y have been brought over to this country from
Holland and other continental countries, perhaps the most decorative
being those made by French workmen in the Chinese style, the wood being
lacquered blue and ornamented with gilt.

Mr. John Suddaby, who presented the spinning wheel we have illustrated
to the Hull Wilberforce Museum, named after William Wilberforce, paid a
high tribute to the famous philanthropist, who he declared to be
associated with the spinning schools of the town. The old wheels of
early date were gradually improved until they were rendered obsolete by
the greater inventions of machines which could be worked by steam
engines, thus originating the factory system of textile production.

Among the sundry curios associated with the spinning wheel are
handsomely carved wood distaffs of boxwood, curiously turned spindles;
and now and then a pewter vessel of circular form, puzzling in its
identity, turns out to be the rim cup from the distaff of an old
spinning wheel.

Materials and Work.

Old workboxes appear to be very numerous. The older ones were mostly of
wood, but the external decoration seems to have been a matter of taste,
some preferring inlays. In early days moulded plaster ornament, richly
gilded and coloured, was much favoured, and in still earlier times deep
relief carvings in the oak of which the boxes were made. In the Stuart
and later periods ladies worked the exterior ornament in silks and
satins and embroidery. Among the workboxes in the Victoria and Albert
Museum there is a painted box in distemper and gilding, the subject
chosen for the ornamentation of the lid being the story of David and
Bathsheba, round the sides being floral devices. This decorative workbox
has drawers and compartments, a sliding front facilitating their use.

In the same collection there are workboxes overlaid with straw work in
geometrical patterns relieved by colour. Straw-work decoration was much
favoured at the commencement of the nineteenth century, its origin being
traceable to the French military prisoners in this country during the
Napoleonic wars between the years 1797 and 1814, when many officers and
men were detained at Porchester Castle, near Portsmouth, and at Norman
Cross, near Peterborough. The grasses, of which the boxes were covered,
were collected and dried by the prisoners, who obtained the different
shades and tints which render this class of work so effective by
steeping them in infusions o