PLAUEN.
405
people according to certain large groups of trades, and shows the great
preponderance of the textile trades among the industries of the town. It should
be remembered, however, that the figures do not properly represent the
importance of such a trade as building, bricklayers, masons, and others, not
being subject to inspection.
Group of Trades.
Number
of
Establishments.
Number of Workpeople.
Males.
Females.
Total.
Building
Metal-working and engineering
Textiles
Printing, lithography, bookbinding
Paper
Woodworking and carving ...
Stone and earth
Food, drink, and tobacco
Other
Total
&c.
159
45
983
20
13
35
50
289
268
1,842
579
1,390
5,080
303
353
359
562
751
953
10,330
4
11
12,962
29
19
2
53
80
417
13,577
583
1,401
18,042
332
372
361
615
831
1,370
23,907
Over one-half of all the establishments subject to inspection and just about
three-fourths of all the operatives working in them belong to the textile trades.
A fact which is not apparent from the table and which could only be ascertained
through the courtesy of the Municipal Statistician, Dr. Dietrich, is, that of the
963 establishments and 18,042 workpeople engaged in the textile trades,
848 establishments with 14,385 workpeople are employed in lacemaking and
embroidery alone. Compared with this the other textile operations are of minor
importance/the most noteworthy being bleaching, finishing and dyeing, in which
1,761 workpeople are employed in 14 establishments, and weaving (more
especially curtain weaving) with 1,306 workpeople in 15 establishments.
These figures, however, convey no adequate idea of the number of workpeople
directly dependent for their livelihood upon Flauen’s staple industry,
for they take no account of the large body of homeworkers. Plauen resembles
Chemnitz in that the greater part of the goods with which its name is peculiarly
identified, viz., lace and embroideries, are produced in small workshops—many of
them forming part of the dwelling house—scattered about in the surrounding
villages. Up to the year 1857 lace nnd embroidery making in Plauen was
a purely domestic industry and was done only by hand. Since then handwork
has been gradually superseded by the machine and has now almost entirely
disappeared, though one of the three principal kinds of machines now in use
(the Plattstich-stickmascMne or fiat-stitch embroidery machine) is sometimes
called the hand-embroidering machine (Handstickmaschine). The expression is
not wholly inapt, for each needle passes through the fabric at one point and
returns at another, in this way forming a stitch exactly similar to that made
in hand embroidery. As the distance to be travelled by the needles diminishes,
and their rate of movement accelerates with the gradual shortening ot the
threads, there results an irregularity of movement which is incompatible with
the use of mechanical power. While the work produced on such a machine has
the same durability as handwork it is turned out more rapidly than the latter in
proportion to the number of needles carried (usually some 600), the movements
of which, to and fro, the embroiderer regulates with his foot while guiding the
fabric by means of a lever (pantograph) worked with his hand. The operation
of threading the needles is attended to by a woman who uses a threading
machine, and whose business it also is to replace worn or broken needles and
piece broken threads. The classes of goods produced on the hand-embroidering
machine are such as have to stand the strain of frequent handling in laundries.
The great bulk, however, of the lace and embroidery work on which the
reputationof Plauen has been built up is produced on power-driven embroidering
machines known as Schiffchen (or shuttle) embroidery machines. Here the
needles work on one side of the fabric only, the stitch being completed by
the movement of a shuttle on the other side. Such a machine performs about
twenty times as many stitches per day as a hand-driven machine. It makes the
finer but less durable kinds of embroidery and lace. The work of the male
