cultural machinery, is not opposed. Indeed, it must be obvious to reflecting minds that the increased luxuries and comforts which all, more or less, enjoy are derived from the numerous recent mechanical appliances and the production of our manufactories. That of our cotton has increased during the last few years in a wonderful degree. In 1824, a gentleman with whom I am acquainted sold on one occasion one hundred thousand pieces of 74 reed printing cloth at 30s. 6d. per piece of 29 yards long; the same description of cloth he sold last week at 3s. 9d. One of the most striking instances I know of the vast superiority of machinery over simple instruments used by the hand is in the manufacture of lace, where one man with a machine does the work of 8,000 lacemakers on the cushion. In spinning fine numbers of yarn, a workman on a self-acting mule will do the work of 3,000 hand-spinners with the distaff and spindle; and there are other striking facts of a similar kind mentioned in my Report on the New York Industrial Exhibition.[1]
Comparatively few persons, perhaps, are aware of the increase of production during our lifetime. Thirty years ago, the cost of labour for making a surface of cast iron true, by chipping and filing by the hand, was 12s. per square foot; the same work is now done by the planing machine
- ↑ See post, page 87, et seq.
