REVIVAL OF JET.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19811, 1 December 1919, Page 9

REVIVAL OF JET.

Mr Sydney Walton writes _as follows in tho London. “ Daily Chronicle ” : I chanced upon the following advertisement during a short sojourn tn Whitby:— “ Wanted, two or more apprentices to the jet trade; good wages and prospects; eight hours a day.” It piqued my interest, and I began, to make local inquiries about “ jotworking.” Whitby, tho quaint little harbour beneath' the hill, is haunted by the spirits of the past, by the songful, ghost of Caedmon and the devout soul of St Hilda; and the fashioning of jet tells, too, of ancient times and toils. 1 The ancients called jet gnrgates and black amber, and they vised to say that if mixed with the marrow of a, stag—strange potion—it healed a serpent's bite. “ Yes,” said my informant, proud oi his local lore, “ John Carlil was in trade here as ‘ jet-worker J in 1598; but it :a only about a hundred years ago since the demand for jot ornaments for personal wear became intense. “ Crude, at lirst, were the. tools, bnt skill and pride of craft soon provided beauty in. workmanship. I wish, by the way, we had more of that sense of joy in lino craftsmanship to-day. Just' as the old builders of this abbey of on]-n on the hill strove to make it a joy for ever, so the ‘ jet-workers ’ wrought in miniature the best they knew. Queen Victoria, introduced into the Court tho wearing of jet. nud as bv magic she brought prosperity' to Vhitby. Jhe great war. with all its shadows and sorrows, has found in jei a seemly emblem of grief, and we are getting orders from everv part of tho world. What, after all,’can 1* more gracefully _ symbolic than a. jet ornament. fashioned here in this old town, the cradle of English history in more than one sense! “We need to-rlav as nmnv drilled men as we can got for the work. Wages are- njsn, and ill ere is about the ta?A something of poetry and .*>