TIN SILK DRESSES.

Evening Star, Issue 11893, 22 May 1903, Page 3

TIN SILK DRESSES.

"Would Jadies believe' that quite 75 ner cent, of the so-called silk used for skim P "efd Mmple? " A correspondent, in proof of that statement, forwards samples of what is m reality tin-weighted silk. He asserts that the practice of substituting tin for vegetable weighting substances originated in Germauy Ihe vegetable matters were no detriment, though equa brilliancy of color was not obte,"ab}e> «*d,there was not the same sheen and feel when handled as that produced by real silk, which has the rustle so pleasing to ladies ears. "The practice cf the dyer* le explains to whose hands the silk yarn is entrusted for dyeing and weighting, is to boil it, and in so doing he reduces every sixteen our.ces to twelve, thus eliminating the natural gummy substances and the foreign matter added for the purpose of spinning. The twelve ounces were then brought up to fourteen by the use of tannic acid, etc To-day, by the substitution of tin, the twelve Ounces are raised to sixteen ounces, or even thirty ounces " "The proportion of 'weighting* is more than that in black silk," said a manufacturer, to whom this statement was submitted. "Very frequently only one-fourth of the woven mate- '

rial is real silk; the other three-parts axe tin and dye." Any lady can test for herself whether the silk she is buying is tin-weighted. For the purposes of on experiment a dozen samples were selected. Three of these were colored glace silks sent by the correspondent, with one sample of pure (white) figured silk. Two others were supplied by a firm weaving with genuine siik. One specimen was of real bilk, the other a German imitation. A soft washing silk and a Tussore silk and four cuttings of glace silks in actual wear made up the number. One by one these were all held hi a llarae, with the result that the genuine left an ash resembling that of wool when burned, with no trace of filament, whilst the tin-weighted simply lost its color and tenacity, each thread remaining distinct in a thin wire gauze. This was the result that our correspondent had declared would follow an attempt to burn tinweighted silk, and he believes that a very good substitute for an incandescent gaslight mantle might be made with it. Carried a little further, the burned material under a microscope distinctly reveals the glißten of

tin. Out of the fire tests the only silks which proved genuine were the stuffs woven from unweighted thread, the soft washing silk, and the Tussore, all of them, either woven in London or Esses, or dyed in this country, having been woven in the East. The glace silks and the German mutation, with the remnants of blouses, ties, and dresses submitted to the flame, gave the incriminating tin tissue. The decline of a flourishing industry is attributed by our correspondent to this form of adulters tion, “ Surely,” ho says, “itis in the interests of the manufacturers to seek at once some means whereby they may save themselves. We have the Food and Dregs Act, under which adulteration is severely dealt with. Why cannot the wearer of silk be protected similarly through the Statute Bookr” Unscrupulous foreign competition is practised to such' extremes that English manufacturers who will not use the weighted thread are often at the expense of cutting loom cards for original patterns only to find their stuffs accurately copied by the Germans in tin-weighted sills.—London ‘Daily Telegraph.’