120 COTTON IN THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY. [2ND. SEASON. 



CHAP, cordingly, though he had represented that ginning operations 



_'__ were impracticable as a mercantile transaction, yet he had 



recommended the purchase of the driving machinery, in or- 

 der that no efforts on his part might be left untried for giv- 

 ing the experiment a fair trial. His reasons for subse- 

 quently opposing the purchase were as follows. 1st. Mr. 

 Petrie had so far altered the gins, as to remove some of the 

 greatest difficulties in the way of a successful application of 

 manual labour. 2nd. He found that the coolies who work- 

 v ed for the Zemindars were either forced or only half paid ; 

 and that when Mr. Petrie's improvements had been effected, 

 the people were both able and willing to work, provided 

 they were paid. 3rd. Hand gins were new to him, as they 

 were never used in Mississippi ; but after giving further 

 attention to the subject, he had resolved on a plan which 

 would give greater efficiency to manual labour. 4th. He 

 had calculated the extraordinary expenses of driving machi- 

 nery, such as the cost of the machinery itself, the cost of 

 transportation across the Gulf, the cost of transit to the gin 

 house up country, the cost of erection, and, last but not least, 

 the cost of keeping up an establishment of bullocks all the 

 year round merely to work during the Cotton season. 5th. 

 He considered that the driving machinery had been made 

 to go at a certain speed when drawn by horses walking 

 about four miles an hour ; and that the gins would conse- 

 quently move too slowly when drawn by bullocks whose 

 speed would not exceed two miles an hour. The general 

 question however appeared to be partly settled by the Man- 

 chester Association, who had expressed a decided preference 

 for the gins moved by cattle machinery over the gins moved 

 by hand. But, notwithstanding this authority, Mr. Finnie still 

 believed that the experiment which was about to be conduct- 

 ed, would test the relative merits of cattle gins and hand gins ; 

 and would thus prove more satisfactory to the merchants and 

 manufacturers, than if conducted with the cattle machinery 



