The card paper is of a special make, thin and tough, and is strengthened along both sides and in the centre by strips of paper pasted along it where the stud holes fall. No. 3 shows the motion by which the clap board E is raised and lowered by the sliding of the cranked bar F between the two studs 2. No. 4 shows the size and pitch of the holes in the hard paper. These are traced from the paper, and lie diagonally, two rows of 8 making one row of 16 hooks in the jacquard.
These machines are working in large numbers in France, and appear to give more satisfaction there than here, partly because they are better known, and the French workmen are better adapted to handle the small parts belonging to them. A coarser machine is more suited for the ordinary workmen to be found in the factories of this country. But it is strange if a machine of a pitch about half-way between the French jacquards and ours would not be better than either; not taking up so much room as ours, and not so minute as the French. However, in many cases the machines we have in use are none too large to give sufficient latitude for the errors often found cropping up in work, none of which should occur, of course, though they often do, through carelessness or otherwise. For instance, the card cylinder may be a little off the pitch, and the cards may be affected by damp, or may not be correctly cut to suit the cylinder; the points of the needles may be a little bent by the cylinder, or by the carelessness of the weaver when turning back her cards, and the cylinder may not be set quite fair for the needles. Mr. McMurdo, of Manchester, has made a very nice machine of the same pitch as the French ones, with 1,296 hooks, 16 row cards. It works as a double-acting machine with two cylinders and two griffes, but only one set of needles acting on the two sets of hooks. Two of the hooks are shown in Fig. 107; each needle clasps two hooks and passes through a needle board at each side of the machine. There is no spring on the needle, the hooks forming the spring, the tops of the hooks coming against the cross-rods at A A. Otherwise, this machine works in the usual way, and is very compact where a large number of hooks are required in a small space.