MAKING OF FINE LACES.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 504, 17 January 1906, Page 6

MAKING OF FINE LACES.

Vearaat Americans Can Come to the Imported Artielt Is a Cheap Imitation.

"Fine laces," said W b ,W. Chace, to a Louisville Herald man, ""constitute one of the most readily salable classes of merchandise which is imported to this country, and it is a source of wonder that American genius has not devised some way in which to meet this demand with a domestic article which will serve the purpose and can be sold at something like the same price. "But it has not,** he continued. "We have had many machines invented, but the nearest we can come is to manufacture a type of lace whfc'h is naturally cheap, and does not in any sense approach its hand-made, foreign rival. Of course, American women could be taught in time to knit such fine fabrics as their sisters do in> Ireland, England, France. Germany and Spain, but we in this country are too busy making money to waste time in that way, "I have traveled all over Europe, and the most interesting method of making lace over there that I came across was at Plauen. Germany. It is woven on a kind of bolting cloth made of floe silk, and after the pattern is completed a certain acid, parts of which are kept secret, is applied and the bolting cloth eaten away, leaving only the Jace. They also have a way of altering the strength of the acid in order to give the lace a rich, old color."