled up in sheets of brown paper about a yard wide, so that they look for all the world like, rolls of cotton batting. Each roll contains sev eral pounds of cotton taken from the various bales, labeled according to the grades of the market. The cotton is bought and sold by samples, the spinners sending their ord ers to the brokers. I saw scores of boys moving about tho streets of Liverpool with such samples under their arms, and I stopped one who was carrying two bunches from one broker to another and photographed him. This was on the flags of the exchange, where, later on. I saw the brokers out in the open air buying and selling. The Flairs of Liverpool. It used to be that all of tho cotton busi ness of Liverpool was done out of doors. Tlyjre is a court in the Exchange known as the "Flags" and the bulk of the cot ton is bought and sold on tho Flags In stead of under cover. I went through the Exchango with Its secretary. He In formed me that Liverpool has little fear of Manchester taking its cotton business away from It, and that the natural land ing place of American cotton is and al ways "will bo at Liverpool docks. The cotton business of Liverpool Is very great. It Is. I am told, the largest cotton market In the world. I can easily believe this from the business I saw go ing on at tne huge cotton warehouses, and from the six and eight ton loads of cotton bales, each hauled by two of Liver pool's famous horses, which make a steady procession along the wharves and through the busiest streets leading up from the docks. The Biggest Exchnnge of the World. Quite as Interesting as the Liverpool Ex change is that of Manchester, which is said to bo the largest exchange building of the world. It is a magnificent struc ture in .the very heart of the city, built in the classical style out of massive stones, now blackened by the smoke of the cotton mills of the region about. It was yester day that I entered the great hall with every child knows so well as a place of fairy minarets and spires, peopled with great Arabs and Turks in baggy trousers and with beautiful princesses half gelled, and with princes of ravishing charm and garbed In gorgeous raiment, armed 'with shining' weapons and mounted on noble Arab steeds? And that railroad will 'run through Haroun Al Rascbld's own town of Bag dad. Its tracks may be laid in the very places where the great Commander of the Faithful and his famous Vizier' used to prowl on those romantic midnight wan derings of theirs, during which they met such pleasing gentry as the three one eyed dervishes, the' three ladies with the black dogs, the enchanted princess, the poor portr and the woodcutter that found a diamond and thought that It was but broken glass. Then we have a Consul in Nottingham now. A few centuries ago he would have been able to send Uncle Sam great tales of Robin Hood and his merry men, if, Indeed, Robin Hood had not gobbled him up. which ls more than likely. But now the story that is sent to Uncle Sam from Nottingham ls romantic because of Its very lack of romance. For the Consul makes a dry report of the condition of the lace industry. Now. If you will scratch your heads and think a bit, you may re member that the lace merchants were important persons In Nottingham even In the days of the famous outlaw. So you can sit down and think how strangely time makes some things vanish and lets others last for the green "wood ls gone, the fat Friar and Long John are gone, nothing ls left of Robin Hood and his men In green or their brave deeds; but the lace looms weave as busily as ever, and the merchants deal and barter as ever in the streets where merchants dealt and bartered then. (From Korea Uncle Sam has gathered a story of a mean and selfish man who de liberately destroyed $118,00 worth of his own property In order to prevent anybody else from getting it. This man was a Japanese merchant, and he bought up the entire ginseng crop of Korea for the year. Ginseng ls the queer plant that is so highly prized by the Chinese. They love it not only for food and medicine, "but consider It almost a sacred plant, and think that it has all sorts of magic qunli- ties. Well, this Japaneso knew that he one of the brokers and watched the 6000 men who gather there from the 100 cotton towns near by to buy and sell all sorts of goods, every Tuesday and Friday. Tho hall covers almost an acre and It is crowned with a dome 90 feet high. About it are hung the coat-of-arms of tho various manufacturing towns and upon a shield near the door I noticed the coat-of-arms of the United States. In the exchange not only raw cotton but cotton cloths, machinery paper and all sorts of goods are sold. The Manches ter manufacturers are so excellent that buyers come here from all parts of the world to collect goods. There are S00 res ident purchasing agents who represent every civilised country on earth who LIVERPOOL could charge all sorts of prices If he could only prevent any one else from getting hold of any Korea ginseng. But after he bought all there was, he found that he had 68,120 pounds. That Is enough for almost three years' supply, for the Chinese regard ginseng as far too precious to eat in large quantities. The Japanese merchant knew that if he let any one know that he had so much the price would go down. So he burned 13.100 pounds ot It. And as he had paid $625,000, or more than 39 a pound for the crop, he thus de stroyed property that had cbst him JUS,-' 000.. From Germany Undo Sam has gathered a story of queer moving vans that are built to carry household furniture not from street to street, but actually from country to country. These queer vans travel so far that it is not uncommon to see a van with big German lettering on It and the name of a Berlin firm rolling placidly through Italian cities or the French plains. And now It Is proposed by a keen and Imaginative business man to send these vans still farther acsoss the ocean into America. So before long It may be that we will see German vans with pictures of Ielpslc or Berlin or Dresden trundling through our own streets, having moved an entire German household bodily from the fatherland to New York or Chicago, or even Seattle or San Francisco. This Is not the only funny thing that Uncle Sam has discovered In Germany. On the river Elbe ho hao found great steamboats that move up and down the river for 290 miles from Magdeburg in Germany to Mclnlck in Bohemia without paddle wheels or propellers. They have their own machinery In them, to be sure; but that machinery has hold of k chain that is stretched all along the river bot tom from the one city to the other, and the boat moves by pulling Itsdf along on the chain. At first rfght this seems like going back to primitive times. But while apparently clumsy, this way of go ing is Just the best way that could be Imagined for ships on the river Elbe, be cause the stream goes through so 'much mountain country that It is very narrow and very swift and steamers going with their own motive power have to use al most all then engine power in efforts to hold their own. But with tho chain a steamer can tow spend theirtlme here looking into the products of this region and buying them for their customers. Thero are many Syr ians and East Indians, men from Austra lia and South America and from the United States and all parts of Europe. The business of China Is chiefly dono through tho English firms, which have their direct connection with Manchester. I found the brokers, however, a little ap prehensivo that our cotton might crowd them out of the Chinese market. We are already shipping the most of the cotton for North China, and with a better class of goods we might capture the trado of the Yangtse-Kiang and the south. In a "Dig Enellsh Cotton Factory. But let me tell you something about tho cotton mill of Richard Haworth & Co., which I have Just Visited. It Is one j of the largest In England. It employs 3000 hands, pays out half a million dollars In : wageB every year and weaves 300 miles of cloth every week. It has 3000 looms and 110,000 spindles and its floor space 13 more than twelve acres. The mill Is situated In Salford within a stone's throw of the great dock3 that Manchester has built at the end of her mighty ship canal, so that vessels from New Orleans and Galveston can bring tho raw cotton almost from the plantation to the mill. "We started In at the boiler-room, where eleven great furnaces eat up nearly 300 tons of coal per week, went by the en gines working away with a power equal to that of 4000 horsc3 and then entered the ynrd where men were unloading great bales of Texas cotton Into the mills. "We next followed the bales and saw the various processes by which they are turn ed into cloth. The work Is done, much as In the United States, and a description of It would not be far different from that of any of the great cotton mills of Massa chusetts or the South. The. cotton Is first brokeli up, the fiber being rolled over and over through blowing and cleaning ma chines, until it comes out at last In ropes of white fleecy yarn, as soft as wool and as thick as a broom handle. This yarn is twisted by machinery until It Is as sien der as the finest thread that ever went through the eye or a needle. Other threads similarly made are twisted with It until the strength and thickness required for the thread of the cloth Is obtained. Then the threads are wound on bobbins and by the mule spinner and other wonderful machinery are made Into the most beautj ful of cloths. I saw cottons of all 'pat terns, 'shades and colors being produced. Some looked like the finest of outing flan nels, and others had all the shetn and softness' of silk. I shall not attempt a description of the processes, only (saying that I was impressed with the newness and xcellency of machinery, a part of which was American. Some of the rooms seemed a vast thicket of white moving j threads, working their way lh and out among the Iron wheels and bands;, others ' were a maze of many colored cloths, and ! COTTON EXCHANGE, W HERE OUR COTTON IS SOLD. four or six barges holding from 1200 to 1500 tons at a speed that powerful tug boats cannot attain, and at an expense of only about one-third of the fuel re quired by free running vessels. Of course ' you all have read of . tho brave Knights of the Order of Malta and' how fhey long garrisoned and held the island of that name lying In the Mediter ranean ocean. Many, many years their great flag with Its mighty croro flaunted out from- the height over the harbor and as far as it was visible so far was the sea safe. Well, from that stronghold of chivalry and romance comes a report to Uncle Sam that what Malta wants Just now ls not armor or squires or shields, but Just simple American soda water fountains. And the man" who sends that news," adds that almost every one- In Malta wants to use electric light and that there is a great field there for American electricians. Of course. If you are in a hurry you will eay hastily that this Is the way trade and business are driving all romance out of the world. But' If you will think for a moment.1 you will see that really this march of American bushies-i is a far greater romance than the old ones that are disappearing before the new. For our plows are going Into Arabia where plainsmen still go on forays, and soon there will he farms and the fierce robbrr bands will have no wild country in which to dwell, the Emperor Menellk of Abys sinia ls sitting (possibly even while you are reading this) before an American mu sic box; tho poor old Sultan of Turkey, fearful all the time of being assassinated, carries an American revolver as he passes furtively through h! magnificent Oriental balances; the Shah of Persia has chained his great pet User with a chain made In Pennsylvania; the Rajah of Gwallor, who owns a carriage of solid gold and a pal ace far more splendid than any described In the Arabian Nights, has American harness for his horses; the seal hunters of Siberia carry American shotguns and repeating rifles; the very head hunters of Borneo rejoice when they can obtain an American knife. " So you see, Romance Is right here now. You must merely "get behind the looking glass." as Alice did. J. W. M. Don't let the sons go out of your life; Though It chance sometime to flqv In a minor strain, it will blend again With the major tono you know. All that remained of bank notes to the vain of $240 which bad been devoured by a goat havo been presented to tho Natloa&l Bank of Belgium and. duly cashed. IX A LANCASHIRE COTTON MILL. L - , . . , i others, so noisy with the flying shuttles and the spinning reels that It was Impos sible to speak to the guide and be heard. Anions' the EiigUnh. Spinning Girl; Most of the hnnds of the cotton mills are women, and It was a wonder to me how hundreds of glrl3 could w.ork to gether in one rcqm and not talk. I men tioned this thought to the guide later on. He replied: "Why. bless you, man! Those girls are the greatest talkers on earth. They were talking right along while we were in the mill, but they listen with the lips and not with the ears. They have learned the Hp language, and they can QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS INFORMATION OF MUCH BENEFIT TO THE DISCERNING LETTERS asking for general Informa tion will be answered in these col ums. They should be writtjen on one" side of the paper, and must be ac companied by the name and address of the writer, not for publication, however. AH letters without the name of the writer go to the waste-basket. Cabinet Officer. Please publish the officers of the Fresl dent'a Cabinet, the names of our Prime Ministers to England. France and Ger many, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Speaker of the House. A. J. Roosevelt's Cabinet Se-crctary of State, John Hay; Secretary of Treasury. Leslie M. Shaw; Secretary of War, Ellhu Root; Attorney-General, P. C. Knox; Pcst-master-General, Henry C. Payne; Secre tary of Navy. Jf. H. Moody; Secretary of Interior, E. A. Hitchcock; Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson. Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph H. Choate; to Germany, Andrew D. White; to France, Horace Porter. Chief Justice. Melville W. Fuller. Speaker of the'House, David B. Hender son. Onr Title to Oregon. From what source did the Government of the United States obtain the title to the Oregon Territory, that is. that part of the present United States between the north line of California and the south line of British Columbia which lies west of the Rocky Mountains? Barnes history says it 13 a part of the Louisiana Pur chase. V. H. By discovery of the Columbia River, 1792; by exploration, 1503? by treaty with England, 1S46. Papers "Xot Ordered. A subscribes and pays for a county paper 11 years ago. At the end of the year the paper changed owners, and A sent the new owners, notice to stop It. The paper continues to "come through a tell perfectly what anyone says by watch ing the movement of his Hps." The factory girls Impressed me a3 by no means bad looking. They make fairly good Wtrge3 for England and when you see them out for a holiday you would hardly know that they belonged to the mills. While at work they wear a costume which has been In use here for generations. It consists of a calico dress and short sleeves and a very short skirt and of stockings and clogs. The clogs are peculiar to this region. They have leather uppera with soles of wood, on which bands of Irqn are tackeJ. This makes a great clatter as they move about, and when the run out at meal time It made me think of the clat ter which you hear In Japanese railroad stations when the passengers In their wooden shoes run over the platforms. Most of the factory girls pay much at tention to their personal appearance. They are barehead while at work, and I saw hundreds who had their hair In crimping pins so tight that the skins of their fore heads were stretched like so many drum heads. They keep their hair In pins all the week and take It out only for Satur days and Sundays. Wages and TVorl. The Lancashire factory hands are better oft than the laboring people of some of the' other parts of England. They make faluly good "wages, and as all the members of a family work, the result is that the aggre gate income of a home often amounts to ?50 and upwards. Mr. Joynson, of the Manchester ship canal, told me of a family of eight, of whom seven were wage-earners. Said he: "The family consists of a man, his wife and six children. The father is a skilled workman, receiving about 2 a week. The mother stays at home and tends the house. The four girls go to the cotton factor", and one makes her 25 shillings, whllejho others each make from 15 to 20 shillings. Then there are two boys, who each make 23 shillings per week, so that, on the whole, the total Income is nign. Saving for the Holiday. The factory hands all save up for the holidays, and every girl takes at least one vacation a year to spend her accumula tion. The saving Ls done In clubs, In the treasury of which a part of eich week's wages Is deposited. At the end of the year, usually about July, the savings are drawn out. and a week or two is spent at the seashore or In the country. In some families such savings amount to several hundred dollars a year. I have heard of one where they annually foot up about 5300, and this all goes at the end of the year. Indeed, the factory hands aro good spenders. They want the best they can get, and as a pile spend all they mike outside the saving for tho Summer vaca tion on their clothes, food and drink. I saw crowds of them on Market street in Manchester last Saturday night. There is no work Saturday afternoon In any part of England, and on Saturday night the period of 13 years, although It has changed owners twice and A has changed his postoClce addrer.7 four times without notifying the owners to continue the paper. Can the present owners, through tho National Protective Association, col lect for these 13 years? B. C. If the paper was paid for to the date when it was ordered discontinued, and proof of that order can be produced, it would seem clear that there Is no legal obligation to pay for the paper after that time. Divorced Wife's Interest. A single man gives a married man a deed for real estate In Washington. The married man did not file the deed until after his divorce, the divorced wife not knowing of the deeded land, which was still In the single man's name. Ke now files the deed and wants to know If the divorced wife has any claim on It. A. From the statement of facts presented It appears that the divorced wife would have a claim against the property under the laws of Washington. Whether the deed was recorded or not does not matter, nor does It matter whether the wife had knowledge of the transaction. If the ownership of the property had actually been acquired by the husband and. no accounting was made at the time of the divorce, the divorced wife's community interest remains unextinguished. Inheritance. If a married woman dies without making a will, in what manner is her property, real and personal, distributed amongst her heirs, husband and their children? H. All the property goes to the heirs, sub ject to life use by the husband. Projectiles. Please Inform me the strength of the strongest cannon. Is there not a recent invention which has power to throw a projectile 90 miles? F. M. V. It may be answered with the utmost hands come out for a stroll. These I sea here look superior to tho common people of the other large cities I have visited, and from the stories told I can see there might be good demand here for many things that we make. Many of the shops advertise American shoes, and some have the American flag painted on their windows, and below It the statement that the shoes therein were actually made in America. This ls prob ably because the English are now mak ing shoc3 from American lasts and selling them as American. They are Importing our machinery and trying to capture the new taste of the public, which seems to be decidedly In favor of our footwear. The American shoe is far easier on tho feet and more stylish than the English shoe, but I hear It doubted whether It will wear as well or whether It will withstand the wet as the English boot does. The people here will not wear rubbers, and they must have a shoe that will keep out the water. American Goods In Manchester. I see about the same American goods hero that I have described as sold In the stores of London, Liverpool and other cities. There seems to be no antipathy to goods made In America, although many of the British products aro advertised as made by British workmen and backed by British capital. The English, however, will not patronize their own goods -if they are rot equal in quality and in price with any others on the market. What Ameri can manufacturers should do ls to send nothing but the best and to keep tho prices as low as possible. They should send their own traveling agents, but should advlso them to work quietly and leave the American eagle at home, until they have established their trade. John Bull Getting Tender. Tho British are not unfriendly to us. Indeed, they have changed their tone of late and now gladly call us their cous ins. They say that blood ls thicker than water and that as we all have the same ancestors we should stick together. They are, however, becoming sensitive as to what is called the American invasion, and it will bo well for those who want to do business to work quietly. They did not seem to mind the loss of their commerce so much until the shipping combination was formed and they foresaw that Eng land might lose her supremacy on the seas. This fact has caused something of a hysteria among all classes, and the sit uation ls for the first time looked upon as a serious one. In the meantime, a great deal of Amer ican business is being done under Brit ish names. Wo have a half dozen great companies which work here with directo rates made up of eminent Britishers, whose watch cry seems to be "British goods made by British labor for the Brit ish people." At the same time much of the capital comes from the United States and a large share of the dividends will find their way across the Atlantic to us. FRANK G. CARPENTER. pceitlveness and assurance that there is no recent invention that has power to throw a projectile SO miles. The range of the biggest and best of them is limited to 12 or 13 miles. Pronunciation of "Posse. Please give us the correct pronunciation of "poese." J.. H. M. Pronounce the word aa-lf it were spelled "possy," the "ossy" having the same sound as in "flossy." Jupiter. Will you kindly settle a doubt. A very bright star which rises in the east In this season of the year, in the evening. Is it Venus or Jupiter? L. S. Is Yonr Thumb Mad The thumb Is the most tell-tale mem ber of a human being's body, and It Is a well-known device of employers of a large amount of labor to carefully criticise the thumbs of every applicant for a situation before finally engaging him or her for any posltlon In their business. In fact, so far has this thumb science been carried that many lunatic asylum doctors are now em ploylnglt in detecting the numerous frauds who endeavor each year to enter the asy lum on the plea of insanity. No matter how carefully the Individual may attempt to conceal Indplent insanity, the thumb will reveal It, infallibly. It Is the one sure test. If the patient In his dally work permits the thumb to stand at a richt angle to the other fingers, or to fall listless Into the palm, taking no part In his writing, his handling of things, his multlforum duties, but standing Isolated and sulky. It is an unanswerable confes sion of mental disease. Specialists In nerve diseases, by an ex amination of the thumb, can tell If the pa tient ls affected or likely to be affected by paralysis, as the thumb signals thl3 long before it is visible in any other part of the body. If the danger symptoms are evidenced there, an operation Is performed on what is known as the "thumb center" cf the brain, and the disorder ls often removed.