418 COMPARISON OF LOWELL 



shops, comfortable hotels, rows of neat lodging-houses 

 for the employed, and fifty large mills upon which the 

 whole population depends. Cottons, plain and printed, 

 woollen cloths, carpets and the machinery necessary for 

 the spinning and weaving departments, are the principal 

 manufactures of the place. Its rise, as all know, has 

 been very rapid. In 1828 its population was 3500 ; it 

 is now, in 1850, estimated at 25,000. The population, 

 cotton consumed, spindles at work, and yards of power- 

 loom cotton cloth per day made in Lowell and in Glas 

 gow, are respectively as follows : 



Pounds of cotton c n ;, ir li* at Cotton cloths 



Population. consumed per made per day in 



day. yards. 



Glasgow, 368,000 144,230 1,800,000 625,000 



Lowell, 35,000 109,000 320,000 352,000 



On comparing the numbers under each of the above 

 heads, it will be seen both what amount of progress has 

 been made in Lowell, and what is the peculiar branch of 

 cotton manufacture in which the mills there employ 

 themselves, and come into competition with our produc 

 tions. 



In the first place, the quantity of cotton consumed, 

 and of cloth produced, and even of spindles at work, is 

 vastly greater in Lowell, in proportion to the population, 

 than it is in Glasgow. It has more the character of a 

 staple trade, therefore, and is more vital to the existence 

 of the former place than to the latter. It is in fact a 

 peculiarity of Glasgow, among all the great cities of the 

 empire, that it can scarcely be said to have a staple 

 trade it is so equally dependent upon a variety of dif 

 ferent branches of manufactures. 



Second, It seems very remarkable, at first sight, that 

 the weight of cotton consumed at Lowell should be only 

 one-third less than is used at Glasgow, and that it should 

 already produce more than one-half the number of yards 

 of power-loom cloth which are woven in Glasgow. But 



