192 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Worker 



wool industry during the present century was the invention of 

 John Goulding, of Worcester, Mass., and was patented in 1826. 

 Before his invention the length of the rolls issuing from the 

 carding machine was limited to the breadth of the card. The 

 ends of the separate rolls had to be spliced together by hand, a 

 tedious and expensive process, with the aid of a machine known 

 as the billy. Goulding dispensed with the billy altogether, and 

 accomplished with four machines what had previously required 

 the use of five. The invention enabled manufacturers to produce 

 yarn from wool at much less cost, of better quality, and in great- 

 er quantity than was produced by the old process. His machine 

 also dispensed with short rolls and introduced the long or endless 

 roll. Goulding's invention thus combined in the carding process 

 operations which up to its introduction required an intermediate 

 process before spinning to prepare the roving for the jack. The 



purpose of this 

 superseded ma- 

 chine, called the 

 billy or slubbing 

 machine, was to 

 join the detached 

 rovings in a con- 

 tinuous spongy 

 cord, to which it 

 also imparted a 

 slight twist and 

 some draft. This 

 operation had 

 been performed 

 in the days of hand manufacture on a spinning-wheel somewhat 

 similar to the common spinningvwheel but smaller in size. The 

 slubbing billy was introduced soon after Hargreaves's invention 

 of the spinning jenny had been applied to the woolen manufacture, 

 and closely resembled this machine in its working parts. 



The cardings, as they fell from the card machine, were taken 

 up by children, called pieceners, whose work it was to join these 

 porous rolls by rolling their ends together with the palms of the 

 hand, and then lay them upon the billy board, whence they were 

 drawn upon the spindles by the movement of a carriage and 

 wound into a conical cop. The billy usually contained from fifty 

 to one hundred spindles, and its wheel was turned by the slubber, 

 who must also draw the carriage. One slubber and one billy were 

 appointed to each carding machine, and generally four pieceners. 

 It was in this branch of the work that complaints of cruelty to 

 children were so frequent during the earlier half of the century. 

 It was well established in parliamentary investigations that the 



Fig. 9. Working Parts of a Carding Machine. 



