This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...hard, except in the case of the heavier kinds of fishing nets, and with a little practice great dexterity can be acquired. The handicraft is passed on from mother to daughter, the older men taking to it when there is no other work available. The tools used are a needle, made with an "eye" "tongue " and "fork " and ' spools" or mesh pins, called in this part "laces," upon which the mesh is formed. The twine is wound round between the fork and the tongue of the needle. I have sometimes found as many as forty different kind of spools in one cottage, and these and the spinney, or rough wheel for winding the twine off the rans, form the homely " plant." The braiding of some of the nets require only care and dexterity, but others require great skill, and a woman's chief pride is in saying that she can do "any sort." Most of the workers are women, many of them using this means for supplementing their parish relief, and it was somewhat pathetic to find an old man and woman working their hardest to keep out of the workhouse, or the wife and daughters of a farm labourer trying to make a scanty addition to the bare living wage of 10 or 11 shillings earned by the so-called bread winner. This industry appears to extend the whole length of the coast line of Dorset. Twenty or thirty villages, or even more, if a census were taken, would be found to be given up entirely to braiding so far as the employment of women and girls is concerned. I visited many of these villages and had long talks with the workers, who assured me that the whole of this part of the country was " full of braiders." As home workers they have a status in busy times which is shared by few other outworkers. No hand braiding is eve...