Justice to Philippe de Girard

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The above inscription was on the flag ot one ot the deputations ot Vaucluse to Louis Napoleon, on the occasion of his late tour in the South of France. Philippe de Girard was the inventor of a flax spinning machine which gained the prize of a million of francs offered by Napoleon Bonaparte for the best invention I of this kind. The fall of the Empire did not allow Napoleon to fulfill his promise, and the inhabitants of the Commune represented by the above deputation, now demand its fulfillment by his nephew. We observe, in the " Genie Industriel," that a patent has been lately taken out, in France, for making a species of cloth from the refuse of cotton, wool, hemp, and flax; these materials are cut up very fine and then carded ; they are afterwards passed through rollers and covered with an oily substance, to unite them firmly, after which they are pressed down tight by flat plates. In the same periodical is a recipe for a newly patented soap for fulling cloth; this soap is composed of 67 parts of a solution of caustic potash, and 33 parts of olive oil. After being kept in motion for a lew hours, a combination takes place, when the soap is made.

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