Up to the beginning of the present century, poor women found profitable
employment in spinning flax or wool. This was a better occupation for
them than straw plaiting, inasmuch as it was carried on at the family
hearth, and did not admit of gadding and gossiping about the village. The
implement used was a long narrow machine of wood, raised on legs,
furnished at one end with a large wheel, and at the other with a spindle
on which the flax or wool was loosely wrapped, connected together by a
loop of string. One hand turned the wheel, while the other formed the
thread. The outstretched arms, the advanced foot, the sway of the whole
figure backwards and forwards, produced picturesque attitudes, and
displayed whatever of grace or beauty the work-woman might possess. {41}
Some ladies were fond of spinning, but they worked in a quieter manner,
sitting at a neat little machine of varnished wood, like Tunbridge ware,
generally turned by the foot, with a basin of water at hand to supply the
moisture required for forming the thread, which the cottager took by a
more direct and natural process from her own mouth.
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