GENEROUS RIVALRY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5070, 23 June 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENEROUS RIVALRY.

(From tho London Morning Post.) The following is an extract from an article which appeared in a New York journal on the late Philadelphia Exhibition. It must be borne in mind that it the Americans are supposed to excel in anything it is in all matters connected with their leading staple—cotton ; and this is what our United States contemporary says :—“ Of all the millions of women through whose deft fingers the smooth, glossy cotton thread passes, by hundreds of millions of yards, in its manifold uses, how few there are who know or even give a thought to the care taken, the skill shown, or the machinery employed in bringing the raw material to tho perfect thread as used by them. Nor are the jobbers and dealers who handle it on a large scale very much better informed in this matter. So much depends upon each individual process, from the selection of the raw material up to the final examination of tho spools, for the purpose of detecting and throwing aside those that may be defective in any way, so that none may be put upon the market that are not absolutely perfect, that the slightest slip in any one point may be fatal to the reputation of a brand of thread. Hence is it that one of the oldest manufacturers, such as J. and P. Coats, of Paisley, Scotland, are able to hold their own against all younger rivals. But much of this ignorance will be dispelled by the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, whore several manufacturers of spool cotton are exhibiting tho machinery used by them iu the process of manufacture. The largest crowd, however, seemed to ho attracted by the stand of J. and P. Coats, their name being familiar to tho general public, and their exhibition of their manufactured goods, in addition, being exceedingly complete. Their machinery was not specially built for tho occasion, but simply taken from what was in actual use in their mills in America, and sot up in the Exhibition that people might boo the everyday work as carried on in tho mauufac ■ truing process, and which will go back to tho mill when the Exhibition closes. The cotton is shown as it comes into tho mill bleached and skeined. The skeins are put on a frame, from which they are wound on to bobbins about iu length. From those, again, all thread that is iu any way imperfect being previously discarded, they arc wound on the small spools with which all your readers are familiar. After being inspected tho spools arc ticketed by a machine, which is one of tho most ingenious aud interesting in the Exhibition. Tho spools arc fed into the machine by a long slanting trough, which can bo gauged to any width of spool, and on either side are inserted, perpendicularly, the printed sheet of labels for the bottom and top. As the spool arrives opposite the labels for each end, the latter arc hold in position by pins, while a couple of brushes instantaneously move forward and coat tho labels with paste. Th« same movement draws tho brushes back, presses the labels through a tube against the spool, when tho pins are withdrawn, the spools discharged, and the operation continued ad infinitum. But, to my mind, tho most beautiful and ingenious part of the whole is tho movement by which tho sheets of labels are hold iu position, moved backwards, and forwards, and downwards, so as to bring each label in succession opposite the tube. To do this, as it has been done here, must have required tho very highest efforts of mechanical ingenuity.” This flattering opinion was confirmed by the fact that the Messrs. J. and P. Coats received the only award at the Exhibition for superior strength and excellent quality.