208 COTTON 



has almost within the memory of living man ceased to be the 

 great staple of our industry ; and vegetable wool, furnished by a 

 plant totally unknown to our forefathers, now ranks as the firsi 

 of all the world-wide importations of England. 



The rapid growth of the cotton trade to its present gigantic 

 importance is indeed unparalleled in the whole history of com- 

 merce. We read, it is true, in Herodotus, of the wool-bearing 

 plant of the Indians, and Pliny tells us of the white robes of the 

 Egyptian priests, for which they were indebted not to the fine- 

 haired fleeces of their flocks, but to a shrub. We know that 

 many centuries have passed since the cultivation of the cotton- 

 plant was introduced into Asia Minor and the Grecian Isles, 

 and that the manufacture of the muslins of Hindostan is of the 

 remotest antiquity ; but not quite a century ago the spinning 

 and weaving of cotton was still so limited in our isle as hardly 

 to be noticed in comparison with the national importance of 

 the wool-manufactory. 



The spinning-jenny, invented about the year 1767 by Har- 

 graves, a carpenter of Blackburn, and which gradually was so 

 far improved that by its help a little girl could set 120 spindles 

 into motion, gave the first impulse to the rise of the cotton 

 industry, which soon assumed still larger proportions through 

 Arkwright's spinning frame, Crompton's mule-jenny (1779) and 

 Cartwright's power-loom, and made gigantic strides particularly 

 since 1820, when the power of steam was first more generally 

 called in aid, to establish those wonderful machines in every 

 fit locality independently of the moving power of water. Thus 

 a few men of genius, most of them belonging to the 

 humbler ranks of life, have contributed perhaps more than any 

 of their contemporaries to the power and greatness of their 

 country, by enriching it with an industry which, in all its 

 branches, directly and indirectly gives occcupation to four or 

 five millions of our population, which furnishes no less than a 

 third of our colossal exportation, and by providing almost every 

 nation of the globe with cheap and durable clothing contributes 

 essentially to the comfort and the progress of the human race. 

 A few figures will tend to show the enormous rise and value of 

 the cotton trade. 



In the year 1781 England imported 28,882 bales of cotton; 

 in 1820, 571,731; in 1840, 1,600,370; in 1856, 2,468,000; 



