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 franes (2,000,0002.), now it ex. 
ceeds 900,000,000 frances (36,000,0002.). 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-one times 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.) 
