FLAX-SPINNING IN MANCHESTER. 281 



thread in the spinning-machine ; this improvement consisted 

 in drawing the fibres through fine heckles or gills instead 

 of rollers, and this gave the means of producing much evener 

 and finer thread, that is, up to 40 or 50 leas, and for these 

 yarns the finer Flaxes of Flanders and Holland began to be 

 used. This was about the year 1820, when this finer descrip- 

 tion of yarn came into very extensive use in the manufacture 

 of the finer and better sorts of drills, an important branch of 

 the Barnsi ey linen-trade. We now come to the introduction 

 of a very important improvement in the spinning process as 

 applied to Flax. I have adverted to the gummy matter 

 which in raw Flax unites or glues together the fine ultimate 

 fibres into much coarser ones, and which it is the object of the 

 heckling process to sub-divide by mechanical means. The 

 division so effected can only be imperfect, and it was found 

 that the fibres could be more completely separated by satu- 

 rating the material with water, which dissolves or softens the 

 gummy matter in the spinning-machine itself, when in the 

 actual process of being drawn out and spun. There is a 

 somewhat singular history attached to the origin and progress 

 of this invention of wet spinning. During the great war 

 between England and the first Napoleon, it became a 

 leading object of his policy to exclude English manu- 

 factures, and to encourage those of France. England 

 had taken a decided lead in the cotton manufacture, but 

 at that time, about the beginning of the present century, 

 little had been done in England in applying machines 

 to the linen-trade. The linen-trade of France has always 

 been a very important branch of industry, linen being 

 more extensively used by the bulk of the population 

 in France than in England. Napoleon therefore wished, by 

 encouraging the application of machinery to the linen-trade 

 in France, to make it a rival to the cotton-trade of England. 

 He offered a reward of a million of francs for the successful 



