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Art. IV.-TEXTILE FABRICS OF THE ANCIENTS.

THE clothing of the human race is an interesting subject of inquiry, and if "fine linen" now holds but a secondary place in some respects, it once held a proud place among textile fabrics.

The Greeks and Romans are but moderns when compared with the Egyptians and Assyrians. The fashions of Pharaoh's court, and the luxury of Sardanapalus, bore little analogy to the stately extravagance of George IV. or of Louis Quatorze But unless, as Byron suggested, some future age should actually disentomb George IV. and his courtiers, posterity probably will be puzzled as to Brussels lace with the same doubts which perplex writers on ancient linen. When Lucius Lucullus invited his friends to supper in the Hall of Apollo, had he a shirt to his back? When lovely Thais inveigled the philosopher, had she a cambric handkerchief? The learned say that Alexander Severus was the first emperor of Rome who wore a shirt, at least in our sense of the word, for everybody had an indusium. And here we are fairly plunged in the ambiguities of language, and we shall not easily emerge from them. The Roman subuenta, the under tunic, was made of linum. Was it linen or calico? Curtis uses linum of cotton and cotton cloth. In Yorkshire they call flax "line;" we moderns have restricted the word "linen" to the fabric made from flax. We may remark in general that the more deeply we dive into antiquity, the more completely isolated we find mankind, in their arts and their luxuries, in their religion and their government. Clothing was one of the prime necessities of life, and different races of men have clothed themselves with various materials; the Chinese kept silkworms, and from time immemorial have worn silk; the natives of Hindostan cultivated the cotton tree, and consequently have worn calico; the Syrian, the Iberian, the Gaul, made garments of the skins of beasts; nay, the ancient Spaniard, and all that maritime population which dwelt on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, used leather for the sails of their ships. When Lucian, who was a Syrian, describes Timon in his poverty, he dresses the misanthrope in a dipthera, or leathern garment. Linen would have been unsuited to the poverty of Timon. Thus, even to modern times, while mankind live apart, nations are distinguished by their clothing. The native fabric of Otaheite was the tappa, made from the bark of trees, but Queen Pomare, although, like Penelope, skilled in the indigenous manufacture, preferred for herself an English cotton gown. At Manilla they make muslin from the fibers of the pine-apple; in New Zealand flax is in use, but the New Zealander does not employ the loomhe plaits the fibers into a square mantle for the chief.

So it is everywhere; the domestic production is cheap, the imported goods costly, and therefore valued. Thus linen, which so slowly made its way among the rugged Romans, was in more than one country the habiliment of females, of the luxurious, nay of the gods, and their attendants. In the days of old Homer the wife of Ulysses superintended the spinning, but it was wool which her maids spun. Doubtless she had linen among her stores, but it was linen imported from Egypt, with which a trade already existed. Whether Penelope had not even some calico may be doubted; for, if cotton was not yet cultivated in Egypt, it was brought from the East in caravans. The wares of China have been found

in the Pyramids, and a portion of those of India might have been there also. It is not at all unlikely that the rigging of the Grecian fleet which went to Troy was supplied from Egypt; for, at a period long subsequent to that expedition, we find Egyptian sailcloth made from flax enumerated among the commodities for sale in the Tyrian marts. (Ezekiel xxvii., 7.) The manufacture of ropes from the same material is a frequently recurring subject of those truly immortal designs which illustrate Egyptian arts.

Here we are, then, on the early traces of the East Indian trade. It was carried on partly by ships from the Malabar coast, and partly by caravans arriving at the Euxine Sea, or passing down through Syria to Tyre, or even to Egypt. In the age of Homer we find a Mediterranean trade in iron flourishing in full vigor. When Telemachus inquires of Mentor whether he was bound, the goddess, in disguise, informs the prince that she was conveying iron to Brundusium, where she would take up a return cargo of copper. Doubtless the other goal of this voyage was on the coast of Pontus. The Chalybes, or Chaldæns, were famous for their iron-whether they got it from the higher Asia, or forged it themselves. At all events this track was one of those by which Asiatic goods found their way into Europe for centuries. In the age of Pliny, iron came from the Seres in company with wearing apparel and skins. But the earliest certain indication of the arrival of cotton in Europe is given by Herodotus. He relates the gift by Amesis, King of Egypt, to the Lacedemonians, of a linen corslet ornamented with gold and cotton, B. C. 556. The embroidery on this corslet, whether executed with the needle or the loom, was a triumph of Egyptian art. Devices of all kinds, more especially of a religious character, were produced by the Egyptian craftsmen, who wrought, according to Julius Pollux, with a warp of linen and a woof of cotton, or with colored threads, or gold. According to Pliny, whose information as to their operations was most accurate, they were familiar with the use of mordants. "In Egypt," he says, "they produce colored delineations with marvelous skill, not by applying the colors to the fabric, but drugs which take up the color. After the drug is applied there is no visible result; but the cloth, once plunged in the seething bath, is raised again partially colored. And marvelous it is, when there is but one color in the vessel, how a succession of hues is given to the robe, produced by the quality of the drug which calls them out; nor can they be subsequently effaced by washing."

It was probably against this delineation of patterns ingrain that the prohibition of the Mosaic law in Leviticus xix., 19, and Deuteronomy xxii., 11, were directed. The Israelites were to be withheld from luxury; that is the point of many of their institutions; their strength consisted in their simplicity. But, moreover, they were to be preserved from the symbolism of Egypt. The embroidered representations of Egyptian gods were as hateful to Moses as the more permanent images in wood or stone. Here, then, we have arrived at the great flax-growing country. From Egypt the Greeks derived the manufacture of linen. But was all the linen which the Egyptians sold made from flax? More than one author has gone the length of asserting that the linen garments of the Egyptian priesthood, no less than the mummy wrappers, were all cotton. This notion counts among its partisans the well-known names of Forster, of Tremellius, and of Dr. Solander. Rouelle, in the "Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris in 1750," says that "all the mummy cloths

without resinous matter, which he had examined, were entirely of cotton; that the rags with which the embalmed birds are furnished forth, to give them a more elegant figure, were, equally with the others, cotton ?" "Was the Egyptian flax cotton after all?" he asks, "or was cotton consecrated by religion for the purposes of embalming ?" The inquiries carried on at the British Museum led to the same conclusions as those arrived at by the Frenchman. But the more recent microscopical investigations of Bauer and Thomson have overturned all these speculations. The fibers of linen thread are said by these more recent inquirers to present a cylindrical form, transparent and articulated, or jointed like a cane; while cotton offers the appearance of a flat ribbon, with a hem or border at each edge. It has, indeed, been suggested that the ripeness of the cotton might affect the condition of the fiber, or that the ancient mode of treating the plant might give to the Egyptian flax an appearance not presented by European specimens. Yet, although Philostratus expressly affirms that calico was exported from India to Egypt for sacred purposes, the balance of opinion has inclined to the belief that all the cere-cloths at least were of flax.

As our inquiry leads us from the shores of Greece to the banks of the Nile, the language in which the subject of discussion is expressed is radically changed. In Egypt we are in contract with a Shemitic dialect. The Teutonic word "linen" disappears. The Greek, in purchasing a foreign commodity, had learnt the word bussos, and he had given it to the Romans as "byssus." But in the Shemitic dialects we meet with half-a-dozen words which may all mean linen or cotton, and whose signification has been abundantly disputed. No doubt these words had originally different significations; but eventually they were all confounded together. The account of the corslet presented by Amesis, if there were no other evidence, would prove that the Egyptians had cotton under the Pharaohs. The very phrase for cotton, which we find in the mouths of the Greeks and Romans, viz., "linen of the tree" or "woollen of the trees," we find in the book of Joshua ii., 6. But "byssus" seems to have been selected as the name of the material specially destined for sacred rites. It certainly is the term which Herodotus employs in speaking of the mummy wrappers. But had the father of history another word in use, intelligible at least to Greek ears? On the other hand, if bussos meant linen, why did he choose the foreign word? Byssus evidently had a special adaptation to his subject. That the Jewish byssus had a more yellow tint than the plant cultivated in Elis may be inferred from a passage in Pausanias; but the etymology of the word leads us to surmise that the name implied peculiar brilliancy and whiteness. Theocritus, who enjoyed the favors of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and may be supposed to know the appropriate name for the material used in Egyptian rites, represents one of his female characters as attending a procession to the grave of Artemis in a tunic of byssus.

But if we are in doubt as to the native names for the various sorts of Egyptian linens, the mummy wrappers leave no uncertainty as to the excellence of the workmanship. The interior swaths are indeed coarse; but some of the exterior bands vie with the most artistic productions of the modern loom.

The peculiarity of the Egyptian structure is a great disparity between the warp and the woof; the warp generally containing three or even four

times as many threads as the woof. This disparity probably originated in the difficulty of inserting the woof when the shuttle was thrown by hand. To give an idea of the fineness of the Egyptian muslins, we may remark that the yarns average nearly 100 hanks to the pound, 140 threads in the inch to the warp, and about 64 to the woof. Some of the cloths are fringed at the end, and remind us of the garments prescribed to the Jews in the Mosaic law. (Numbers xv., 38.) Several specimens are bordered with blue stripes of various patterns. Had the patterns, instead of being confined to the edge, been extended across the structure, they would have formed a modern gingham. The Nubians at the present day rejoice in similar shawls. The dresses in the Egyptian paintings, descriptive of women of rank or of deities, resemble our chintzes.

Such was the ancient linen, the staple commodity of Egypt. She exported it in Phoenician bottoms to the Mediterranean ports. It was not all made of flax. Both Pliny and the Rosetta stone testify that the calico was in especial favor with the priesthood; but their partiality for the more modern material was not strong enough to break through ancient customs. The experiments on the mummy cloths corroborate all which we know of Egyptian conservatism. For religious purposes the flaxen texture was rigidly demanded.

JOURNAL OF MERCANTILE LAW

DAMAGES FOR NON-DELIVERY OF SUGAR.

In the Supreme Court-General Term. Before Judges Davies, Sutherland, and Hogeboom. Albert Havemeyer, &c, vs. John A. Cunningham, &c. This was an action to recover damages for not delivering a lot of sugar which defendants had agreed to sell to plaintiffs. The contract was as follows:

"NEW YORK, May 1, 1856.

"Sold for account of Messrs. Cunningham Brothers to Messrs. Havemeyer & Moller, the invoice of sugar for their account, per Anna Kimball, 700 tons, more or less, at 64 cents, less 4 per cent off for cash; to arrive on or before 1st August, to be of current quality, clayed, to be delivered foot of Charlton-street, New York.

"HALLETT, DOW & YOUNG, Brokers, 89 Wall-street."

The sugar arrived in New York 29th August, 1856. On the 1st August the plaintiffs notified the defendants that whenever the sugar should arrive thereafter, they would accept it at contract price. On the arrival of the sugar the plaintiffs demanded it, and offered to pay for it. The market value of the sugar on 1st August was 8 cents a pound. Defendants refused to deliver the sugar to plaintiffs, but sold it to other persons. Judgment is asked for the difference between the contract price and the market value of this sugar in New York on 1st August, 1856, with interest. The answer admits the contract-it sets forth a correspondence between the parties and others, to extend the time of delivering the sugar, showing a disagreement-also a correspondence between the parties, to obtain a new price in case the sugar should not arrive by 1st August, showing a disagreement. Also a correspondence between the parties, to show the plaintiffs offered to take, and defendants refused to deliver, the sugar in case it should arrive after 1st August, alleges, that on 30th August, 1856, part of the sugar arrived in New York, but that another part was lost at sea. Claims, as matter of law, that the failure of the sugar to arrive in time defeats the contract; and

also the fact that only a part of it ever arrived, has the like effect. Denies the alleged market value, and damage claimed.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE AS MADE ON THE TRIAL.

Plaintiffs proved the signification of the abbreviations in the contract. They mean that the price was six cents and seven-eighths of a cent per pound, and that from the whole value there should be deducted four dollars in the hundred dollars. Plaintiffs prove that the sugar (except what was lost at sea) arrived on 29th or 30th August, 1856, and was sold by defendants to Roberts & Williams. That the quantity by weight was as follows:

Sound sugar...
Damaged sugar...
Sweepings...

.pounds

960,583

157,658

4,245

This sale to Roberts & Williams was made 2d July, 1856, sold to arrive, and it was supposed at the time to be 500 tons. Plaintiffs proved the market value of this sugar in New York, on 1st August, 1856, to be 84 cents per pound, and the same price on 29th and 30th August, but higher during that month. The plaintiffs proved a computation made, as follows:

Sound sugar at market value, at 84 cents a pound, 960,583 pounds, is
The same, at 6 cents a pound, is......

Difference is......

Deduct the four per cent, which is.

$81,694 69

66,039 86

$15,609 96

Difference on 1st September, 1856.......

Add interest from 1st September, 1856, to 18th May, 1858, on $14,985 31

624 38

$14,985 31 1,800 69

$16,786 00

and not at 81

Defendants claimed that the calculation should be made at 8 cents. The court refused to direct that 84 cents be taken as the price for computation, and thereupon the defendants excepted to that ruling. The defendants also excepted to the allowance of any interest. The defendants then introduced their evidence. They proved and read a correspondence in June, 1856, in relation to a proposed sale of the sugar, in case it should fail to arrive by 1st August. The plaintiffs objected to this correspondence as irrelevant. The court admitted it, and the plaintiffs excepted. Both parties then read, by consent, a correspondence between them on the 31st July and 1st August, 1856, in relation to the taking of the sugar by plaintiffs, in case it should arrive after 1st August. The plaintiffs proved the fact that their telegram, offering eight cents a pound, was sent by a clerk, without authority. The plaintiff's rested their case, and the defendents introduced and read a letter from their correspondent in Manilla, dated 6th February, 1856, informing them of the shipment of this sugar, amounting to 18,341 bags. The defendants then read the deposition of the master, showing that the vessel sailed from Manilla 24th February, 1856, with 700 tons of sugar; was met by a storm, and put into Singapore 9th March, 1856. There took out part of the sugar and re-packed it, and sold some sugar which the storm had damaged. By reason of that storm 4,477 bags were lost or sold. Ship remained at Singapore thirty-seven days, and then sailed for New York with the remainder of the cargo, having lost some 200 tons of it by that storm, Most of the evidence of this witness was taken under objection, and at the reading thereof the plaintiffs renewed the objections and took exceptions to its admission.

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