OF LINEN BY POWER LOOMS. 



223 



6d. per yard : and if my system of preparing Flax be adopted, 

 boiling yarn and bleaching cloth must be dispensed with, and 

 a saving of from 3d. to 4d. per yard effected. If manufac- 

 turers persevere with the introduction of power-looms, the 

 cotton rags of Manchester now used as shirting will soon be 

 thrown aside to make room for a superior article, viz., 12 00 

 Irish linen at 6d. per yard, and 20°° at lid. per yard for 

 shirt breasts, &c. Had your very enterprising and spirited 

 townsmen, Messrs. Mulholland, Hind, and Herdman (who 

 were the first to put a stop to the linen trade of Ireland being 

 taken away to Leeds, Barnsley, and Dundee) been frightened 

 by erroneous and imaginary feelings of benevolence, and fears 

 that their spinning-frames would have prevented the old 

 women of Clough, Ballymena, Strabane, or Keady (all so 

 celebrated for hand-spinning) from earning their tea and toast 

 money, without such machines creating, as they have done, 

 much more than an equivalent — their factories, which are 

 now the imposing and commanding ornaments of your city, 

 located in York Street, Durham Street, Smithneld, and Falls 

 and Crumlin Koads, with their many thousands of hands 

 employed, would not have been erected : nor would they have 

 induced so many others to follow their example — all of which 

 causes many thousands to visit Belfast on business, who 

 otherwise would not have seen it, unless, perchance, they 

 came to emigrate for another land. 



" Again, the poor man's professed friend says the linen 

 trade is i universally admitted to be the cause of prosperity in 

 Ulster.' No doubt it is, and will be more so. If there were 

 twenty power-loom factories from Belfast to Ballvmena, thirty 

 between it and Armagh, and twenty between it and 

 Banbridge, those weavers who always lost Saturday 

 in Ballymena, and generally another day in the week 

 looking for work, would find constant employment and 

 not lose one hour. The steam-engine never gets fatigued in 



