Each of the lace-making towns of Belgium excels in the production of one particular description of lace:  in other words, each has what is technically called its own point.  The French word point, in the ordinary language of needlework, signifies stitch; but in the terminology of lace-making, the word is sometimes used to designate the pattern of the lace, and sometimes the ground of the lace itself.  Hence the terms point de Bruxelles, point de Malines, point de Valenciennes, &c.  In England we distinguish by the name Point, a peculiarly rich and curiously wrought lace formerly very fashionable, but now scarcely ever worn except in Court costume.  In this sort of lace the pattern is, we believe, worked with the needle, after the ground has been made with the bobbins.  In each town there prevail certain modes of working, and certain patterns which have been transmitted from mother to daughter successively, for several generations.  Many of the lace-workers live and die in the same houses in which they were born, and most of them understand and practice only the stitches which their mothers and grandmothers worked before them.  The consequence has been, that certain points have become unchangeably fixed in particular towns or districts.  Fashion has assigned to each its particular place and purpose; for example:—­the point de Malines (Mechlin lace) is used chiefly for trimming night-dresses, pillow-cases, coverlets, &c.; the point de Valenciennes (Valenciennes lace) is employed for ordinary wear or neglige; but the more rich and costly point de Bruxelles (Brussels lace) is reserved for bridal and ball dresses, and for the robes of queens and courtly ladies.

As the different sorts of lace, from the narrowest and plainest to the broadest and richest, are innumerable; so the division of labor among the lace-workers is infinite.  In the towns of Belgium there are as many different kinds of lace-workers as there are varieties of spiders in Nature.  It is not, therefore, surprising that in the several departments of this branch of industry there are as many technical terms and phrases as would make up a small dictionary.  In their origin, these expressions were all Flemish; but French being the language now spoken in Belgium, they have been translated into French, and the designations applied to some of the principal classifications of the work-women.  Those who make only the ground, are called Drocheleuses.  The design or pattern, which adorns this ground, is distinguished by the general term “the Flowers;” though it would be difficult to guess what flowers are intended to be portrayed by the fantastic arabesque of these lace-patterns.  In Brussels the ornaments or flowers are made separately, and afterward worked into the lace-ground; in other places the ground and the patterns are worked conjointly.  The Platteuses are those who work the flowers separately; and the Faiseuses de point a l’aiguille work the figures and the ground together.  The Striquese is the worker who attaches the flowers to the ground.  The Faneuse works her figures by piercing holes or cutting out pieces of the ground.