We now ascend to the more important processes. For this purpose we enter a room where the atmosphere is uncomfortably warm, and the smell not the most agreeable. Here, men are at work, steeping the yarn in a mixture which is supposed to strengthen it, and the secret of which is generally pretty well kept. Men also are required for other purposes: the yarn is to be scoured or bleached, as the case may be, and then dried, and all this work is done by lads or men. As it is not all light and cheerful employment, most of the work is downstairs. Joyfully we ascend the big stone staircases and reach the upper air, where again we admire the beautiful order and the exquisite machinery; and the neat appearance of the women and girls employed in this, which is the weaving factory—large, airy, and well lighted—excite our admiration. I must add, the place is not a little noisy, with the clack and click, and whirr and whizz, of no end of looms. Here the first thing done is to wind the yarn on spools for warp, and pirns for weft. As soon as this is done, the latter is ready for the shuttle; but the warp has yet to be wound by girls off the spools, and attached to the warpers’ beams. When this is done, it is taken into the dressing-room, and consigned to the care of men. Four warpers’ beams are then and there twisted into one thread, and that is the one which goes into the looms and which forms the basis, as it were, of the manufactured article. But the beam has to submit to another process ere it reach this consummation. It is again passed into female hands, who attach to it heddles, or healds, by which the warp is raised. Now nothing remains but to take it to the weaving shed, and attach it to the looms, where the yarn is transmogrified into plain linen, hollands, sheeting, damask, and towels. The manufacture of damask is exceedingly interesting. Patterns of great beauty are procured at much expense. In one part of the mill you come to a large room, in which the designers, male and female, are at work drawing designs, and adapting them to the requisite scale. The patterns are cut out in cardboard. At the top of the loom there is a wonderful apparatus of little hooks, which as the cardboard pattern slowly revolves, pull out the requisite needles which do the bidding of the designer. You almost fancy fairy fingers must have worked these delicate designs. It is nothing of the kind. Machinery does it all. All that human intelligence has to do with the operation is, after the patterns have been secured in their proper places and machinery set at work, to see that the threads do not break, and that the uniform action of all be maintained. What leaves, and flowers, and garlands, are thus woven into the cloth! They are very proud of their damask at Bessbrook. No wonder at it. It is very beautiful, and has no superior in the trade.