Rags. Fragments of almost all kinds of textile materials have now a commercial value. In the middle of the 19th century all white papers were made of rags, but the great increase in the consumption of printing-papers for daily newspapers and cheap periodicals has for many years necessitated the use of other materials, such as esparto, wood-fibre, &c. (see PAPER). Linen and cotton rags alone are still, however, used for bank-note and other fine and strong papers, and are mixed with other materials, such as wood-pulp, for inferior kinds. These rags furnish the manufacturer with a material already half made into paper, so to speak, because the preliminary processes of boiling out the silica, &c. from straw or esparto are not required in the case of woven linen or cotton. Hence rags of vegetable fibre will always be valuable for paper-making.
Woollen rags have a higher value than linen or cotton kinds, or at least than mixtures of these. Old woollen clothes or shreds of such are called, in the manufacturing districts where they are worked up, 'Old Mungo' (see SHODDY). These rags are torn up, or 'ground up,' as it is termed, and re-manufactured into coarse flannels, druggets, comforters, &c. Some are actually ground into a sort of powder for flock wall-papers. The imports of linen and cotton rags into Great Britain in 1863 (before esparto was much in use for paper-making) amounted to 25,287 tons, valued at £502,681. In the same year 14,417 tons of woollen rags, valued at £551,824, were imported. In 1889 the imports were, of cotton and linen rags, 42,443 tons, valued at £426,322, and of woollen rags, 31,335 tons, valued at £669,438 (217,000 tons of esparto fibre were imported in the same year). A comparison of these figures will show the increased quantities now imported, as well as the depreciation in the value of rags. A large quantity, probably amounting to from one-third to one-half of the amount of British imports of linen and cotton rags, is re-exported to the United States; or at least rags to this extent are shipped from England thither, but a certain proportion of them may be of British production.