The Italian
ran away to his own country; and Madam was interrogated, but
nothing transpired, except what strengthened suspicion." A
strange story, if true.
Of the funeral, Hutton says:-- "John Lombe's was the most superb
ever known in Derby. A man of peaceable deportment, who had
brought a beneficial manufactory into the place, employed the
poor, and at advanced wages, could not fail meeting with respect,
and his melancholy end with pity. Exclusive of the gentlemen who
attended, all the people concerned in the works were invited.
The procession marched in pairs, and extended the length of Full
Street, the market-place, and Iron-gate; so that when the corpse
entered All Saints, at St. Mary's Gate, the last couple left the
house of the deceased, at the corner of Silk-mill Lane."
Thus John Lombe died and was buried at the early age of
twenty-nine; and Thomas, the capitalist, continued the owner of
the Derby silk mill. Hutton erroneously states that William
succeeded, and that he shot himself. The Lombes had no brother
of the name of William, and this part of Hutton's story is a
romance.
The affairs of the Derby silk mill went on prosperously. Enough
thrown silk was manufactured to supply the trade, and the weaving
of silk became a thriving business. Indeed, English silk began
to have a European reputation. In olden times it was said that
"the stranger buys of the Englishman the case of the fox for a
groat, and sells him the tail again for a shilling.
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