Excerpt from Probation: A Novel
That was the head over-looker who came in, looked round, stopped the loom of one of the said laughing girls, fingered the cloth, remarked warningly, ’now, Sarah Alice This won’t do You must look out, or there’ll be some mischief then passed on his round, stopping more looms; examining more cloth, and then went out of the room altogether.
A steady progression, for a time, of the rhythmic toil, till the same door was again opened, and a young man, who also appeared to be a person of some authority, stepped in. And paused, notebook and pencil in hand. This was the second over-looker, a person who of necessity must possess considerable intelligence - being generally, as in this case, a working man born and bred - some discrimination and tact also, since he fulfilled the duties, in some measure, both of a workman and a superior. In addition to his position as over-looker, he also performed the functions of what is known in factory parlance as ‘head cut - looker and a cut-looker is a man who examines each piece or ‘cut’ of cloth after it leaves the loom notes the flaws, and deducts from the wages of the weaver in compensation for the same.
Perhaps this ‘cut-looking’ and over-looking may be like criticising - they may have a tendency to produce a turn of mind sceptical as to the merits of the work with which the cut-looker, or the critic, has to do. Incessant flaws, scamped work, broken threads, ill-joined ends, an uneven weft, a rough warp - the parallel is certainly a striking one and a long career of cut - lookin g, to say nothing of criticising, may tend to make the temper quick, and the tone just a little imperious.
The individual whose occupation was something like criticism was a tall young man, dressed in grey clothes, which looked in some way cleaner, or better, or different from the clothes of the others, and a white linen jacket, which gave a cool and airy look to the whole costume, and was far from unbecoming to the spare, yet very strong, well-built figure, and to the dark, handsome, sharply cut face belonging to it.
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