MR. DUNCANS TAMBOURING MACHINE. 



337 



machinery, the construction and effects of which never 

 fail to strike the spectator with surprise. This, however, 

 would lead me into a field too extensive, and I shall 

 therefore confine myself to a notice of three very remark- 

 able pieces of mechanism which are at present very little 

 known to the general reader, viz., the tambouring machine 

 of Mr. Duncan, the statue-turning machine of Mr. Watt, 

 and the calculating machinery of Mr. Babbage. 



The tambouring of muslins, or the art of producing 

 upon them ornamental flowers and figures, has been long 

 known and practised in Britain, as well as in other 

 countries; but it was not long before the year 1790 that 

 it became an object of general manufacture in the west of 

 Scotland, where it was chiefly carried on. At first it was 

 under the direction of foreigners ; but their aid was not 

 long necessary, and it speedily extended to such a degree 

 as to occupy, either wholly or partially, more than 20,000 

 females. Many of these labourers lived in the neighbour- 

 hood of Glasgow, which was the chief seat of the manufac- 

 ture ; but others were scattered through every part of 

 Scotland, and supplied by agents with work and money. 

 In Glasgow, a tambourer of ordinary skill could not in 

 general earn more than five or six shillings a week by 

 constant application ; but to a labouring artisan, who had 

 several daughters, even these low wages formed a source 

 of great wealth. At the age of five years, a child capable 

 of handling a needle was devoted to tambouring, even 

 though it could not earn more than a shilling or two in a 

 week ; and the consequence of this was, that female 

 children were taken from school, and rendered totally 

 unfit for any social or domestic duty. The tambouring 

 population was therefore of the worst kind, and it must 

 have been regarded as a blessing rather than as a calamity, 

 when the work which they performed was entrusted to 

 regular machinery. 



