centre of cotton manufactures, from the stoutest canvas to the finest muslins; hut the industry was ruined by the unrestrained Manchester imports, and of the thirty odd varieties of cloths enumerated in the factory diary for 1777, only six are made now,
The weaving of cotton cloth is still an important industry in the Ahmedabad colleclorate. At Ranpur fine cloth is woven from English yarn, and finds a ready sale in the neighbourhood. At D hoik a, from the same materials sadis [/>., saris ^ women's robes], are made, of much local repute for their strength and steadfast- ness of colour ; and in the city of Ahmedabad the richer weavers make superior dhotis , saris t dopaitas , and chalotas [small waist cloths], which are sold in all parts of Gujerat, and exported to Kandesh and Bombay. Khadi cloth, chopals and dhotis are woven in every village. Mr. Lely says, that although a large section of these village craftsmen are seen to suffer from the competition of the machine looms, which are now springing up everywhere in centres of the cotton manufacturing districts of Western India, Ahmedabad has not allowed its old cloth industry to die out. It has now four steam factories, employing 2,013 hands, and paying in wages a yearly sum of about 20,000 /. ; but the class which has benefited most from these mills is not the caste of local weavers, but the Yaghris, who formerly supported themselves by begging. Now whole families of these outcasts take employment at the mills, and become well off. Calico printing is also a craft of some consequence in Ahmedabad*
In the Kaira collectorate, before the opening of these monster factories at Ahmedabad, cotton weaving was the most important industry of the district. Almost all the men and women, both in the towns and the villages, writes Mr* G* F* Sheppherd, in the Bombay Gazetteer , 1879, were formerly to some extent engaged in cotton spinning and weaving; and the cloth woven by them was largely exported to Rat lam and other parts of India, both for clothes and sacking. But of late years Bengal jute has to a large extent taken the place of the local manufacture z
