374 COTTON. 



loud and hungry tones; and the fortune of the south 

 was made. 



In the seventeenth century the town of Manchester 

 was already known to fame. It was a seat of the 

 woollen manufacture, which was first introduced from 

 Flanders into England in the reign of Edward the 

 Third. It bought yarn from the Irish, and sent it 

 hack to them as linen. It imported cotton from 

 Cyprus and Smyrna, and worked it into fustians, ver- 

 milions, and dimities. In the middle of the eighteenth 

 century the cotton industry had become important. In 

 thousands of cottages surrounding Manchester might be 

 heard the rattle of the loom and the humming of the 

 one-thread wheel, which is now to be seen only in the 

 opera of Marta. Invention, as usual, arose from neces- 

 sity ; the weavers could not get sufficient thread, and 

 were entirely at the mercy of the spinsters. Spinning 

 machines were accordingly invented : the water frame, 

 the spinning jenny, and the mule. And now the 

 weavers had more thread than they could use, and the 

 power loom was invented to preserve the equilibrium 

 of supply and demand. Then steam was applied to 

 machinery ; the factory system was established ; 

 hundred-handed engines worked all the day : and 

 yet more labourers were employed than had ever been 

 employed before ; the soft white wool was carded, spun, 

 and woven in a trice ; the cargoes from the East 

 were speedily devoured ; and now raw material was 

 chiefly in demand. The American cotton was the 

 best in the market ; but the quantity received had 

 hitherto been small. The picking out of the small 

 black seeds was a long and tedious operation. A single 

 person could not clean more than a pound a day. 

 Here, then, was an opening for Yankee ingenuity ; 

 and Whitney invented his famous saw-gin, which tore 



