416 JAMES WATT. 



than is done by printing. When Arkwright, an ingenious 

 barber of Preston, (who, by the way, left each of his chil- 

 dren two or three millions of francs of income,) rendered 

 it both useful and profitable to substitute revolving cylin- 

 ders for the fingers of the women who used to spin, the 

 annual product of the cotton manufacture in England did 

 not exceed 50,000,000 francs (2,000,000), now it ex- 

 ceeds 900,000,000 francs (36,000,000^). In the county 

 of Lancaster alone, they annually deliver to the calico 

 manufacturers a quantity of yarn that 21,000,000 clever 

 spinners could not accomplish with only the aid of the 

 rock and spindle. Moreover, although in the art of spin- 

 ning mechanical means have been pushed, we may say, 

 to their utmost degree of perfection, 1,500,000 people 

 now find occupation there, where, before the inventions 

 of Arkwright and of Watt, there were only 50,000.* 



A certain philosopher exclaimed, in a deep fit of de- 

 spondency, " Nothing new is published in the present 

 day, unless we call new that which has been forgotten." 

 If the philosopher alluded only to errors and prejudices, 

 he spoke truth. Time has been so fruitful in this line, 

 that no one can any more claim priority. For ex- 

 ample, the pretended modern philanthropists have not 

 the merit (if there be any merit in it) of inventing the 

 systems that I am examining. Rather look at that poor 

 William Lea (Lee), working the first stocking-frame in 

 the presence of James I. The mechanism appeared ad- 

 mirable ; why was he repulsed ? It was under the pre- 



* Mr. Edward Baines, author of a much esteemed work on the Brit- 

 ish cotton manufactures, has had the whimsical curiosity to learn what 

 length of thread is annually used in weaving the cotton manufactures. 

 This entire length he finds to be equal to fifty-onetimes the distance of 

 the sun from the earth ! (fifty-one times thirty-nine millions of post 

 leagues, or about two thousand millions of such leagues.) 



