150 MR. WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN : MEMOIR 



Crompton's machine.* It will not be necessary here to 

 give an account of the different machines which consti- 

 tuted the mechanism of a cotton factory in those days. I 

 may, however, here observe that Mr. Kennedy rendered 

 great service to the new system of mule spinning by the 

 introduction of a new motion called the double speed, and 

 which gave to the thread any amount of twist that might 

 be required for the number of counts, or the quality of the 

 yarn that had to be spun. This improvement of Mr. 

 Kennedy gave greatly increased facilities to the spinning 

 of fine yarns, and very soon enabled those engaged in that 

 peculiar manufacture to raise their numbers from fifties 

 and forties up to one hundred and fifties and two hun- 

 dreds; and since that time numbers as high as fifteen 

 hundred and two thousand have been spun. Still greater 

 improvements have been made since that time, but less in 

 the mule than in other machinery, excepting only the 

 introduction of the self-acting mule; the increased fine- 

 ness in the quality of the yarn of the present day being 

 more attributable to carding, combing, and preparatory 

 machines than to any of the improvements since made 

 in the construction of the mule on which it is spun. 



To show in what way Mr. Kennedy effected his 

 improvements of Crompton's mule, he gives the following 



* Crompton completed Ms mule in 17 So, and after contending with 

 many difficulties and annoyances he at last gave it to his competitors for a 

 consideration that they nevei' paid, but left the poor inventor a prey to 

 poverty and the ingratitude of those who had benefited by his discoveries. 

 This is another instance of the robbery — it cannot be designated by a 

 milder term — pi'actised upon the benefactors of the human race by the self- 

 interest alloyed with ingratitude of the possessors of princely fortunes 

 derived not from their own talents but from the higher intellects of 

 those they have utterly forgotten and neglected. Such were the fortunes 

 of Crompton and Cort, whose inventions have, along with those of James 

 Watt, revolutionised the manufactures of iron and cotton, and given to their 

 native country a predominance never yet paralleled in the history of 

 nations. — See an excellent work by Gilbert J. French, Esq., entitled The 

 Life and Times of Samuel Crompton. 



