1. The upholsterer makes beds, sacking-bottoms, mattresses, cushions, curtains for windows and beds, and cuts out, sews together, and fastens down, carpets. One branch of his business, also, consists in covering or lining and stuffing sofas, and particular kinds of chairs, the frames of which are made by cabinet-makers and fancy chair-makers.
2. Beds are stuffed with the feathers of geese and ducks. The sack which contains them, when in use, is called a tick, and the striped stuff of which it is composed, is called ticking. The feathers used by the upholsterer, are purchased from the feather-merchants, who in turn procure them from country merchants and pedlers. The dealer in feathers also employs travelling agents to collect them in different parts of the country.
3. Beds and pillows are also made of down obtained from the nests of the eider-duck, which is found in the northern parts of Europe and America, above latitude 45°. Eider-down is worth about two dollars per pound, and five or six times that quantity is sufficient for a bed of common size.
4. Mattresses are made of curled hair, moss, shavings of ratan, flock, straw, corn-husks, and cat-tail flag. The hair most employed for this purpose grows upon the tails of cattle, and upon the manes and tails of horses. It is purchased, in its natural state, from tanners, by persons who make it a business to prepare it for use. The last process of the preparation consists in twisting it into a kind of rope. These ropes are picked to pieces by the upholsterer, and the hair, in its curled and elastic state, is applied to stuffing mattresses, cushions, chairs, and sofas.
5. Moss is obtained from the Southern states of our Union, where it is found in great abundance, and of a good quality. Flock is made by reducing to a degree of fineness, by machinery, coarse tags of wool, pieces of woollen cloth, old stockings, and other woollen offals of little or no value in any other application. Of all the materials for stuffing upholstery, hair is much the best, and, although it costs more in its original purchase, it is much cheaper in the end.
6. In making and putting up window and bed curtains, considerable taste is required to insure success. A knowledge of drawing is particularly useful here, in improving the taste, as well as in exhibiting to customers the prevailing fashions, or any changes which may be proposed. The trimmings consist chiefly of tassels, fringes, and gilded or brass fixtures.
7. We have not space for a particular description of the manner in which any of the operations of the upholsterer are performed; nor is this necessary, since the work itself, in almost every specimen of it, affords obvious indications of the manner of its execution. We will merely remark, that a great proportion of it is performed by females.
8. In the first ages of the world, it was the universal practice to sleep upon the skins of beasts, and this is still the custom among the savage nations of the present day. The Greeks and the Romans, in the early part of their history, slept in this manner, and so did the common people of some parts of Germany, even until modern times.
9. The first advancement from the use of skins was the substitution of rushes, heath, or straw, which was primarily strewed loosely on the ground or floor, and finally confined with ticking; and these and similar materials are still used by the poor in various parts of the world. So late as the close of the thirteenth century, the royal family of England slept on beds made of straw.
10. During the civilized periods of antiquity, the wealthy commonly filled their beds with feathers. After the Romans had become luxurious, they used several kinds of beds, among which were the lectus cubicularis, or chamber bed, whereon they slept; the lectus discubitorius, or table bed, whereon they ate; and the lectus lucubratorius, on which they studied.