VEGETABLE FIBRES. 185 



necessaries of existence, — too often, it is true, earned hardly 

 and painfully, as we have been told by the immortal Hood 

 in his " Song of the Shirt," the words of which are as un- 

 dying as the feelings of love and charity by which they were 

 dictated. If to our statistics of cotton we could have 

 added information as to the number of half-starved, wretched, 

 and broken spirits who are daily toiling for their bread, 

 amid the roar of those 249,627 looms and surrounded by 

 the dizzying whirl of those twenty-one millions of spindles, 

 we should then see one of the dark scenes of life, which for 

 our comfort is best hidden. We will look to a brighter 

 picture. 



' ' Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, 

 Pillow and bobbins all her little store ; 

 Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, 

 Shuffling her threads about the livelong day ; 

 Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night 

 Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light. 

 She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, 

 Has little understanding, and no wit ; 

 Receives no praise, but though her lot be such 

 (Toilsome and indigent), she renders much ; 

 Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true — 

 A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; 

 And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, 

 Her title to a treasure in the skies." 



