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could not produce, it enabled the manufacturer to enter upon fabrics which otherwise it would have been in vain to attempt. Warps of the finest quality are spun upon the mule; while on the throstle yarn of a finer grist than No. 40 could not without the combing machine be spun to advantage. Since the introduction of the latter, throstles have been constructed to spin yarns as fine as Nos. 80 or 100. The reason is that the fine thread has not strength to stand the drag required for winding the yarn upon the bobbin, the difficulty being occasioned by each thread having its own drag regulated separately. In Crompton's mule and Hargreaves's jenny this difficulty was avoided by the spinner putting the required tension or drag on the yarn by the "faller," which operating on all the threads at once, and being controlled by the hand of the spinner, allowed the tension of the yarn during the winding on to be easily governed. All wefts, from the lowest to the highest numbers, are now spun upon Crompton's machine, the use of Hargreaves's jenny having been almost entirely superseded

by it as regards cotton, though not as regards woollen. It was some time, indeed, after the mule came into use before it was ascertained that the finest yarn required for the manufacture could be produced from it. But in the year 1792, Jonathan Pollard of Manchester succeeded in spinning yarn of 278 hanks to the pound, from cotton wool grown by Mr. Robley, in the island of Tobago. This yarn was sold at twenty guineas per pound to the muslin manufacturers of Glasgow.

The mule, in its structure and operation, is a compound of the spinning frame and of Hargreaves's jenny; from which circumstance it probably received its name. It contains a system of rollers like that belonging to the throstle; but the attenuated roving, as it issues from between the rollers, is twisted by the action of the spindles, which, in the mule, are mounted on a movable carriage that recedes from the rollers a little faster than the roving is delivered by them. The mode of putting the twist in by means of the spindles is exactly the same as in the jenny, and in fact

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resembles the most ancient method of using a spinning spindle. When a sufficient length of yarn or a "stretch" had been spun the rollers and spindles were stopped, the yarn coiled round the bare spindles was unwound, or "backed off," as it is technically called, the faller was put down by the spinner and the "nose" of the cop, and the spindles turned during the run in of the carriage with sufficient quickness to wind the spun yarn on the top of the yarn already wound on the spindles. When the spindle points have been brought by the running in of the carriage within a short distance of the delivery rollers, the rollers and spindles are again set in motion for another stretch. The manner of backing off and winding the spun yarn on the spindles is exactly the same as that used in Hargreaves's jenny. Crompton's great merit consisted in the adaptation of the best features of the throstle and the best principles of Hargreaves's jenny, so as to obtain from the combination of the two the principal elements of a perfect spinning machine. The motive power being manual, the work was

rendered more fatiguing as the mules became longer, and thus the size of the machine was restricted by the strength of the spinner. In spinning the finer counts of yarn it became customary to continue the outward movement of the carriage, and the rotation of the spindles, a short time after the rollers were stopped; the movement of the carriage was then arrested, but the rotation of the spindles continued until the proper amount of twist had been put in the yarn. This last operation resembles that performed by the common jenny, and produces a similar effect.

In 1792, William Kelly of Glasgow, at that time manager of the Lanark mills, obtained a patent for moving the mule by power in order to relieve the spinner from the most laborious part of his work, and thus enable him to attend to a longer mule and spin the yarn at a reduced cost. Kelly's machinery was contrived so as to move every part of the mule, even to the returning of the carriage into its place, after the draught was finished. Had it come into full operation, fewer men need have been employed as

spinners, and children would have been able to do a great | on of the yarns, was found to be valuable only for bringing part of the duty required. But, after a short trial, it was out the carriage. A spinner could, however, serve two discovered that this invention, though intended to bring mules, the one carriage moving out during the time that the out the carriage, and return it again during the winding other was returning.

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At that time

that could only be attained by long practice. Spinners spin yarn of so fine a grist, he then manufactured a small thus became a very important and powerful class, demand- | quantity of No. 80, for the spinning and preparation of ing and obtaining a high rate of wages, and sometimes oc- which he got 42s, per pound. For some little time after casioning to their employers more trouble than any other the mule came into general use, in the year 1786, it was class. This doubtless contributed to the introduction of the practice in many places for the spinner to purchase the the self-acting mule. At the same time, it must be ob- wool in a prepared state; and separate concerns for preparserved that great improvements were introduced, and stilling cotton were established and carried on. continue to be made, in the construction of the hand-mule, 10s. per pound was paid for spinning No. 100; but soon perfecting and extending its operative powers, and enabling afterwards the cost for this number was reduced, first to 8s. it to do its work almost automatically with the aid of the and then to 6s. 8d. In 1790 the price of spinning No. 100 most delicate control of the spinner, who has no longer to was 4s. per pound. In 1792 it was brought to 3s. 1d.. use his strength to drive the various parts, but is required and in 1793 to 2s. 6d., at which price it continued till 1795, chiefly to regulate or reduce the velocity of the backing when, the mule coming to be worked by machinery, and off and winding on, though the same unremitting attention an increase being made in the number of spindles, the and care are as necessary as before. The hand-mule, as it spinner was enabled so to extend the quantity of his prois designated, is therefore quite as complex a machine as duce as to admit of another considerable reduction in cost. the modern self-acting mule. The price of spinning No. 100 was in the course of a few years brought down to 8d. per pound, and continued so until 1826, when it was further reduced to 64d. per pound. Notwithstanding this extraordinary diminution of the price of spinning, such have been the effects of the improvements in machinery, in the selection and preparation of wool, and in the skill and tact brought to bear on the work, that the spinner is able to earn more money now than he did when the wages were at the highest.

SELF-ACTING MULE (fig. 14).-In 1818 William Eaton obtained a patent for a self-acting mule, in which the operations ordinarily performed by the spinner were effected by automatic means, and this machine, though not extensively adopted, contained several ingenious arrangements. His faller lock, after a lapse of thirty-six years, was said to be re-invented, and still continues to be the best in use at the present day. His apparatus for governing the formation of the cop was founded on correct principles, and was a beautiful contrivance, much superior to many that have been since introduced. Mr. Smith of Deanston, Scotland, was also the author of several valuable inventions, and others might be named who made efforts, more or less successful, to provide the desired machine.

66

About 1824 Richard Roberts directed his attention to the best means of rendering the hand-mule self-acting, and in 1825 a patent was taken out for his invention. In the mule now introduced the governing power was exercised by what was then and has ever since been called a cam shaft," by which all the movements were so regulated as to succeed each other in their proper order, the termination of one operation being the initiation of the next. In 1830 Roberts took out another patent for his "quadrant" winding apparatus, and thus completed his self-acting mule, which in its chief essential features remains the same at the present day; for though as regards the headstock there have been improvements, yet the whole combination still bears indelible marks of his genius. Many improvements have of late years been introduced and patented, and the self-acting mule now in use is superior in its manner of working to the one made by Roberts. It is now employed for spinning all sizes of yarns up to 100's, and in a few cases as high as 160's, and in the manufacture of these numbers a great saving is effected by its use. It has now almost entirely superseded the handmule, which only retains its position for the production of the finest yarns, and in a few years will undoubtedly have to give place altogether to the self-actor, on which yarn up to 160's, or even 200's, has already been successfully spun.1

Effects of Machinery, &c., on Production and Cost. About the year 1790 the average product of yarn No. 40 was little more than a hank per spindle per day; but by the year 1812 it had advanced to two hanks per day, and in 1830 to 23. The effect of this increase of production upon the cost of the article was very great, as will be seen by the following statement of the reduction of the cost of spinning, and in the price of yarn.

We have already noticed that, until the cancelling of Arkwright's patent, by which the mule spinner became at liberty to use his improved mode of preparation, the few fine wefts required were spun on Hargreaves's jenny. In the year 1786 this yarn was sold in Glasgow and Paisley at 31s. per pound for No. 90, 7s. per pound being the price of spinning it; the warp, spun upon the water or throstle frame, was sold at 47s. 6d. the pound for No. 90.

It was stated by Crompton that, immediately upon completing his invention of the mule in the year 1775, he obtained 14s. per pound for the spinning and preparation of No. 40; that a short time after he got 25s. per pound for No. 60; and that to show that it was not impossible to Fuller details of cotton machinery may be found in a work entitled the Science of Modern Cotton Spinning, &c., by Evan Leigh, O.E.; in a paper by Mr. John Platt on machinery for the preparing and spinning of cotton, published in The Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; and in Spon's Dictionary of Engineering.

The sale prices of the yarn during this period were as follows:

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After 1807 the price of yarn underwent various fluctuations; it fell in 1829 to 3s. 2d., and in 1831 to 2s. 11d., at which price it remained in 1832. Since 1832 the fluctuations have not been extreme, the price never rising above 5s. 6d., at which it stood in 1836, nor falling below 2s. 9d., as in 1842. Prices for No. 100 at the close of 1876 were warp-twist 2s. 10d., medium 2s. 6d., and weft 1s. 10d.

But the benefits of improved machinery have not been confined to the reduction of the cost of the yarn; they have at the same time considerably increased the quantity which a workman can produce in the same hours of labor.

Application of Steam Power.-During the time that the machines for the different processes of cotton spinning were advancing towards perfection, James Watt had been employed in maturing and reducing to practice his conceptions for extending the powers of the steam-engine.

Among the engines erected by Bolton and Watt in 1785 was one for Messrs. Robinsons, at Papplewick, in Nottinghamshire, for spinning cotton,-the first instance of the application of steam to this manufacture. In 1787 they put up one for the Messrs. Peel, at Warrington, for cotton spinning, and three others for the same purpose at Nottingham. No rotative engine had yet been erected at Manchester; and it was seven years after Bolton and Watt had received their patent that they constructed for Mr. Drinkwater the first engine used there for spinning cotton. In 1790 they erected one for spinning cotton at Nottingham for Sir Richard Arkwright, another at Manchester for Mr. Simpson, and a third at Papplewick for Messrs. Robinsons. Some time before this Sir Richard Arkwright and others, from an ill-judged economy in the first cost had introduced into their spinning factory atmospherical or Newcomen's engines, with rotative motions applied to them. But quickly perceiving their error, they abandoned them;-and Bolton and Watt's engines soon came to be universally used among cotton spinners and all other manufacturers.

Cotton Supply Improved.-In an account of the means which contributed to the fall in the price of spinning we must not overlook the progressive improvement in the cultivation of the raw material which has taken place, and in the application of its different qualities to their most profitable uses. Previous to the year 1793, the cotton used in the coarser articles of the manufacture, with the excep tion of a small quantity imported from India and from the Levant for the fustian trades was wholly the growth of the British and French West India Islands. That for the better kind of goods was raised in Demerara, Surinam, and Berbice. The wool for fine goods was grown in the

444

COTTON.

Brazils; and that for the few very fine muslins then man- | it was found they were not of a marketable quality. Reufactured, in the isle of Bourbon.

In 1787 the descriptions of cotton imported into Britain appear to have been as follows:

6,800,000 b

From the British West Indies

From the French and Spanish colonies..........

6,000,000

From the Dutch

do

1,700,000

From the Portuguese

do

2,500,000

100,000

From the Isle of Bourbon, by Ostend
Smyrna and Turkey..

5,700,000 22,800,000

Had we continued to derive our sole supply of cotton from these countries, the progress of the manufacture would have been greatly retarded, not only from the difficulty of making the production keep pace with the increasing consumption, but from the impossibility of obtaining the qualities suited to the finer descriptions of goods, which the improved machinery enabled us to undertake. But as we have already seen, more abundant supplies were procured from America, and of qualities before unknown. It was soon found that the Sea Island cotton grown in the small islands, extending along the American coast from Charleston to Savannah, was so exquisitely fine, long, and strong in staple as to surpass any cotton previously obtained from any part of the globe. After a succession of trials its superiority was fully admitted, and it soon came into use for the purposes for which Bourbon cotton had been employed before 1796, and in a short time entirely supplanted it.

Stocking

Progress of Cotton Manufacture in England.

Nottingham, where Arkwright commenced yarn. operations, was the seat of the stocking manufacture, in which moreover his partner Need was largely engaged, and the whole produce of his spinning was therefore at first devoted to that industry. The cotton yarn for stockings requires to be particularly smooth and equal; and to secure these qualities, it is spun by a process differing a little from that employed for ordinary twist. Being from two roves in place of one, it is called double-spun twist. The introduction of this article produced a great change in the stocking manufacture. Handspun cotton was entirely laid aside; and stockings made of twist were of so superior a quality, that in a short time they wholly supplanted those made from thread.

Cotton used as warp.

About the year 1773 Need and Strutt made the important discovery that the yarn produced by the spinning frame had sufficient strength to fit it for warp, although its firmness and hardness rendered it less suitable for weft. The weft, therefore, continued to be spun by Hargreaves's jenny; and from this time the calicoes, and other articles in imitation of India goods, which had hitherto been manufactured with linen warp, came to be made wholly of cotton; and the progressive increase of these manufactures, particularly of calicoes, after this time, was unexampled.

After having made a considerable quantity of those goods, Need and Strutt discovered that, when printed, they were subject to double the duty charged upon calicoes woven with linen warp, and that their sale was even prohibited in the home market. After a long and expensive application to the legislature, they succeeded in procuring the repeal of those impolitic laws. Nearly about the same Calicoes. period, calicoes entirely of cotton were begun to be made at Blackburn, and also at Preston,— which places soon became the seat of their manufacture, and for a long time the great market to which the printers from all parts of the kingdom resorted for their supplies. This branch went on increasing for many years in a most extraordinary degree. About the year 1805, it was calculated that the number of pieces sold annually in the Blackburn market was not less than a million; and by that time the manufacture of this article was not confined to the country around Blackburn, but had spread into the north-west district of Yorkshire, principally about Colne and Bradford, from which part of the country 20,000 pieces weekly are said to have been sent to Manchester.

Muslins. The first attempts to make muslins in Britain commenced simultaneously in Lancashire and at Glasgow about the year 1780, but were without success. There was no yarn fitted for the weft of these goods, except that spun upon Hargreaves's jenny; and when made of this,

although a better article than the former was by this course was then had to wefts brought from India; and means produced, it was still not of a quality to compete successfully with Indian muslin. As soon, however, as the invention of the mule jenny enabled the spinner to produce yarns suited to such fabrics, the manufacture of the finest cotton articles became an important branch of trade in this country. That machine, as has been mentioned, came into use at the end of the year 1785, upon Arkwright's patent So rapid was its increase, that in 1787 it was computed that being cancelled; and it is from that period we ought to 500,000 pieces of muslin were in that year manufactured date the commencement of this part of the manufacture. in Great Britain.

Power

loom wear

vention of the power loom is due to the Rev.
E. Cartwright of Hollander House, Kent. The ing.
Power-Loom Weaving.-The credit of the in-
found fully detailed in the following letter, are curions,
and of interest in the history of inventions. Mr. Cart-
circumstances of his discovery, which will be
wright says:-

in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when the con"Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell versation turned on Arkwright's spinning machinery. One of pired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright's patent extion I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observaand invent a weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was agreed that the thing was impracticable; and, in defence of incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing, by remarking that there had lately been exhibited in London an automaton figure which played at chess.

"Some little time afterwards, a particular circumstance re

calling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the follow each other in succession, there would be little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I imbusiness, there could only be three movements, which were to mediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to usually made of. To my great delight a piece of cloth, such as put in the warp, which was of such materials as sail-cloth is it was, was the produce. As I had never before turned my thoughts to anything mechanical, either in theory or practice, struction, you will readily suppose that my first loom must have nor had ever seen a loom at work, or knew anything of its conperpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were been a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving in my I then secured what I thought a most valuable property by great simplicity that I had accomplished all that was required, patent, 4th April, 1785. This being done, I then condescended Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, to see how other people wove; and you will guess my astonishin its general principles nearly as they are now made; but it ment when I compared their easy mode of operation with mine. was not till the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my last weaving patent, August 1st of that year."

though it had never been carried into practice. About the But the idea of weaving by machinery was not new, alclose of the preceding century, a drawing and a description of a similar loom (a circumstance unknown to Cartwright) had been presented to the Royal Society of London. The movements, too, in both are the same in principle with those of the inch or tape looin, a machine which had long been in use. Cartwright, after obtaining his second patent, erected a weaving factory at Doncaster, which he filled with looms. This concern was unsuccessful, and was at last abandoned. But still the invention was considered so important to the country, that some years after, upon an ter, Parliament granted Cartwright a sum of money as a application from a number of manufacturers at Manchesremuneration for his ingenuity and trouble. About the Cartwright, erected a weaving factory, which was to have year 1790, Grimshaw of Manchester, under a license from contained 500 looms, for weaving coarse sacking-cloth.

well-of the attempt of Robert Owen, Dale's son-in-law, to commence the regeneration of society by a practical exemplification of the virtues of socialism. Owen's fidelity to his convictions cost him a princely fortune, and the mills passed in 1827 into the hands of a firm with, perhaps, less lofty but more practical views. By the year 1787 there were nineteen cotton spinning-mills in Scotland.

He intended also to have attempted the weaving of fustians. But, after a small part of the machinery had been set agoing, the work was destroyed by fire; and as the concern during the short trial that had been made did not promise to be successful, the mill was not rebuilt. Weaving by power, in fact, could never have succeeded but for the discovery, by Mr. Radcliffe of Stockport, of a process for dressing the web before it is put into the loom. The stoppage of the work from time to time for dressing the web made it impossible to do more than attend to one loom; but owing to the introduction of this process, one person was soon enabled to attend to two looms, and canufacturers. Cartwright's power-loom was introduced into now attend even to four.

The contrivances for "dressing" are very inDressing. genious, the machinery employed in it deriving its movement from the power which gives motion to the looms. The yarn is first wound from the cop upon bobbins by a winding machine. These are then taken to the warping mill and made into warps of such number of ends and such lengths as may be required by the manufacturer. The warp is taken to the beaming machine to be wound on to beams, and then to the dressing machine, and passed through strong starch liquid, &c. Where the manufacturer is also a spinner he can dispense with the warping mill, the bobbins being taken at once to the beaming machine. The warp is then compressed between two rollers, to free it from the moisture it had imbibed with the dressing, and drawn over a succession of tin cylinders heated by steam, to dry it. During the whole of this last part of its progress, it is lightly brushed as it moves along, and fanned by rapidly revolving fanners.

Peter Marsland of Stockport, who for many years had a large factory for weaving cotton cloth of a superior quality, was the inventor of an improvement upon the power-loom, by means of the double crank, for which, about the year 1807, he obtained a patent. The operation of the crank is to make the lathe give a quick blow to the cloth on coming in contact with it, and by that means render it more stout and even.

The weaving of calicoes by power did not succeed in Lancashire so early as it did in Scotland. In 1817, the number of power-looms in Lancashire was estimated to be about 2000, of which only about 1000 were said to be then in employment. The cause of this was that the price paid at the time we refer to for weaving by the hand had been forced down to the very lowest degree by the depressed state of trade, and the pressure of an overgrown population bearing upon the means of employment. Wages had fallen below the rate at which the goods could be produced by machinery. This struggle for existence between the two processes terminated, however, as might have been expected. The hand-weavers, finding it impossible to go on with the reduced wages, gradually gave way. Their numbers ceased to increase; and the extraordinary addition to the amount of the manufacture since that time has been the product of the power-loom. Goods of very low and fine qualities are still woven by the hand.

Lace.

There is a branch of the cotton manufacture yet to be noticed,— -a branch not derived from the East, like muslin, but one that has had its origin in England, namely, the bobbinet or Nottingham lace manufacture, which now furnishes employment for a large amount of labor and capital. See LACE.

Cotton Manufacture in Scotland. Previous to 1778 there were no pure cotton fabrics woven in Scotland, and the only form in which the fibre was used to any considerable extent was in the manufacture of blunks, a coarse kind of handkerchief having linen warp and cotton weft. The first cotton-mill in Scotland was erected at Penicuik, and the second at Rothesay in 1779. These were succeeded by others at Barrhead, Johnstone, and other localities where a suitable supply of water could be obtained, as, excepting horses and oxen, it was at that period the only power available. The name of David Dale is closely associated with the early progress of cotton spinning and weaving in Scotland. In 1785 Dale began, with Arkwright, who that year had been beaten out of his patent rights by the Lancashire spinners, to erect cotton-mills at New Lanark. These mills were the most extensive of their period; and they at a later time acquired a very wide notoriety by being made the scene-in conjunction with his establishment at Orbiston in the parish of Both

Although all the great inventions which revolutionized the spinning trade were of English origin, many adaptations which greatly facilitated the working of spinning machinery were devised by the ingenuity of Scotch manGlasgow in 1793, by James Lewis Robertson, who, when on a visit to London, had seen it in operation in the hulks. He obtained and brought away two, which he had fitted up in a cellar in Argyle Street, the motive power being a large Newfoundland dog which walked inside a revolving drum or cylinder. In the following year about forty powerlooms were fitted up in a factory at Milton, near Dumbarton, for weaving printing-calicoes, and in 1801 John Monteith erected a factory for the accommodation of 200 looms at Pollokshaws. The looms were subsequently adopted in 1805 by Archibald Buchanan for the Catrine Mills; and as the apparatus improved in efficiency its progress became rapid, new power-loom factories being erected almost every year thereafter in Glasgow, till in 1817 there existed fifteen factories containing 2275 looms.

Glasgow and Paisley manufacturers having been from very early times engaged in the linen, cambric, and lawn trade, to which in the latter town in the year 1760 the manufacture of silk gauzes was added, it was natural that on the introduction of cotton spinning the attention of weavers should be directed to the finer and more delicate fabrics into which cotton fibre can be wrought. Muslins, therefore (plain for the most part in Glasgow, and fancy ornamented in Paisley), were among the earliest and principal cotton fabrics produced on the looms of the west of Scotland. About the year 1780 James Monteith, the father of Henry Monteith, the founder of the great print-works at Barrowfield, and of the spinning and weaving mills at Blantyre, warped a muslin web, the first attempted in Scotland; and he set himself resolutely to try to imitate or excel the famous products of Dacca and other Indian muslin-producing centres. As the yarn which could then be produced was not fine enough for his purposes, he procured a quantity of "bird-nest" Indian yarn, "and employed James Dalziel to weave a 6-4th 120° book with a hand-shuttle, for which he paid him 21d. per ell for weav ing. It is worthy of remark that the same kind of web is now wrought at 2ğd. per ell. The second web was wove with a fly shuttle, which was the second used in Scotland. The Indian yarn was so difficult to wind that Christian Gray, wife of Robert Dougall, bellman, got 6s. 9d. for winding each pound of it. When the web was finished Mr. Monteith ordered a dress of it to be embroidered with gold, which he presented to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte."

Once fairly established, the muslin trade and various other cotton manufactures developed with extraordinary rapidity, and diverged into a great variety of products which were disposed of through equally numerous channels. Among the earliest staples, along with plain book muslins, came mull, jacconets or nainsooks, and checked and striped muslins. Ginghams and pullicats formed an early and very important trade with the West Indian market, as well as for home consumption. These articles for a long period afforded the chief employment to the hand-loom weavers in the numerous villages around Glasgow and throughout the west of Scotland. The weaving of sprigged or spotted muslins and lappets was subsequently introduced, the latter not having been commenced till 1814. Although the weaving of ordinary grey calico for bleaching or printing purposes has always held and still retains an important place among Glasgow cotton manufactures, it has never been a peculiar feature of the cotton industry; and the very extensive bleaching and print-works of the locality have always been supplied with a proportion of their material from the great cotton manufacturing districts of Lancashire.

About the end of last century the ornamentation of plain muslins with hand-sewed patterns began to be practised as a domestic industry in the west of Scotland; and by rapid degrees it rose into high reputation, many manufacturers

1 Cleland's Former and Present State of Glasgow, 1840.

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