A PERFECT SPINNER

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 15

A PERFECT SPINNER

An English mill girl is sailing for the East on an interesting mission. . For many years sho worked as, a frame tender in a cotton mill. Very early' she would hurry through the streets at the call of the factory syren, ana hour after hour sho would stand amid - the roar of ' machinery, deftly .tending her machine with the clever, quick movements that bewilder a stranger. When at last work was done she would hurry through. tUo streets again, this time by lamplight, to attend evening classes. . ■"■.,, The little mill girl was clever with her brain as wall as her fingers, and sho won a scholarship for Hillcroft College. ; After a,delightful year there she went on to the Aneoata (Settlement in Manchester to continue her studies for a twelvemonth, and then, then she expected to go back to her homo and be a frame tender for ever. But a wonderful thing happened. The Friends Service Council asked her if she would go to China? Ah, would she not! Like so'many others she longed to see foreign lands and never dreamed that her longing could be - satisfied- Now she learned that the Chinese Institute of Technical Training wanted an Euglish mill hand to teach Chinese women how to spin. Out of all England's cotton spinners v she waa chosen, and very happily did she set off for Shanghai. We are euro she will make a good teacher, but Lancashire people will say that her pupils can never be quite so good as she is; They believe that you have to bo born in Lancashire and have parents and grandparents who worked at the mills if you are to bo a perfect spinner. Perhaps they are right; the mills girla of Lancashire are famous; and the will girls of China will have to work very hard to rival thorn.