CHAPTER II. 



"First with nice eye emerging Naiads cull 

 From leathery pods the vegetable wool ; 

 With wiry teeth revolving cards release 

 The tangled knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece ; 

 Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine, 

 Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line ; 

 Slow, with soft lips, the whirling can acquires 

 The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires ; 

 With quickened pace successive rolle.rs move. 

 And these retain, and those extend the rove ; 

 Then fly the spoles, the rapid axles glow. 

 And slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below." 

 — Darwin.— T/ic Loves of the Plants, canto II. 



"Cotton is King!" 



" To every clime his labours stalk. 



From pole to pole they hawk the work 

 Made by this English wight." 



SoNQS OF THE WiLSONS.— T/ig Weaver. 



rr^O the Cotton Trade, more than to all other causes combined, is 

 -*- undoubtedly due the remarkable increase which has taken 

 place in the population of Rossendale within the present century. 

 To the development of that trade are also to be attributed the 

 accumulation of wealth in many hands, the greatly-augmented 

 value of the rateable property, and the advancement of the inha- 

 bitants in material prosperity and comfort. As has been 

 already shown, (a) the increase in the amount of the population 



(a) See ante, pp. 229-30. 



