SHODDY AND MUNGO.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 179, 15 July 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

SHODDY AND MUNGO.

Shoddy clothes its thousands, and nimigo its tens of thousands. Thousands wear shoddy without knowing it, for shoddy masquerades freely as pure wool, and thousands more, who turn up their noses at shoddy, are clothed in mungo, and never heard of the material.

'Hie word shoddy was one of dispaiagoment, meaning “Like your shoes”—something roughly used, tranipied in tho dust, cheap, inconsiderable.

Mungo was so christened l>y a tough cld Yorkshire manufacturer. .Sending out some cloth, his attention was calk'd to the fact that it was defective.

“Ne’er mind,” said he; “it mun go (must go).” And mungo the stuff has remained to this dav.

Both are made from woollen doth. Shoddy comes from softer woollens, such as blankets, comforters, and knitted goods. Mungo is made from harrier, more milled goods, such as woollen cloth for suits, and so forth.

Both are “new” and “old.” The. new from the cuttings and clippings of tailors’ and merchants’ shops; the old from woollen rags sold to deal-

Tho rags are disinfected, sorted into qualities and colours, put through a machine which tears them fibre from fibre, and they thus become a soft and fleecy product like carded wool. In that way the shoddy is soon a suit of clothes again, or a covert coat, or at least a can. Thousands of workpeople make shoddy- and mungo in the heavy woollen districts of Yorkshire and other c?ntres, and without this material the poorer classes m England could not dress as they do.