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INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. that the masses of our population are liberal in providing themselves with the fabric so essential for personal comfort. Flannels find their consumption not only in men’s garments,—for which purpose their use has vastly increased through better hygienic knowledge,—but in garments for children, linings for overcoats, blouses for workmen, fatigue uniforms for soldiers and police officers, and coats for summer wear. It is some twenty or thirty years since the American fabric excluded foreign flannels from our market, with the single exception of opera flannels, which no longer exist. The primary cause of the success in this manufacture has been the peculiar adaptation of American wools for this fabric. This adaptation consists in their spinning qualities, their soundness and elasticity, and the medium fineness, producing the requisite softness, without too much felting quality to cause an undue shrinkage of the goods. By an examination of a line or series of samples of different grades of English flannels, in comparison with a line of American flannels corresponding in grade and price, it was observed that the English flannels are more highly fulled, and less finished in the face, than the American goods. The American fabrics have the yarns more closely twisted, in order to prevent shrinkage, and the fabric is smoother and more sightly in face. The difference in intrinsic value could not be proven, the different styles being adapted to the tastes of different markets. A large exportation is now being made to Canada. With the command of their own markets, American manufacturers have adapted their fabrics to the wants of consumers. In 1835 the domett flannels, an original fabric composed of a cotton warp with a filling of wool, came into use as a substitute for the linsey-woolen stuffs, originally of household manufacture, worn by working women for under-petticoats. Having the merit of shrinking but little in wash ing, it still holds its place as a characteristic American fabric. The red flannels have found a vast consumption among the working popula tion, especially lumbermen and frontiersmen, the pliability of the fabric giving freedom to the limbs. Formerly the red color, less brilliant than now used, was given by a madder dye, subsequently by lac; while at present the brilliant and fast scarlet of the cochineal is in almost universal use, the price of cochineal having been reduced to half of its former rate by the introduction of the aniline dyes. The consumption of blue flannels by the army and navy forms another important outlet for this class of fabrics. They form the under-gar ments for all the men in both services, and the summer undress coats in the former. The regulations of the services require that these flan-