Santipur arose from its having been the centre of the large factories established in the Nticldea division, in the old days of the East India Company. At Charpata, also in Noakhah, in Chittagong, there was formerly a cotton factory of the old East India Company, and the baft as [“ woven ” — cotton stuffs] or “Bastas/ 1 for which it was famous, had, in their time, an ex- tensive reputation and were largely manufactured* Coarse cloth only is now made there, and the importation of Manchester goods bids fair to destroy even this limited industry. In Chittagong the Mugs of Cox's Bazaar make both silk and cotton cloth. At Sarail, in Tipper ah, a tanzib , or ianjib muslin is made as fine almost as the muslins of Dacca. Cotton weaving employs one- tenth of the population of Tipperah, but the industry is rapidly declining in the competition with Manchester, the native weavers taking to agriculture. At Jahanabad in the Patna division, the weaving of fine cotton stuffs, a relic of the East India Company’s factory at Patna, is still carried on ■ and the weavers continue to form an important body of the community. Towels and bath cloths are a speciality of Bihar, and strong coarse cloth of Sarun. Good cotton cloth is also made at Palamow in Chota Nagpur. At Kassimbazaar, in the Rajshahye division, there has been a great decline in its once famous manufactures since the abolition of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1833.
The once celebrated Dacca muslins are now almost a tiling of the past* James Taylor, in his Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca , published In 1 S40, deplores the ruin which had overtaken Its muslin trade : but lie records that thirty-six different denominations of cotton cloth were still made at Dacca. Since Dr. Taylor wrote, the manufacture has still more greatly fallen off*. In the time of Jehangir, Dacca muslin could be manufactured fifteen yards long and one broad, weighing only 900 grains, the price of which was 40/, Now the finest of the above size weighs 1,600 grains and is worth only 10/, and even such pieces are made only to order* The three pieces presented to the
