hire is no factory, the hats are woven by village women homes. It is a home industry which provides work for thousands of we. men in the villages around Ningpo. Of course the industry has bec encouraged and developed by enterprising firm and the history of that development. isa fascinating story. "The women in the villages around Ningpo are accustomed the weaving of a big rush hat. Just fas in the days of the self-containd homestead they were expected do the spinning and weaving for the family, so were they expected to provide their men folk with the necessary headgear.
Tt appears that the rushes grown around Ningpo were peculiarly adapted to the production of a good durable straw woven hat and enterprising village women soon discovered that there was a market for such hats in the city. The mar-Ket was not sufficiently hix to en-
In the carly' days of the industry suggestions were made by the! Olivier company, through the middle men, for variations in the pattern fof the weaving and here again the natural art of the workers was quite sufficient to produce the desired effects. All that was necessary for the Company's Office in Ningpo was to buy the hats collected by the middle men, wash them, immerse them in a preparation of sulphur to extract all the dirt, press and block them, and then pack them for export. Meanwhile the Company's agents discovered that a superior quality of rush flourished around Wenchow.
Secing the possibility of manufacturing a superior hat they decided to. import raw material and supply it to the village workers. This meant a modification of th methods and to meet the new situa tion they brought in a few of the best weavers from the country and employed them in weaving pattern hats. With the arrival of the fist cargo of rushes from Wenchow these women were set to work making pattern hats of the new rush. [On the completion of the pattern the number of strands required for its making and the length of the trands was ascertained. It then became a simple matter for a specially employed men workers frst of all to grade the raw material and then make it up in bundles containing the requisite number of cut to the required length for the making of one hat, These bundles of rush strands were then distributed by the Jamong the village worke: price agreed upon for the making: fof each hat, The villagers were in Ino way organized by the Olivier Ca. They merely contracted through the middle men to receive 30 many bundles of material make the same number of hats at a fixed rate per piece,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.