218 Review of the Practical Tourist. 



" Taking the general average of the cost of making a yard of 

 broadcloth in England, and in the United States, including that of 

 the steam and water power, it appears that the American manufac- 

 turer produces fabrics of equal quality, as cheaply as they are made 

 in England. But widely different are their respective advantages of 

 obtaining a supply of wool. The raw material is from seventy to 

 an hundred per cent, dearer in New England than in Old England. 



" In the manufacture of stuff goods the wool is prepared by first 

 combing the long fibres or hairs by means of a sort of batchel, 

 precisely as flax is prepared. The operation, however, is perform- 

 ed upon the wool, whilst it is exposed to heat, which renders the 

 fibres permanently elongated. The combed wool is passed suc- 

 cessively between sets of rollers, to extend the fibres, and to reduce 

 them to the rudiments of a fine thread, for which purpose machine- 

 ry is employed similar to that used for manufacturing cotton. After 

 this it is spun into worsted yarn." 



It is gratifying to learn from Mr. Allen's book, that small libraries 

 are formed by the proprietors at many of the large manufacturing es- 

 tablishments in England, for the use of the workmen, which are 

 supported by a small periodical payment from those who receive the 

 books. If the comparatively small size of our own manufactories 

 renders such an appendage less worthy of the attention of owners, 

 they might at least unite in large manufacturing villages in forming 

 similar means of mental improvement. 



The foregoing extracts are interesting to a comparatively small 

 class of readers only, and present but indifferent specimens of the 

 authors style. They are offered as samples of the more substantial 

 sort of goods which the inquirer may find in this ware-house of in- 

 formation. It would have suited the manufacturer, if this 'description 

 of goods had been packed separately at the farther end of the 

 building, in the form of an appendix, instead of being thrown about, 

 promiscuously, among castles and abbeys, theatres and gaming houses, 

 cottages and palaces, foundling hospitals and cathedrals, baptisms and 

 funerals. The general reader, however, whose taste the author no 

 doubt consulted, would prefer the book as it is. Although his at- 

 tention was particularly directed to mills for making cotton, woollen, 

 silk and linen cloths, yet he has not omitted the various workshops 

 for cutlery and other hardware, both useful and ornamental, as well 

 as founderies, coal mines, porcelain works, canals, rail roads, &c. &c.; 

 thus incorporating a mass of useful facts and observations that are be- 



