CHAP. III. 



TIM-: IH'KK OF IJKIIXJKWATKI!. 



341 



its manufacture of course cottons or marines made of 

 wool, in imitation of the iroods known on the Continent 

 l>v thai name. The Manchester people also made fus- 

 tians, mixed stuffs, and small wares, amongst which 

 leather-laces for women's bodice, shoe-ties, and points 

 were the more important. But the operations of manu- 

 facture were still carried on in a clumsy way, entirely 

 by hand. The wool was spun into yarn by means 

 of the common spinning- wheel, for the spinning-jenny 

 had not yet been discovered, and the yarn was woven 

 into cloth by the common hand-loom. There was no 

 whirr of engine- wheels then to be heard; for Watt's 

 steam-engine had not yet been invented. The air was 

 free from smoke, except what arose from household fires, 

 and there was not a single factory-chimney in Man- 

 chester. In 1724 Dr. Stukeley says Manchester con- 

 tained no fewer than 2400 families, and that their trade 



VIEW OF A1ANCLLLSTKH IN I'M. 

 [Fac simile of au En$ravin$ of Uje period by J. Harris, published by Robert Whitworth.] 



was " incredibly large " in tapes, ticking, girth-webb, 

 and fustians. In 1757 the united population of Man- 

 chester and Salford was only 20,000 -, 1 it is now, after 

 the lapse of a century, 460,000 ! The Manchester 



1 Aikin's ' Description <>l the Country iVoni Thirty to Fo/ty Miles imin<l 

 Manchester.' London, 1795. 



