Mr. KNIGHT. I think I know the place you refer to. But, as a matter of fact, I do not find any difference. Mr. PARKER?

Mr. PARKER. I never have.

Do you,

Mr. KNIGHT. If you try the experiment of sizing the yarn from a full bobbin to an empty one, I think you will be convinced there is no difference. It comes one way as often as the other.

Mr. KENT.

have gone to an

The reason that I spoke of it was, because you extreme; and that ought to test the principle, if it is correct. The theory that we have always held, is, that the yarn was finer on the empty barrel.

Mr. KNIGHT. Mr. BOURNE has made that experiment.

Mr. DRAPER. I think there is one great difference in the filling frame and in the warp frame. In the filling frame the barrel of your bobbin is only about three eighths of an inch in diameter, while on your warp frame it is from three fourths of an inch to an inch; and that would be a very vital difference, affecting the whole result, as between the filling and the warp, while the theory might be the same.

Mr. KNIGHT. There is less twist in filling than in warp.

Mr. KENT. It seems to me the ratio would be larger on the warp than it would be on the filling; between the empty and the full bobbin.

Mr. DRAPER. Yes; but if you take an empty spindle without any bobbin, you cannot spin filling, because the draught will break the yarn. So you have to have a bobbin to spin the filling at all.

Mr. STEPHEN GREENE. I would like to ask what his experience is concerning spinning filling as to the longer traverse and larger ring, in regard to getting less changing of shuttles in the weaving?

Mr. KNIGHT. I have not spun very much filling on the spinning frame for a good many years, gentlemen; but I will tell you of a little experience we have had in our mill. We had some old spinning frames that we intended to throw out

of the mill, but finally concluded we would keep them and spin filling on them. The frames were arranged with an inch and three-quarters ring. The spindles were two and one half inches apart. I think the traverse is something like five and one half or six inches. The overseer of the spinning room started those frames with an inch and three-quarters ring, and a bobbin rather larger than the average filling bobbin. I had an idea they would not run well with the inch and threequarters ring on filling: and I suggested some smaller rings; and I bought some smaller rings for one frame, and he said the frame ran better; and I then bought enough rings for all of these frames. But in the meantime we got short of warp, and turned these frames over; and they ran on warp yarn for quite a little while. Finally we changed them to filling again, and put the new inch and three-eighths rings in. And they had been running but a short time when I had a complaint from the weave room that the yarn pulled off the bobbin; that it was not wound hard enough on the bobbin. I told the spinner to put on a heavier traveller, and had him change his traveller several times until he got a traveller that wound the bobbin hard enough so there was no complaint from the weave room. Then he came to me and said, Now you have fixed me so I am worse off than I was before." And I have been trying some experiments, and I find, if it is necessary to wind the bobbin as hard as I am winding it now in order that it should weave, I can do it better with an inch and three quarters ring, with a light traveller, than with an inch and three eighths with a heavy traveller. But you must take into consideration the circumstances. The inch and three eighths rings were new ones, and the inch and three quarters rings were old ones, had been run a long time, and, of course, were smooth. That is, perhaps, a singular experience, but as near as I can get at it, those are the facts of the case, and the filling did spin better with the old ring and the light traveller than it did with the new ring and heavy traveller.

Mr. W. J. KENT. I understand Mr. BOURNE has had con

siderable experience with this seven-inch ring and two-inch traverse, and I would like to call on him.

Mr. S. N. BOURNE. I do not know that I have much to add to what Mr. KNIGHT has said. If anybody looks at it as a matter of economy, that is all there is to it. With the competition we have now, we must cut corners where we can; and I think we can spin cheaper with a two-inch ring and seven-inch traverse. I have quite a number of them running, and see no reason for changing.

Mr. DRAPER. I would like to ask Mr. KNIGHT how much slower he thinks it necessary to run spindles on No. 28 yarn, using a seven-inch traverse and two-inch ring, than to run spindles with a five and a half inch traverse and an inch and five eighths ring, to get the same result. I mean in spinning; so that one girl will tend the same number of spindles in each case, and keep the ends up as well in one case as in the other.

Mr. KNIGHT. I wish to say that I did not present the seveninch traverse and two-inch ring. I know that my fellowmembers on the Board of Government expected that I would. But I did not want to come before this august assembly and tell you about something that I did not know anything about. And I think I do know, and I feel perfectly safe in saying, that the six-inch traverse and inch and three quarters ring are perfectly safe things for a man to run on No. 28 yarn. I believe also that the seven-inch traverse and two-inch ring are all right. But if I was going to say to-day what I believe to be the most economical thing, all things considered, for a manufacturer to do, I would say this, that for No. 28 yarn he had better put in a six-inch traverse and two-inch ring. Now, Mr. Draper asked me how much slower it is necessary to run a seven-inch traverse than a five and one half inch traverse. I will say we are now running the six-inch (mind you, that is what I was talking about in the report, the six-inch traverse and inch and three quarters ring) at about the same speed run in first-class mills; that is to say, 9100 revolutions of the

spindles, and 112 revolutions of the front roll. Our seveninch traverse and two-inch ring we are running eight thousand. But if the spindle will carry the load, all right. (Mind you, I wish to be careful because I do not want any of you to say I got you into a scrape.) I am rather of the opinion that the time will come when we will run a seven-inch traverse and two-inch ring as fast as we are running the inch and five eighths ring and the five and one half inch traverse to-day. In other words, I have found no difficulty in spinning at eight thousand revolutions of the spindle and a little over one hundred revolutions of the front roll with the seven-inch traverse and two-inch ring. Our spinners say it is the best spinning that we have in the mill; and as a matter of fact we pay less money for running those spindles. I just figured it out a few moments ago, and I find it cost us thirty one hundredths of a cent to spin on the seven-inch traverse and thirty-five one hundredths of a cent to spin on the six-inch traverse. I have one boy who runs 1792 spindles with seveninch traverse and two-inch ring. All the spindles in that mill are arranged that way. I think that Mr. Draper's separator will settle the speed.

Mr. ECCLES. I would like to ask Mr. KNIGHT if there is any difference in the yarn, if the yarn is as smooth with the seven-inch traverse. I should think it would be apt to make the thread rather rough.

Mr. KNIGHT. I have found that thing, that if you run a light traveller it is very apt to leave fibres standing out on the yarn. I do not know what you refer to, exactly, by smoothness; whether you mean unevenness in the yarn itself?

Mr. ECCLES. I mean just smoothness in the yarn, freedom from the fibres.

Mr. KNIGHT. Well, the only way I have of judging is th we keep a record every day of the number of ends that 1 down in running a beam on the warper; we have a littl board; and every time a thread breaks in running a b girl makes a mark. There is a line drawn through t

of the black-board, and we put the number of the spool-attender above or below; and there is a mark put down against her number every time the thread breaks in warping. And I can say we have less ends broken on the seven-inch traverse and two-inch ring than we do on the other. And we also keep a record in the weave room. I have two weavers go in Monday morning, one in the north end and one in the south end of each of our large weave rooms; and each is given a paper like this I hold in my hand, and she marks down the number of ends that are broken during the week on the last full warp that was put into her looms. And we have less breakages in weaving on the seven-inch traverse and the two-inch ring than we do on the other. We have nothing shorter than the six-inch and the inch and three quarters. I do not know of any other differences that would be worth anything to us. I think, if anything, the lighter the traveller you use in spinning, the more fuzzy the yarn looks; but it weaves better with the long traverse and large ring.

There is one thing I might say about power. This report that I gave you on power is not the power in our mill. We drive in our mill about eighty-two spindles per horse-power, with six-inch traverse and inch and three quarters ring. This that I gave you was sixty-eight and seventy-two; seventy-two with the five and one half inch traverse and sixty-eight spindles with the six-inch traverse. In our mill, for some reason, the lightness of the bobbins or something else, --I do not know exactly how, but, as shown by experiment, we have been enabled to drive, on an average, eighty-two spindles per horsepower.

The PRESIDENT. Is there any other member who would like to say a word on this subject? It is something that is very important.

A MEMBER. I would like to ask Mr. BOURNE how much it costs him to spool his seven-inch traverse.

Mr. KNIGHT. I would like to put it another way and ask him how much he has saved.