aid aside to be used in other ways. All this could never be done by
machinery. It is different in the spinning of cotton, silk, or wool,
in which the original threads are almost all of uniform thickness. The
invention of the English flax-spinning machine, therefore, can never
supersede the work of the Belgian fine thread spinners, any more
than the bobbinnet machine can rival the fingers of the Brussels
lace-makers, or render their delicate work superfluous.

The prices current of the Brabant spinners usually include a list of
various sorts of thread suited to lace-making, varying from 60 francs
to 1800 francs per pound. Instances have occurred, in which as much as
10,000 francs have been paid for a pound of this fine yarn. So high a
price has never been attained by the best spun silk; though a pound of
silk, in its raw condition, is incomparably more valuable than a pound
of flax. In like manner, a pound of iron may, by dint of human labor
and ingenuity, be rendered more valuable than a pound of gold.

Lace-making, in regard to the health of the operatives, has one great
advantage. It is a business which is carried on without the necessity
of assembling great numbers of workpeople in one place, or taking
women from their homes, and thereby breaking the bonds of family
union. It is, moreover, an occupation which affords those employed
in it a great degree of freedom. The spinning-wheel and lace-pillows
are easily carried from place to place, and the work may be done with
equal convenience in the house, in the garden, or at the street-door.
In every Belgian town in which lace-making is the staple business,
the eye of the traveler is continually greeted with pictures of
happy industry attended by all its train of concomitant virtues. The
costliness of the material employed in the work, viz., the fine flax
thread, fosters the observance of order and economy, which, as well
as habits of cleanliness, are firmly engrafted among the people. Much
manual dexterity, quickness of eye, and judgment, are demanded in
lace-making; and the work is a stimulator of ingenuity and taste;
so that, unlike other occupations merely manual, it tends to rouse
rather than to dull the mind. It is, moreover, unaccompanied by any
unpleasant and harassing noise; for the humming of the spinning-wheel,
and the regular tapping of the little bobbins, are sounds not in
themselves disagreeable, or sufficiently loud to disturb conversation,
or to interrupt