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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 6

3. Ningpo hats.—

3. Ningpo hats.—

In a Foreign Office Report on the trade of Ningpo (Commercial Reports, China, No. 7 (1878) pp. 113, 114), Mr. W. M. Cooper, H.B.M. Consul at Ningpo, referred to these hats as follows:—The export of hats woven by hand from a small species of Carex (sedge) has grown within three years to great proportions, no less than 15,000,000 having this year been exported. The plant is indigenous, and is to be found in damp spots among the hills, but that employed for the manufacture is cultivated in rice grounds. The hats are made by the women and children at their homes, and sold by them at ½d. to 2d. each. They are strong and serviceable, and are bought wholesale by the foreign merchants, who send them to London, whence, I believe, they are shipped, principally to the Southern States of America." These hats were very abundant in London last year, and we thought that specimens obtained for the Kew Museum were made of some kind of page 37 rush. Mr. Cooper, has, however, obligingly sent us a specimen of the plant actually used for the purpose, which proves to be identical with that from which China matting is made, and which Dr. Hance has determined to be Cyperus tegetiformis, Roxb. The only difference is, that in making the hats the culms are used whole, while for matting they are split into two.