SILK, YOU SEE

NZ Truth, Issue 1199, 22 November 1928, Page 19

SILK, YOU SEE

Deft Fingers Garb Slender Ankles

THEY end up, long-, slim and seductive, on the ankles of many pretty ladies. But they start as raw silk, either crushed out from wood pulp or spun from the silk cocoons which are treasured m Japanese sheds. In these days, the stocking almost makes the lady. So we should know something about the ladies who make the stocking.. Ninety of them start out to Bonds' Hosiery Mills, Wellington, at eight o'clock every morning. They're a bright -faced, merry crowd, finding- little to complain of m their lot.' Most of them are taken on between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, and no girl m the mill earns less than £1 a week. The process of manufacture starts m a long, sunshiny room, where the yanks of raw silk are wound on great coneshaped spindles. The work looks simple enough— to the uninitiated — one turns a .feiW handles, adjusts a few sidekicks, and the silk curls itself around the cone m smooth, glossy order. •: There- is something " queerly human about the knitting machine, which turns out the- rpugh lengths from which the stockings are cut. The silk is popped into a mouth m which tiny needles form the teeth, and almost immediately a twirl of stocking comes forth from, the other end. . As it comes from the knitter, the stocking is a ■ limp, dejected and shapeless affair of w,hite silk, its toe wide open, no seams m the calf, and other defects rendering -it a thing- of scorn to our bargain shoppers. It is