or men's wear are
actually American fabrics baptized with French and English names to
make them sell."

"Which shows," said I, "the use of a general community movement to
employ American goods. It will change the fashion. The demand will
create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for
American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised
to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own
hands will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and
English names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American
gentleman need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe
befitting him. I am positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other
woolen goods from foreign lands,--that _better_ hats are made in
America than in Europe, and better boots and shoes; and I should be
glad to send an American gentleman to the World's Fair dressed from
top to toe in American manufactures, with an American watch in his
pocket, and see if he would suffer in comparison with the gentlemen of
any other country."

"Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, "American carpets are
getting to be every way equal to the English."

"Yes," said I, "and, what is more, the Brussels carpets of England are
woven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our
countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in the
English looms, supposing that all arts were generously open for the
instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the
machinery and watching the processes by a shortsighted jealousy. He
immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently
unraveling it thread by thread, combined and calculated till he
invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and the
New World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy can
render effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of the
British market, and we need only to be disabused of the old prejudice,
and to keep up with the movement of our own country, and find out our
own resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Our
mechanics, our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, and
a skill that carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and
nobody can predicate the character of American articles in any
department now by their character even five years ago."

"Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, "there you mu