punishment, or at any rate, a fair retribution for the injuries his mathematical combinations had inflicted upon mankind. Beckmann speaks of the expediency of suppressing this sort of mechanical applications by some general consent among governments, as of a question difficult to handle, but too urgent to be repudiated. In Germany, when this fever of invention was running highest, as fast as looms were set up and their capabilities displayed, they were burnt or proscribed by public authority. In 1719 the Emperor Charles renewed the prohibition he had first promulged on this subject in 1685. Fifty years afterwards, however, things so thoroughly changed that looms of various kinds, and designed for diverse purposes, were not only common, but in Saxony premiums were actually bestowed for such further improvements as would augment their powers of production, and extend their usefulness. No wonder the worth of modern mechanical appliances made itself keenly felt at last through the thick, chilly clouds with which habit, prejudice, and conventional interests had shrouded it; for in those good old times, when they did not exist, a spinner sat at his work a whole year to produce as much yarn as can, with our present aids and expedients, be spun in a single day. One Englishman at his mule turns off daily a deal more yarn, and of a far finer quality, than do two hundred of the most indefatigable spinners that Hindostan ever produced. Velocity of motion is the cause of this immense power of creation. The machinery employed is enormously active. A calculation of results reads like an exposition of astronomical phenomena. Why, the spindles and bobbins on to which the thread is wound revolve in one minute more than five thousand times. One pound in weight of the finest thread made (No. 1000) is so amazingly slender that it stretches in length 477 miles. The first inkling of a progress destined to lead eventually to these grand accomplishments, occurred in 1767, or a few years later, to James Hargreaves, at Stanhill, near Blackburn, in Lancashire. His idea, thoroughly worked out, revealed itself afterwards in the form of his celebrated spinning jenny. This contrivance enabled one little girl, without any external assistance whatever, to work at once no fewer than 120 spindles. Fancy the importance given to a young child by becoming the guiding providence of machinery which with such unerring precision and speed was multiplying thousands by tens, nay by fifties—not of the threads of calicoes and stockings only, but of good Bank of England notes. This of course imparted to 1767 a rubricated distinction which brings it out prominently from among the years of the century, at least in the eyes of a Manchester man and all subsequent Chancellors of the Exchequer. Not of course that the total amount of development to which this industry has attained is ascribable directly either to James Hargreaves or his spinning-jenny; but the inauguration of an era of mechanical contrivances took place when this ingenious and important invention occurred, and accordingly we cannot doubt but that the emotion with which cotton-spinners and financiers look back to it is deep, suggestive, and satisfactory; for whereas before this period only 200,000l. worth of cotton goods were manufactured annually throughout the whole country, occupying about 30,000 persons, since the progress to which it conducted, their production has expanded so rapidly, that at the present moment they are perhaps hardly represented by 37,000,000l. sterling, a sum which it must be borne in mind the lapse of only about ninety years has, by means which may all be traced to this spinning-jenny and the little girl, proved adequate to create.
In 1771, Highs constructed what may be termed a double jenny. This had twenty-eight spindles on each side, and turned by a drum in the centre. To show both the simplicity of its action and its capabilities, Highs’ son, a child only two years old, worked it publicly in the Manchester Exchange in 1772. The reward for this piece of ingenuity was a purse of 200 guineas. This same year was also memorable for the production of calicoes, which were now for the first time manufactured in Manchester, and muslins succeeded about ten years later. But to keep to spinning. As the principle of these modes was adopted in disparagement of the distaff, so Arkwright’s adaptation of rollers to the same purpose had the effect of superseding the clever but inferior contrivance of Hargreaves. Samuel Crompton, who was born in 1753, made an important discovery in his invention of the “mule,” which is by far the most suitable of all instruments for the spinning of fine yarn, specimens of which, from the best quality of cotton,[1] have been sold for lace making at no less than 20 guineas the pound. Arkwright’s throstle, which was at first called the water-frame, spins nothing, I believe, higher than No. 36, but the value of the invention is to be estimated from other considerations. Water-twist has thoroughly supplied a desideratum, the want of which was felt as a sore hindrance to the complete success of the cotton weaver. He is now enabled to fabricate stuffs wholly of cotton, and this advantage alone, derived entirely from the nature of the twist, viewed economically, reflects upon Arkwright so much credit for his ingenuity, and entitles him to so much gratitude for the immensely beneficial consequences it has involved, that apart from the other great and comprehensive objects he accomplished in such signal perfection, he has won from posterity the admiration and blessing of thousands, as the author of a boon so complete.
Mr. Crompton’s mule-jenny combines both the principles which guided his predecessors, and performs such marvels in respect of tenuity, that it requires greater weakness and even credulity than are possessed by the readers of “Baron Munchausen,” to believe the accounts on the subject without first seeing demonstrations of their veracity. But the factory system, as we behold- ↑ >From 1789 till 1792 Mr. Robley cultivated cotton of the rarest quality in the Island of Tobago, and it was from the wool of these plantations that the yarn referred to in the text was spun. Unfortunately the failure of the sugar crops in the neighbouring French islands induced him to substitute sugar-canes for the cotton-shrub, and, in consequence, cotton of equal excellence has perhaps never since been obtained.
