their fortunes was chiefly owing to their economy in living, the expense of which was much below the interest of the capital employed. Apprentices at that time were now and then taken from families which could pay a moderate fee. By an indenture dated 1695, the fee paid appears to have been sixty pounds, the young man serving seven years. But all apprentices were obliged to undergo a vast deal of laborious work, such as turning warping mills, carrying goods on their shoulders through the streets, and the like. An eminent manufacturer in that age used to be in his warehouse before six in the morning, accompanied by his children and apprentices. At seven they all came in to breakfast, which consisted of one large dish of waterporridge, made of oat-meal, water and a little salt, boiled thick, and poured into a dish. At the side was a pan or basin of milk, and the master and apprentices, each with a wooden spoon in his hand, without loss of time, dipped into the same dish, and thence into the milk pan; and as soon as it was finished they all returned to their work. In George the First's reign many country gentlemen began to send their sons apprentices to the Manchester manufacturers; but though the little country gentry did not then live in the luxurious manner they have done since, the young men found it so different from home that they could not brook this treatment, and either got away before their time, or, if they staid till the expiration of their indentures, they then, for the most part, entered into the army or went to sea. The little attention paid to rendering the evenings of apprentices agreeable at home, where they were considered rather as servants than pupils, drove many of them to taverns, where they acquired habits of drinking that frequently proved injurious in after-life."

The increase of the cotton manufacture effected great changes in the town and its inhabitants. Hitherto there had been, in fact, only one branch of trade-the woollen

pursued in these districts; but since the middle of the last century the cotton trade has almost superseded the ancient fabric, whilst the recent migration of the silk manufacture has tended still more to diminish the importance of that which was once regarded as the "grand staple of commerce." It will be desirable, therefore, to take a separate view of these branches of industry.

CHAPTER I.

Mention has already been made of the great impediment to the extension of cotton weaving which existed in the scarcity of yarn. Until the eighteenth century, the machinery for conducting every process of manufacture was rude in structure and slow in operation; workmen were not then, as now, collected in factories under the eye of vigilant superintendents; but the house of each man was his workshop, and, wages being high in proportion to the price of provisions, each individual suited his term of labour to his own inclination. Still however, the weavers out-ran the spinners, notwithstanding the supplies of yarn from abroad, and there existed a constant dearth of the material for manufacturing cloth. The spinning-wheel was brought into play by the young and old inhabitants of the farmer's cottage only to fill up vacancies of other employment, and there was consequently no regular supply to meet the growing demand. It appears that in earlier times the master used to supply his weaver, generally, with the material for his loom, but it is mentioned that about 1740 Manchester merchants began to give out warps and raw cotton to the weavers, receiving them back in cloth, and paying for the carding, roving, spinning, and weaving.* At that time the warping was carried on by means of pegs fastened into the wall; and all the other processes by which the raw article

* The weaving of a piece containing twelve pounds of eighteen penny weft occupied a weaver about fourteen days, and he received for the weaving 188.; spinning the weft, at ninepence per pound, 9s.; picking, carding, and roving, 98.-Guest.

was converted were beset with difficulties, arising partly from the inaptitude of the machinery applied, and partly from the rude and unworkmanlike construction of the machines themselves. Still, however, trade continued greatly to increase: whilst in 1743 the import of cotton wool amounted to 1,132,288 pounds, in 1749 it had increased to 1,658,365 pounds: the quantity retained for home consumption being in the former year, 1,091,418 pounds, and in the latter 1,327,367. In this strait, therefore, necessity, the reputed parent of invention, called into exercise the faculties of her child, and the result was that splendid series of inventions which not merely remedied immediate deficiencies, but opened an entirely new field to enterprise and industry. A glance at these inventions, taken as nearly as possible in their chronological order, will not be destitute of interest: it will suffice, however, to notice their leading principles, without attempting to give a minute description of their arrangements, which it is scarcely possible to convey in an intelligible or agreeable shape through the medium of mere verbal detail.

In the year 1769 a patent for a machine (the waterframe) for spinning by rollers was taken out by Richard Arkwright, whose title to the original discovery will not here be discussed. The first machine only converted rovings into yarn, but by subsequent improvements it was made to rove also.

In 1770 James Hargreaves obtained a patent for the spinning-jenny, which he had invented in Blackburn, his native town, so early as 1764. The jenny spun weft, and the water-frame warps, so that the two dove-tailed most beneficially in their operations. The latter entirely superseded the linen warp heretofore used in cotton goods and largely imported from Ireland.

Lewis Paul (partner of Wyatt, at Northampton) took out a patent for an improvement in carding, a process which

hitherto had been carried on by mere wire-brushes. It underwent various modifications in this county (into which it was first introduced by Mr. Morris, of Brock Mills, Wigan) at the hands of Mr. Lees, of Manchester, Mr. Wood, and Arkwright, until the latter took out a patent, in 1785, for his improved carding, drawing and roving machines.

Three other inventions, for the performance of processes anterior to the early one of carding, were also completed, namely the willow, by which the fibres of the raw cotton are first opened and cleaned; the scutching-frame (introduced by Mr. Kennedy, of this town, about five and twenty years ago) for further purifying and opening it, by means of blades revolving as many as seven thousand times in a minute; and the lapping-machine, for laying the cotton even on a roller in readiness for the carding-engine.

The spinning apparatus heretofore invented was suited only to the coarser numbers of yarn. In 1779, the mule-jenny for spinning finer numbers was invented by Samuel Crompton, of Hall-i'th'-wood, near Bolton. This machine, by running in and out, and so distending the fibres of the cotton, twists them more gradually and effectually its working is so good that it has in a great degree superseded all others. It had at first only twenty or thirty spindles, and worked no higher numbers than eighties, and, being made chiefly of wood, was but a rude outline of the present perfect machine. Crompton took out no patent, and his invention was at first in such bad repute that a young man on establishing a factory was told by his father that he feared his "mules" would all turn out asses. How wonderfully has the assinine folly of the prophetic punster been demonstrated! To the mule, more than to any other modern invention, the cotton manufacture owes its present exaltation. Little is known of Crompton beyond that which his friend Mr. John Kennedy