e needle
of the machine. Besides sewing the pieces together this machine is
fitted with a pair of revolving cutters which trim the ends of the
pieces as they pass through in a neat clean manner. There is also an
arrangement to mark the pieces as they are being stitched. Like Birch's
it produces a chain stitch.

What is important in sewing the ends of pieces together is to get a firm
uniform stitch that lies level with the cloths without any knots
projecting, which would catch in the bleaching machinery during the
processes of bleaching, and this might lead to much damage being done.

Should it be necessary to mark the pieces so that they can be recognised
after bleaching, the best thing to use is printers' ink. Gas tar is also
much used, and is very good for the purpose. Coloured inks do not resist
the bleaching sufficiently well to be used satisfactory. Vermilion and
Indian red are used for reds, yellow ochre is the fastest of the
yellows, there is no blue which will stand the process, and Guignet's
green is the only green that will at all resist the process, umber will
serve for brown. All these colours are used in the form of printing ink.

The next operation is a very important one, which cannot be too
carefully carried out, that is:--

(2) =Singeing.=--For printing bleaches the cloths are singed. This has
for its object the removal from the surface of the cloth of the fine
fibres with which it is covered, and which would, if allowed to remain,
prevent the designs printed on from coming out with sufficient
clearness, giving them a blurred appearance.

Singeing is done in various ways, by passing the cloth over a red-hot
copper plate, or over a red-hot revolving copper cylinder, or through a
coke flame, or through gas flames, and more recently over a rod of
platinum made red hot by electricity.

Plate singeing is the oldest of these methods and is still largely used.
In this method a semi-cylindrical copper plate is heated in a suitable
furnace to a bright red heat, the cloths are rapidly passed over it, and
the loose fibres thereby burnt off. One great trouble is to keep the
plate at one uniform heat over the whole of its surface, some parts will
get hotter than others, and it is only by careful attention to the
firing of the furnace that this can be obtained. To get over these
difficulties Worral introduced a roller singeing machine in which the
plate was replaced by a revolving copper roller, heated by a sui