COMPOUND FREE LABOUR. 519 



date as compared with other towns. Among Fuller s 

 worthies &quot; Jack of ^ewbury &quot; is described as &quot; the most 

 considerable clothier (without fancy and fiction) England 

 ever beheld; &quot; employing, according to a metrical romance 

 of the period, 200 hand-looms in a room, each worked by a 

 man and a boy, 100 carders, 200 spinners, 150 children 

 packing wool, 50 shearers, 80 rowers, 40 dyers and 20 fullers 

 in all over 1000 : an account which, allowing for probable 

 exaggeration, implies an extensive manufacture. And 

 Fuller s remark that &quot; Jack of Newbury &quot; was &quot; the most 

 considerable clothier &quot; implies that there existed elsewhere 

 establishments in which one man employed many hands. 



Originally, lack of capital checked such developments. 

 In the days of the Conqueror, and doubtless for long after, 

 &quot; there was no fund which could be used for planting new 

 industries, or calling labour into new directions; stock-in- 

 trade there undoubtedly was, but no capital as we now use 

 the term.&quot; In those times property consisted of land, 

 houses, and live-stock, mostly in the hands of feudal lords 

 and their dependants. The accumulation of property by 

 burghers, at first in the form of stock-in-trade and hoards of 

 coin, must have been a slow process. There were no invest 

 ments save mortgages (not always to be found) ; and these 

 did not permit immediate realization when needed. So 

 that besides artificial impediments there was a natural 

 impediment to the growth of this form of compound free 

 labour. 



Amid various facts obscurely visible and rendered unlike 

 in different localities by local circumstances, one general fact 

 may be discerned ; namely, that at first little beyond simple 

 aggregations of workers of like kinds were formed. Before 

 units can be organized they must be gathered together; 

 and in the evolution of the factory system, simple integra 

 tion preceded differentiation and combination. Concerning 

 this stage in France under Louis XV. Levasseur remarks 



u It seems as if great establishments served rather to collect iso- 

 133 



