Shawl
a well known garment worn loosely over the shoulders. The shawl is a mere oblong or square piece of cloth, without sleeves or fitting to the waist. It was an article of dress, doubtless, from the earliest antiquity. Before they were set aside by cloaks and overcoats, shawls were worn by men as well as women. Ordinary shawls are too well known to warrant description. Paisley, Scotland, is famous for the manufacture of serviceable woolen shawls. French ladies are partial to shawls. Paris, Leyden, and Nimes are centers of shawl making. The Chinese and Japanese excel in silk shawls. The word shawl is Persian. The most celebrated as well as the most expensive shawls known come from Cashmere. The best are made of the shining, short underwool of the Cashmere goat. This wool is carded and spun by hand into a fine thread with so much patience and labor that a pound of material is worth from $7 to $12 undyed. The most costly and permanent dyes are used. The shawls are made by hand in wooden looms. Some are made in small pieces afterward sewed together; others are woven or embroidered in a single piece. In the case of embroidery, a plain web is first woven, after which the patterns are worked in with the needle. In the making of an elaborate shawl, the work of three or four men is required for a year. The original cost of a cashmere shawl of the first class is about $900. Of this amount, $150 represents the value of seven pounds of the richest, most expensive dyed material, and $750 represents the year's labor of the weavers and embroiderers. If we add to this the cost of importation, including duty, such a garment costs the Boston, New York, or Philadelphia importer about $1,500. The most ordinary cashmere shawl is worth from $70 to $80. Very excellent imitations, however, are made on peculiar looms at a fraction of the cost of the genuine article. It is interesting to know that the oval, one-sided figure, not unlike a crook-necked squash, so often seen in cashmere patterns, is designed to represent a cypress tree bent over in the wind.