CASHMERE SHAWLS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1635, 13 August 1887, Page 3

CASHMERE SHAWLS.

Cashmere shawls aro precious to every fashionable woman's heart, and belong to the same category as diamonds. The love for these products of the Oriental loom is scarcely a century old. The shawls left by Tippoo Sahib's ambasaadora m Peris, m 1787, were regarded as curiosities by the magnates to whom they were pte iea<ed, end were used as orpeta 0' out up for dressing gowns. It is said that Madame GaudiD, a lady cf Green parentage and a celebrated beauty, wore the first shawl m Paris. Not until Rft^r Napoleon's Egyptian expedifon dll the Cashmere shawl beoome fashionable. The Empress |JVs£ephlne's love (f these auptrb webs of Oriental beau'y is na well known bb Is her great pasßiou for fbwers. The wealth acquired by the great men under the Brat Empire was lavishly cpont by their wives on Indian shawls. It was a matter of little importacca whether the shawl was clean or soiled It might have done duty aa tho robe of some priest high m the office, or as the turban of one of the Mogul's s>ldiers. If it suited the taßta of the great lady, it was purchased, cleaned, and worn. The Bhawls are woven from the wool of the Thibet goat, aud for those of the highest quality only tho fiaest of (im fiae wool is used, one goat yielding but £lb of tho best sort at the annual shearing. The shawls are a'l made upon hand looms, and sometimes 30 Or 40 men err employed for a year and a half, or even two years, upon a einele shawl.

The gold and silver threads used m ihe embroidery of the shswla is made at Boarbampoor, a Deccan city. A piece of pure oro is beaten into a cylinder tho slza of a thin reed, and is again beaten out until it will pass through an orifice an eight of an inch m diameter. This wire is then wonud npon several reels, which work upon pivotr, the end of the thread beinz passod through even finer holes and then fastened to n new reel, which, when set In rap'd m , i n, attenuates the thread still further. The thread la next flattened by a skilled workman upou a steel anvil, highly polished. A silk thread Is then covered «Mi fine wire, it is said that if a lump of silver be gilt before it is put through any process it will retain tho gilding through all the severe hammering, winding, and drawiug t > which it ia afterwards suV jected; and emerge a golden thread that vriil never become tarnished.

Queen Victoria receives as a tribute each year a certain number of Cashmere shawls of fiae quality from various Indian princes. These costly wraps the bestows as marriage gifts upon ladies of rank connected either directly or remotely with her court