CRAPE

( Crêpe , Fr.; Krepp , Germ.) A transparent textile fabric, somewhat like gauze, made of raw silk, gummed and twisted at the mill. It is woven with any cro ing or tweel. When dyed black, it is much worn by ladies as a mourning dre . Crapes are crisped ( crepés ) or smooth; the former being double, are used in close mourning, the latter in le deep. White crape is appropriate to young unmarried females, and to virgins on taking the veil in nunneries. The silk destined for the first is spun harder than for the second; since the degree of twist, particularly of the warp, determines the degree of crisping which it a umes after being taken from the loom. It is for this purpose steeped in clear water, and rubbed with prepared wax. Crapes are all woven and dyed with the silk in the raw state. They are finished with a stiffening of gum water. Crape is a Bolognese invention, but has been long manufactured with superior excellence at Lyons in France, and Norwich in England. There is now a magnificent fabric of it at Yarmouth, by power-loom machinery. There is another kind of stuff, called crepon , made either of fine wool, or of wool and silk, of which the warp is twisted much harder than the weft. The crepons of Naples consist altogether of silk.