THE INTRODUCTION OF THE USE OF SILKS.

Waka Maori, Volume 11, Issue 8, 20 April 1875, Page 83

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE USE OF SILKS.

We publish the following (taken principally from the "family Friend") for the information and instruction of our Whanganui readers who are turning their attention to the culture of the mulberry-tree, and the production of silkworms; — Silk is said to have been first brought from Persia into Greece (a country in the south-east of Europe) 323 years before the birth of Christ, and from India into Homo in the year of our Lord, 27-1. During the reign of the lloman Emperor Tiberius, a law was made in the Senate, forbidding men to disgrace themselves by wearing silk, which was only fit for women; and so little were the Europeans acquainted with its culture, that it was then supposed to grow upon trees like cotton. ' In the year 555, two monks brought from Cerinda, in the East Indies, to Constantinople (the capital town of the Turkish Empire), the eggs of some silkworms, which having hatched in a dung-lull, they fed the young insects with mulberry leaves ; and by this management they soon multiplied to such a degree, that manufactories of silk were erected at Constantinople, at Athens, and at Corinth. In the year 1130, King Roger of Sicily, brought manufacturers of silk from Greece, and settled them at Palermo, where they taught the Sicilians the art of breeding silk-worms, and of spinning and weaving their silk. (Sicily is an island in the Mediterranean sea. Considerable quantities of silk and.cotton goods are manufactured there. Palermo is its capital town). From Sicily the art was carried all over Italy, thence to Spain; and a little before the time of Francis I. (1515) it reached the south of France. Henrv IV. (1559) of France was at great pains to introduce manufacturers of silk into his kingdom, and by his perseverance at last brought the art to tolerable perfection. In the year 12S0, the ladies of some noblemen first appeared in England in silks at a ball in Kenilworth Castle, in Warwickshire. In the year IG2O, the art of weaving silk was first introduced into England; and in the year 1719,

Lombe's machine for throwing silk was erected at Derby—a curious piece of mechanism, containing 26,556 wheels turned by water. The perfect model ot this machine is now preserved, and to be seen in the Tower of London. Such was the first introduction of silk into England, which long continued to be too scarce and dear to be applied to common use. Henry 11. of France (15-1/) was the first European who wore silk stockings. In the reign of Henry VIII. of England (1509) no silk stockings had appeared in England. Edward VI. (15-17), his son and successor, was presented by Sir Thomas G-resham with the first pair that were ever seen in England: and the present was, at that time, much talked of as valuable and uncommon.