Image: FIG. 19.--Twist put in cotton by the hand.
It may be interesting to note that St. Distaff's Day is January 7th, the day after the Epiphany, a church festival celebrated in commemoration of the visit of the Wise Men of the East to Bethlehem. As this marks the end of the Christmas festival, work with the distaff was commenced, hence the name, St. Distaff's Day.
It is also called "Rock Day," rock being another name for distaff. "Rocking Day" in Scotland was a feasting day when friends and neighbours met together in the early days of the New Year, to celebrate the end of the Christmastide festival.
The reign of Henry VII. is said to have witnessed the introduction into England of the spindle and distaff.
In process of time, the suspended spindle was superseded by one which was driven by mechanical means. Over and over again, the spindle, as it lay upon the floor, must have suggested that it could be made to work in that position, viz., horizontal. And so comes now a contrivance for holding the spindle in this position.
Mr. Baines, in his history of the cotton manufacture, gives a figure of an old Hindoo spinning wheel, and it is extremely likely that this very form of machine was the forerunner of the type which later on found its way into Europe. At the beginning of the sixteenth century what was known as the Jersey wheel came into common use. This machine is shown in Fig. 20.
Lying to the left hand of the woman in the illustration is a hand card. This consisted of square board with a handle, and was covered by fine wire driven in, so as to make what was really a wire brush. By means of this, the spinner was enabled to prepare her cotton, and she did with it (though not nearly so well) what is done by the Carding Engine of to-day, viz., fully opened out the fibres of cotton ready for spinning. Having taken the cotton from the hand cards, she produced at first a very thick thread which was called a _roving_. This she wound on a spindle, which was afterwards treated again on the wheel a second time, and drawn out still more, and then having the twist put in, it was made much thinner into so-called yarn. Only one thread could by this method be dealt with at a time by one person, but the main operations carried out on the old spinning wheel have their exact reproductions on the mule of to-day, viz.:--Drawing, Twisting and Winding.