d _in
work of some sort or other_. The cutting, the bleaching, the sorting, and
the platting of straw, seem to be, of all employments, the best suited to
the wives and children of country labourers; and the discovery which I
have made, as to the means of obtaining the necessary materials, will
enable them to enter at once upon that employment.

209. Before I proceed to give my directions relative to the performance of
this sort of labour, I shall give a sort of history of the discovery to
which I have just alluded.

210. The practice of making hats, bonnets, and other things, of _straw_,
is perhaps of very ancient date; but not to waste time in fruitless
inquiries, it is very well known that, for many years past, straw
coverings for the head have been greatly in use in England, in America,
and, indeed, in almost all the countries that we know much of. In this
country the manufacture was, only a few years ago, _very flourishing_; but
it has now greatly declined, and has left in poverty and misery those whom
it once well fed and clothed.

211. The cause of this change has been, the importation of the straw hats
and bonnets from _Italy_, greatly superior, in durability and beauty, to
those made in England. The plat made in England was made of the straw of
_ripened grain_. It was, in general, _split_; but the main circumstance
was, that it was made of the straw of _ripened grain_; while the Italian
plat was made of the straw of grain, or grass, _cut green_. Now, the straw
of ripened grain or grass is brittle; or, rather, rotten. It _dies_ while
standing, and, in point of toughness, the difference between it and straw
from plants cut green is much about the same as the difference between a
stick that has _died on the tree_, and one that has been _cut from the
tree_. But besides the difference in point of toughness, strength, and
durability, there was the difference in beauty. The colour of the Italian
plat was better; the plat was brighter; and the Indian straws, being
_small whole_ straws, instead of small straws made by the splitting of
large ones, here was a _roundness_ in them, that gave _light and shade_ to
the plat, which could not be given by our flat bits of straw.

212. It seems odd, that nobody should have set to work to find out how the
Italians _came_ by this fine straw. The importation of these Italian
articles was chiefly from the port of LEGHORN; and therefore the bonnets
imported were called _Leghorn Bonne