ightily sunk of late years, never apparently to rise
again; for it has sunk, not through any caprice of fashion, but in the
natural progress of improvement. Mr. Dodd, in his interesting little
work on the _Textile Manufactures of Great Britain_, refers
incidentally to the fact, in drawing a scene in the Cloth Hall of
Leeds, introduced simply for the purpose of showing at how slight an
expense of time and words business is transacted in this great mart of
trade. 'All the sellers,' says Mr. Dodd, 'know all the buyers; and
each buyer is invited, as he passes along, to look at some "olives,"
or "browns," or "pilots," or "six quarters," or "eight quarters;" and
the buyer decides in a wonderfully short space of time whether it will
answer his purpose to purchase or not. "Mr. A., just look at these
olives." "How much?" "Six and eight." "Too high." Mr. A. walks on, and
perhaps a neighbouring clothier draws his attention to a piece, or
"end," of cloth. "What's this?" "Five and three." "Too low." The "too
high" relates, as may be supposed, to the price per yard; whereas the
"too low" means that the quality of the cloth is lower than the
purchaser requires. Another seller accosts him with "Will this suit
you, Mr. A.?" "_Any English wool?_" "_Not much; it is nearly all
foreign_;" a question and answer which exemplify the disfavour into
which English wool has fallen in the cloth trade. But it is not the
cloth trade alone in which it has fallen into disfavour. The rapid
extension of the worsted manufacture in this country,' says the same
writer in another portion of his work, 'is very remarkable. So long as
efforts were made by English wool-growers to compel the use of the
English wool in cloth-making--efforts which the Legislature for many
years sanctioned by legal enactments--the worsted fabrics made were
chiefly of a coarse and heavy kind, such as "camlets;" but when the
wool trade was allowed to flow into its natural channels by the
removal of restrictions, the value of all the different kinds of wool
became appreciated, and each one was appropriated to purposes for
which it seemed best fitted. The wool of one kind of English sheep
continued in demand for hosiery and coarse worsted goods; and the wool
of the Cashmere and Angora goats came to be imported for worsted goods
of finer quality.' The colonist and the foreign merchant have been
brought into the field, and the home producer labours in vain to
compete with them on what he f