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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: It is a people of lace-makers. The women sit in the streets by
groups of five or six; and the noise of the bobbins is audible from
one group to another. Now and then you will hear one woman
clattering off prayers for the edification of the others at their
work. They wear gaudy shawls, white caps with a gay ribbon about the
head, and sometimes a black felt brigand hat above the cap; and so
they give the street colour and brightness and a foreign air. A
while ago, when England largely supplied herself from this district
with the lace called TORCHON, it was not unusual to earn five francs
a day; and five francs in Monastier is worth a pound in London. Now,
from a change in the market, it takes a clever and industrious work-
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