Green’s Dictionary of Slang

shoddy, i.e. yarn made from reprocessed woollen rags.

1840		T. Carlyle Miscellaneous iv, 239: Does it beseem thee to weave cloth of devil’s dust instead of true wool, and cut and sew it as if those wert not a tailor but the fraction of a very tailor?
1842		Annual Reg. 51/2: This dust, made from diseased rags, was so detested by the working people employed in the manufacture of the cloth, that they could find no more suitable name for it than Devil’s dust.
1851		Greenock Advertiser 14 Mar. 3/3: [T]he said coat made of the best Saxony, is neither more nor less than cloth made from old rags [...] that the said Saxony is known, in the slang phraseology of the trade, by the name of Devil’s Dust.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor II 30/1: The grinding of woollen rags by the means of coarse willows, called devils; the operation of which sends forth choking clouds of dry pungent dirt and floating fibres – the real and original ‘devil’s dust’.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1879		Illus. Police News 8 Nov. 3/6: This much-slandered substance first became known as ‘devil’s dust’ amongst those who delight in slang phrases.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Jul. 28/4: [T]he ‘woollen’ goods in dispute were cotton with some ‘sweepings of devil’s dust and a little oil put in the rove to give it a mellow feeling like wool.’.