AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 471 



mills there is constant progress in the direction of an increased 

 product, of a finer quality, from the same machinery. The stand- 

 ard of productive capacity is thus shown to be variable, depend- 

 ent in a perceptible degree upon the ability of the management 

 to get the best results from a given capacity. The obvious ad- 

 vance in the future is in this direction. We can hardly look for 

 any radical new departure in the mechanism of wool manufact- 

 ure, such as occurred with the introduction of automatic spinning, 

 the combing machine, and the power-loom. At the same time it 

 would be foolish to assert that some new mechanical discovery, 

 which may be at this very moment lying fallow in the brain of an 

 unknown genius, will not work another revolution as complete as 

 that which marks the transition from the household to the factory 

 system. We can not, for instance, doubt that electricity is to 

 work its wonders in this department of human industry as well 

 as in every other. 



This paper may properly conclude with some indication of 

 the nature of the world's gain from the evolution of the wool 

 manufacture. It is difficult to obtain a proper standard for such 

 comparison. Statistics, even were they obtainable, present the 

 contrast very inadequately. The total gain secured over hand- 

 labor can hardly be estimated at an absolute value, for the present 

 efficiency can not be obtained. In the principal operations of the 

 manufacture the increase has been about as follows : In olden times 

 a woman could card one pound of wool a day by hand. At present 

 one operative, with the necessary machinery, can card one hun- 

 dred to one hundred and fifty pounds a day. Hence the improve- 

 ment is about one hundred and twenty-five. On a spinning-wheel 

 a woman could produce daily two skeins. An average mule to- 

 day spins about five hundred pounds ; hence the improvement is 

 about five hundred times. On a hand-loom it took a day to weave 

 two to three yards. Power-looms produce from thirty-five to 

 fifty yards a day, or an improvement of seventeen. Hence, dis- 

 regarding all other factors but these, and placing a modest esti- 

 mate, it is possible at present, with power machinery, to produce 

 over seven hundred times more goods to-day than in the olden 

 time, with the same number of hands, disregarding the quality, 

 design, etc. This enormous gain can hardly be stated by periods. 

 It has practically been achieved in a single century. In 1800 it 

 was declared in the British Parliament that thirty-five persons 

 could then accomplish, in the wool manufacture, with the aid of 

 machinery, what would have required the labor of sixteen hun- 

 dred and forty persons in 1785. That was equivalent to the state- 

 ment that one person could then do the same work that forty- 

 seven had done fifteen years earlier. 



We have already alluded to the last half of the eighteenth 



