MANUFACTURES IN ENGLAND. 89 



610 yards of colored or printed cottons, costing $6,049,433 per annum. 

 The importation of white cottons averaged for the above four years in 

 value $1,415,893. But the value of manufactured cottons imported 

 in 1840 was $6,504,484 per annum. This, with other facts illustra- 

 tive of the singular penchant of our countrymen for things foreign is 

 fatal alike to the arts and the independence of our country. 



The Manufactories in the U. S. in 1840 were 1240 ; the number of 

 spindles 2,284,631 ; printing establishments 37 ; and dying houses 92; 

 persons employed 72,119; capital invested $51,102,359 ; and value of 

 manufactures $46,350,458. Of this, the products of Massachusetts 

 were $16,553,423; of Rhode Island $7,116,792; Pennsylvania, $5,- 

 013,007 ; and New York $3,640,237. 



It is stated that nearly a million and a quarter of yards of cloth are 

 made at Lowell, Mass., per week ; employing about 9,000 operatives 

 (6375 females) and using 434,000 Ibs. of raw cotton per week. The 

 annual amount of raw cotton used is 22,568,000 Ibs., enough to load 

 50 ships of 350 tons each, and of cotton manufactured 70,275,910 yards 

 100 Ibs. of cotton will produce 89 yards of cloth. 



The Manufacture of Cotton in England, though now and heretofore 

 far exceeding that of the U. S., will not, it is quite probable, maintain 

 her superiority in the quantity, as she does not equal France, and, in 

 some fabrics, the U. S., in the quality of articles manufactured, espe- 

 cially if consistency of legislation affords the required encouragement 

 to this and other branches of our productive industry. Some idea, 

 however, of the extent of the present manufactures of cotton in Eng- 

 land may be gathered from the facts that the manufactures there now 

 give employment to 1500,000 persons, and the value of the goods pro- 

 duced exceeds 31 million pounds. It has been calculated that the cot- 

 ton yarn annually spun there would, in a single thread, encircle the 

 globe 203,755 times, would reach from the earth to the sun, or encircle 

 the earth's orbit 8* times ; and the wrought fabrics would girdle the 

 circumference of the equator 11 times. It furnishes one half of Bri- 

 tish exports, and the receipts of merchants and manufacturers from 

 this business, equal two-thirds of the revenue of the kingdom. One 

 man now produces, by the aid of machinery, as much as 300 did at the 

 beginning of the century, and the steam-engines now do the work of 

 33,000 horses ; yet the operatives have increased from 40,000 in the 

 reign of George III. to 1500,000. The amount paid for wages then 

 was 220,OOOZ. or 2s. a week ; it is now but 63,0002. per annum. It 

 seems that the number of persons employed has increased in the exact 

 proportion that machinery has been improved, and that the rate of 

 wages, on an average, has increased, while the cost of production has 

 diminished. 



It might seem from the extent of the manufactures of cotton, that 

 the markets of the world are, or soon will be, overstocked ; but cotton 

 8* 



