THE YPRES TIMES
227
than six decades. Whether it was due to old age or to the mental and physical
sufferings she had endured during the war, I do not know, but she was frankly
pessimistic regarding the future of the hand-made lace industry.
"The scale of payment is so low," she told me, "that it can never be more than
a side-line, and it is impossible for it to flourish in a modern Belgian town or city.
Present conditions are all against it. The attractions of the kinemas and dancing-halls
for the younger generation are too great. The age-long patience of the laceworker
is the child of monotony and isolation. Before the war, in the long and solitary
winter months, when work in the
fields was impossible, our peasant
women would turn to their lace
cushions as much for recreation as
for money. Things will never be
the same againthe world is travel
ling too fast." Only once, when
she showed me ten treasured Aus
tralian sovereigns, to which a real
war romance is attached, did the
old lady assume a cheerful de
meanour.
A Convent Lace School
at Bruges.
From the pessimist let me turn
to the optimistIt was my privi
lege last week to visit one of the
largest Convent lace schools in
Bruges, and the Mother-Superior
very courteously permitted me to
watch the children at their various
tasks. In the summer, she told me,
they commence work at 7.30 a.m.,
and continue until 8 p.m., with only
three half-hour intervals for
recreation. The hours, of course,
are shorter in the winter, when, in
order to obtain the powerful light
that is essential for such delicate
work, oil lamps are ingeniously
placed behind bottles filled with
water, so that the magnified rays
may pass in spotlights on the
her patient toil-worn hands cushion. Each girl receives a small
a bridal veil create. remuneration weekly for her toil.
In one class-room I noticed an elder girl, whose cushion supported a mound
of bobbins. The Mother-Superior told me that they totalled over one thousand and
that the girl was engaged in making a long scarf. "When shall you have finished
it?" I asked. "Well, I commenced last March and it should be completed by next
April." I must confess that the thought of that fragile maiden of seventeen summers
sitting in front of that cushion for thirteen long months has haunted me ever since.
I wonder whether the woman who eventually will wear that delicate scarf over her
shoulders would care to hear of the dark-eyed dentellière and her thousand bobbins
"What of the future of the industry?" I asked the Mother-Superior.
