THE MOSGIEL WOOLLEN FACTORY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 208, 30 March 1877, Page 9

THE MOSGIEL WOOLLEN FACTORY.

An engine of 32-horse-power, and a production of fabrics amounting to somewhere about 3000 yards per week ; such is the motive forced and such are the results of the work done at the Mosgiel Woollen Factory. This is a local enterprise of respectable proportions, enough to rejoice the hearts of those who desire the see the colonies advancing, and who consider, with justice, that the progress of the country depends on the enterprise of the settlers well followed up and developed.

But it is not only as a colonial undertaking, bespeaking the spirit of its inaugurators, and giving promise of an important branch of commerce and of future excellence, that the factory, of which we treat, is to be considered. It claims no indulgence, and needs no aid from any prospective reasoning. It may well rest upon its present merits, and, by the excellence of the articles in whose production it is engaged, consent to stand or fall. We left Dunedin on Monday last for the purpose of visiting this establishment, but were rather provoked to find that we had chosen an inauspicious season, for the works had been stopped for cleansing purposes, and, with the exception of the manager and a few men, engaged at the boilers or executing some trifling repairs elsewhere, all hands were absent, and a general hush prevailed. There is something uncanny about machinery in a quiescent state; it looks, after a manner, like a series of monstrous skeletons, and the stillness that prevails seems, by force of contrast, sepulchral. However, although, one's imagination may be gloomily impressed, or one's curiosity may suffer from an inability to see the motion which, produces the union of warp and woof, oi the various processes at work of carding, spinning, or winding, we almost think a better opportunity is thus afforded to judge undisturbedly of the quality of the materials manufactured.

In. old times the thrifty wives of farmers, who spun and wove the wool grown on the farm into a coarse and rather unsightly species of frieze, were wont to consider and boast that all defects in their handiwork were atoned for by the fact that it was the pure growth of the sheep, for they looked upon anything purchased as suspicious, and as being most probably adulterated with some less valuable and more perishable matter. Here, however, there is testimony quite as incontrovertible as that of the worthy housewives, whose wheels of yore turned out the clothing of their families, that the fabrics manufactured are genuine ; while there is also the additional advantage that their appearance is of the best and brightest. The whole process is open to the eye of the casual visitor, and all is patent from the shorn wool — the finest merino — in its natural state, to that in which it is exhibited as made up into the various forms of clothing material which it is capable of assuming. Particular pains are taken in the matter of colour and patterns and the Manager, who seems duly imbued with a proper spirit of pride in the works under his direction, pointed out to us the dyeing vats as unequalled in the southern hemisphere. Blankets, flannels, yarn, pants, socks, tweed, shawls, and wrappers are manufactured here j and we were particularly struck by a well designed and handsome plaid intended for ladies' dresses, and which, if we may venture to form a judgment of the feminine taste is, we should say, destined to become extremely fashionable. On the whole intending purchasers who will inquire freely for Mosgiel goods will find themselves benefitted by the demand.