we follow the home-weven yarn to the cottage of the hand-loom weaver, we shall see more to pain than to interest us; for the weaver has now a sadly up-hill task of it. The steam-power loom strikes off such a quantity of woven cotton in a given time, that the price for weaving is regulated by the cost of this machine-process; and the hand-loom weaver must follow in the wake. With toilsome patience, he plies the shuttle from morn till night. In walking among the quieter villages near Manchester, the clack-clack' of the hand-loom may be heard in many a cottage.

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But the weaving factories work up more and more of the cotton yarn; and they are really astonishing places. In and near Ashton and Stalybridge, weaving factories are congregated to a very large extent. Some of the giant establishments contain both the spinning and the weaving machinery on an equally extensive scale. At Orrell's mill for example, at Stockport, the weaving strikes upon the mind of a stranger even more than the arrangements connected with spinning. The following, taken from the source before quoted, will convey some idea of this department of the Stockport mill, and will serve to illustrate the subject generally.

"Thirteen hundred looms, each one a distinct and complete piece of mechanism, are here arranged in parallel rows, over a space of ground measuring probably two hundred and fifty feet by one hundred and fifty having passages between the rows. Each loom is between three and four feet high, and perhaps five or six wide; and they are all so placed that one female can attend to two looms. Every loom receives its moving power from mechanism near the ceiling, where shafts and wheels present almost as complex an assemblage as the looms beneath them. These shafts are connected with the main-shafts of the two smaller steam-engines, so as to receive their moving power from thence. Six hundred and fifty females are here engaged in attending these looms, two to each, and these comprise almost the only occupants of the weaving-rooms. The noise created by thirteen hun

dred machines, each consisting of a great number of distinct moving parts, and each producing, what would in an ordinary-sized shop be considered a pretty vigorous din, is so stunning and confounding, that a stranger finds it almost utterly impossible to hear a person speak to him, even close at his elbow, or even to hear himself speak; he walks along the avenues which separate the rows of looms, and arrives one after another at looms all exactly alike: he sees these clattering, hard-working machines on all sides of him, with the heads of the six hundred and fifty females just visible above them; and he may not unreasonably marvel that the persons exposed to this incessant uproar for ten or twelve hours a day can appear indifferent to it. Yet such is the case: habit smooths away the inconvenience, and the workpeople seem to think light of it.

"In these power-looms steam power may be said to do every thing. It unwinds the warp from the warpbeam; it lifts and depresses the treddles, by which the warp-threads are placed in the proper position for receiving the weft-threads; it throws the shuttle from side to side, carrying the weft-thread with it; it moves the batten, or lay, by which the weft-thread is driven up close; and finally, it winds the woven cloth on the cloth-beam which is to receive it. The female who has to manage a pair of looms has merely to attend to a few minor adjustments, which altogether about occupy her time: such as mending any of the threads which may have been broken, removing an empty shuttle and replacing it with a full one, removing an empty warp-beam, or a filled cloth-beam, and replacing them with others fitted for continuing the process,"

Manchester contains a large number of factories in which yarn is woven into some one of the many varieties of pile or napped products, such as 'cotton velvet,' velveteen,' 'fustian' or 'moleskin'; and here there are other arrangements besides the mere weaving machinery; for the mode of cutting the pile, or making a smooth-napped surface, requires the aid of very delicate and ingeniously-constructed instruments. In

THE BLEACH-WORKS, DYE-WORKS, AND PRINT-WORKS.

A wholly distinct group of the Manchester establishments is formed of those where either colour or pattern, or both, are given to woven goods. Bleachworks, dye-works, print-works- these are the factories here alluded to. Here it is instructive to observe, that Manchester itself does not form so fitting a locality for these, as the country districts situated some few miles from that town. It is not difficult to see why such should be the case. In the delicate processes of bleaching and dyeing, where colour and cleanliness are of so much importance, both pure air and pure water are much in request. Manchester is rather deficient in both of these. Furthermore, in the earlier history of these arts, there was necessity for a large tract of grass sward on which to place the woven goods for bleaching, or for a large open space in which the wet cloth could be hung up to dry. The more recent improvements in bleaching by chlorine, and drying by hot air, have rendered these open spots less indispensable; but still there is ample room to prefer them to the closely, pent up districts of Manchester.

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In the middle portion of Lancashire there are many beautiful valleys, through which streams flow toward the Mersey or toward the Irish Sea. Some of these pass through what was once the forest of Rosendale; and into this forest the progress of manufacture has extended. Dr. Cooke Taylor, in his Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts,' states, that the forest or ancient chase of Rosendale contains an area of twenty-four square miles. In the early part of the sixteenth century the inhabitants consisted of eighty souls, residing in booths. The forest was disforested; the land became apportioned, demised, and let for terms of years, or by copy of court-roll. "Upon the introduction of the woollen manufacture in the north of England the foresters of Rosendale did not long continue to expend the whole of their energies upon the cultivation of a sterile soil; they entered with avidity into this branch of industry, and have pursued it for a very long period with a remarkable degree of success. About forty-five (now fifty) years ago the cotton manufacture was first introduced, and now threatens, in its extent, to surpass the woollen trade; so that the forest is now possessed of both these sources of employment upon a very large scale. The people have become multiplied from the original census of 80 souls, to upwards of 21,000. They have usually enjoyed an abundance of regular and well-paid employment; the scale of their comforts has gradually improved, and the numbers of their schools and places of worship may be taken as evidence that their in

have steadily advanced. The manufacturers and merchants of Rosendale have ever been distinguished for enterprise and ability, and their intercourse may be said to have extended to every mercantile country in the world." Mr. Ashworth, in an able paper on the statistics of Lancashire industry, speaks of the Rosendale foresters and their forest in somewhat similar terms. "In this otherwise unpromising locality, manufactures and commerce have found a genial soil. In the hands of this race of people, the sciences of mechanics and chemistry have been applied to manufacturing industry with a practical intelligence previously unknown. Steam power has been introduced and successfully applied to all the varied forms of mechanical invention. Those rivers, remembered for the obstructions they once presented to monarchical and military aggression, are now directed to the propelling of machinery: they are lending their aid in the bleaching, dying, and printing, of all fabrics, and assist in many other manufacturing and mercantile services."

In the district bounded on the north by Clitheroe and on the south by Bolton and Bury, are very many of these bleaching and printing establishments—all in connexion with wholesale warehouses at Manchester; so that they may in effect be considered as belonging to the Manchester group. to the Manchester group. At Dukinfield, too, east of Manchester, in the Bolton and Stalybridge vicinity, are many such establishments, all on a large scale. The Manchester and Birmingham, the Manchester and Sheffield, the Manchester and Leeds, the Manchester and Bury, and the Manchester and Bolton Railways— all are made the media of conveying bales of cotton, in the 'grey' or unbleached state, to these large establishments, where they are bleached preparatory to being brought to market as calico or plain muslin, or to being dyed or printed. Many of the large firms carry on the bleaching process only, as this is more extensive, in regard to the work done, than the dyeing or printing.

Arkwright and the machinists have hardly done more to advance the cotton manufacture, than Tennant and the chemists. What the one class did for spinning and weaving, the other have done for bleaching and dyeing. Until the latter end of the last century, it was necessary to expose a piece of woven cloth on the grass for many months, to bleach it; or else to send it to Holland in the spring of the year, and receive it back in the autumn, after an exposure for many weeks on the level grassy plains of that country. What a dead-weight of capital was here involved! The merchant, after purchasing his flax or his cotton, had to retain it many months before he could have any return for his money; and besides this, when the woven cloth was exposed in the open bleach-grounds, so many depredations occurred, as to lead to the enactment of distressingly severe laws. Honour to the men who swept away the necessity for the severe laws, and who made practicable a ready and rapid circulation of capital! Home, the chemist, made one step; then

blishments. The bleaching, the block-printing, the cylinder-printing, the dyeing, the engraving both of blocks and cylinders, the designing of patterns, and the preparation of colours, all go on within the same enclosure. Some of the print-works employ as many as a thousand work-people. The order and cleanliness of the works, and the remarkable beauty of most of the operations, impress the visitor with admiration and surprise. A printing establishment, like a cotton-mill, is a wonderful triumph of modern science; and when the mechanical and chemical improvements of both are viewed together, they form a splendid and matchless exhibition of science applied to the arts, and easily account for a rapidity of growth and a vastness of extension in the manufacture which has no parallel in the records of industry."

THE MANUFACTURE OF SILK.

Next in importance to the conversion of cotton into yarns and fabrics, must be ranked the manufacture of Silk. Although the latter is of a comparatively recent date it has progressed just as rapidly, and has called into activity a similar amount of enterprise and ingenuity to that of its vegetable companion. It is difficult to assign the precise date of the introduction of the silk mannfacture to Manchester, but it is within the living memory of most of us that a piece of silk manufactured in the north would have been considered a curiosity-a kind of textile rara avis, if such a term may be justly applied to manufactures. We have it, however, placed upon record that there were "not above 50 looms in Manchester for weaving broad silks for garments in 1819, although that number in 1832 had increased to 12,000, and in the year 1852, according to a trustworthy computation, there were nearly 50,000 looms, including those worked by power as well as by hand.

The history of the rise and progress of the silk manufacture in this country is singular, but exceedingly interesting. It is nearly as old as that of flax, and much older than that of cotton; but unlike both these raw materials it could never be wholly managed by the hand. The silk manufacture, therefore, at no period could be appropriately called a purely domestic branch of industry. The weaver, it is true, has been for ages, and is now, in the habit of taking home his warp and shoot to work them into a fabric, but both warp and shoot have undergone more than one process before they are consigned to his hands. The warp is invariable organzined, as it is technically called, and the shoot is trammed; both these operations are effected by machinery, and generally mills established for the express purpose. Hence the Italian terms of organzine for warp, and tram for shoot.

Here it may be necessary to state, that the principles of weaving are nearly the same whatever may be the nature of the filaments employed; but that there are great varieties in the process of spinning, arising from the different lengths of the staple or fibre in the raw material. Silk, for instance, can scarcely be said to be *Mr. Royle; Evidence on the Silk Committee, 1832.

spun, for the elongation of the threads is effected by the silkworm, and the doubling or twisting of these threads is more properly denominated throwing. The short loose fibres which are cleaned off from the proper silk thread are indeed spun, by processes similar to those used in spinning tow, which is a similar refuse from the fibres of flax. This is called spun-silk, but it is, from its very condition purely exceptional, and exceedingly limited in quantity.

The earliest, and what is considered the natural, seat of the silk manufacture in this country is Spitalfields. Here it first took root; here it rose and flourished to

considerable perfection; and here it still continues, but in a comparatively enfeebled and declining state. We have not space to go into detail as to the causes of its decline, therefore shall simply content ourselves with a mere outline of the leading circumstances.

Up to the year 1825, all foreign silks were prohibited, so that Spitalfields had a complete monopoly of supply if we deduct the contribution of the smuggler which was by no means inconsiderable. Under this apparently favourable condition, however, the silk manufacture was by no means healthy and prosperous, but was periodically troubled with depressions, and as continually seeking relief at the hands of the legislature, which at that period was the standing adviser for all evils appertaining to trade and manufactures. The uniform recipé of the great Industrial Faculty was protection, which almost every branch of manufactures claimed and enjoyed, and as uniformly pined and withered under the enjoyment. But the silk manufacture, either through masters or men, claimed a special monopoly of protection, and was constantly importuning the state doctors for advice; and as the wishes of these rigid monopolists were mostly complied with, inasmuch as the advice was in unison with their own views, they had little to complain of in that respect. Yet, like all pampered interests which prefer self-indulgence to a little wholesome regimen, they rapidly declined in vigour and condition, and have only so far recovered as to present the unerring symptoms of a hopeless but lingering decay.

Suffice it to state that the weavers demanded, and obtained, what was called a book-price for their work, so that the master was compelled to pay the same price for a bad piece of work as for a good one; or in other terms, the weaver could demand, and could have his demand enforced by a magistrate,-8d. per yard or whatever the book stated for weaving a 4-single or 2double plain silk, whether it was woven weli or ill, or whether there might be a profit of ten per cent upon the work, or ten per cent lost. An arbitrary law of this kind, which deprived the employer of all control over the employed as might have been forseen, naturally became effete. It worked its own cure; but, in doing so, it worked the ultimate decay of those who had been weak enough to evoke it in their favour. Happily, the book-price law only extended to a definite circle round the metropolis, or the consequences must have been