• But the most material and contrast be tween the two species of manufactures, consists in the different condition of the people employed in them. Whoever has been in the woollen and cotton districts of England, must have been immediately struck with this circumstance ; and it is peculiarly striking, and al most forces itself upon a person who crosses the coun try from York to Manchester, and consequently passes immediately from the woollen district of the West Rid ing, to the cotton district of Lancashire. In the former, he observes much of the comfort and feelings of domes tic life; the habits and manners of the manufacturing classes are sober, decent, and regular ; they seem to have an interest and a pride in keeping up the respecta bility of their character, in setting a good example to their children, and in bringing them up in the paths of virtue. But, even before a traveller has time or oppor tunity to ascertain these facts, he is struck with the clean liness and neatness of their dress and persons, with the healthiness of their looks, and with their steady and cheerful manners. Let him pass into the cotton district, and the case is most miserably reversed : the manufac turing classes are dirty, squalid, and unhealthy in their looks, having the appearance of debauchery and poverty strongly marked in their persons. Nor will these ap pearances, on enquiry, be found to be erroneous : the ut most ignorance and dissolution of manners prevail ; there is none of that laudable feeling of independence, none of that prospective prudence, without which the manufac turing classes must always be sunk in poverty and vice. Such being the striking contrast, it is important to en deavour to ascertain its causes, and these by no means lie deep ; they are sufficiently obvious. Before stating them, however, it may be proper to recal to our readers, that the principal points of contrast regard the health and morals of the manufacturing classes in the two dis tricts : whatever causes will account for their difference in these respects, will also account for their difference in respect to comparative cleanliness, comfort, and pe cuniary means. In the first place, then, the factory sys tem being more prevalent in the cotton than in the wool len district, must be looked to as one of the primary and great causes : it is unnecessary to explain how this must operate in giving rise to disease and vice ; but it may be remarked, that, in all probability, even if the factory sys tem should become as prevalent in the woollen as it is in the cotton district, it will not produce effects equally prejudicial ; and this, from the operation of the second cause of the contrast between the two trades, to which we shall now allude :—In the cotton trade, the number of children employed is very great ; and it is easy to conceive how their health must be affected in a crowded factory, where they are obliged to work long before their strength is adequate to the task, and at a period of life when close and long confinement are extremely preju dicial. As they are sent to these factories before they receive any education, they can attain little while they are there, associate, while in them, with depraved cha racters, and at home meet with no encouragement or example to cleanliness or propriety of conduct ; it is not to be wondered that they should almost universally exhi bit instances of most disgusting filth, of most pitiable want of health, and of vice, which at any age would be shocking, and at their early age is peculiarly so. But there is still another cause to which we must advert, in order satisfactorily to account for and explain the con trast between the woollen and the cotton manufacturers. It has already been remarked, that in the woollen trade, the demand is more regular and steady than it is in the cotton trade ; consequently, in the former, there are not so many, nor so great inequalities in the wages of the manufacturers. Besides, in the woollen trade, when the demand slackens, it is customary to dismiss as few hands as possible, but rather to keep them on at a lower rate of wages : whereas, in the cotton trade, when the de mand diminishes in any considerable degree, multitudes of work people are thrown out of employment. Now, no person who is in the least acquainted with the habits and feelings of the labouring classes in England, need be told, that to them, high wages at one time, and low wa ges at another time, constitutes one of the greatest evils to which they can be exposed. They almost uniformly live up to the maximum rate of their wages; conse quently, when they are not employed, or but partially employed, they have no means, or very inadequate means, of supporting themselves. Nor is this the only evil ; while trade was brisk, they indulged in various things, which, of course, they cannot acquire when trade is bad : of course, in the latter state of things, they re tain all the wants and habits which they acquired in the former state of things, and are no longer able to satisfy them. Thus, with high wages, they are extravagant, debauched, and thoughtless ; and with low wages, they are starving. It must be obvious, that the more frequent ly those fluctuations in trade occur, which produce cor responding fluctuations of wages, the more confirmed and inveterate will all the consequences produced by these fluctuations become; and these consequences of extreme high and low wages, frequently, and often ra pidly, succeeding one another, are the more dreadful, as they fail on a set of people not prepared by education or habits of reflection and prudence to avoid them. In the woollen trade, the case is different; wages are much more regular and steady ; and the people employed in it are better able, from their education and habits, to withstand the temptation of high wages, and conse quently are less exposed to the evil consequences of low wages. Such appear to us to be the chief causes
of the difference so visible and general between the con dition and morals of the labouring classes in the cotton and in the woollen districts : it may be added, that the cotton factories in the former are generally in large towns, and that at least, so far as respects Manchester, the principal seat and centre of the trade, a great num ber of Irish people are employed in it, who certainly, from the peculiarities of their national character, are as little able to withstand the temptations of vice, and of al ternate high and low wages, as any race of people in the world. On the contrary, the factories in the woollen dis trict are generally not in towns, and the people who work in them are generally natives. It is proper, how ever, to remark, that the filth, poverty, unhealthiness and dissipation, which characterize, in such a striking and lamentable manner, the spinning branch of the manufac ture of cotton, do not exist, in nearly an equal degree, in the weaving and other branches ; many of the weavers, on the contrary, are industrious, sober, and intelligent men; and in the neighbourhood of Manchester, particu larly, frequently possess small farms, which they manage along with their weaving business : these farms, it is true, are too often neglected, in consequence of their at tention and time being almost exclusively devoted to their other business.
ALTHOUGH the silk manufacture is of considerable Although the silk manufacture is of considerable antiquity in England, yet it has never flourished to any great extent; and at present is of very inconsiderable importance and value. It appears, that about the mid dle of the 13th century, a very large quantity of silk goods, (at that time a rarity in almost every part of Eu rope), was brought into this country. The novelty and splendour of this article of dress seems to have excited general interest among our nobility ; but It was not till nearly two centuries afterwards, that the silk manufac ture was introduced. Between the years 1455 and 1463, the women in many parts of England were engaged in it ; and in order to encourage their labours, the importa tion of several articles of foreign silk was prohibited : this prohibition was reinforced under severe penalties, about 20 years afterwards ; but it seems not to have been effectual, as foreign silk goods were not only much bet ter, but much cheaper, than any that could be made here. About the beginning of the 17th century, the manufacture of broad silk was introduced; King James having previously in vain attempted to introduce silk worms into this country. In 1629, the silk throwers in London were incorporated ; and this branch of the trade seems to have flourished so well, that about 30 years af terwards their numbers in the metropolis amounted to 40,000. So far back as the year 1558, the Russia com pany had imported raw silk ; probably the produce of China, procured through Russia; but the quantity was very inconsiderable; and the silk trade was much im peded and cramped by the difficulty of procuring it from other places. This obstruction continued till the year 1681, when, in consequence of the importation of raw silk from India, it is stated that the English silk manu facture was quadrupled. Within four years after this, the French refugees came over, and in Spittalfields, and at Canterbury, and other places. From 1686 to 1688, the average annual importation of silk im ported from France, amounted to upwards of 700,0001. The year 1719 forms a remarkable epoch in the history of the silk trade in England ; a patent having been grant ed at this time for the famous machine for throwing silk, erected by Sir Thomas Lombe and his brother, made from a model they had clandestinely obtained from Italy. By means of this machine, it was confidently ex pected that the manufacture of silk would be much ex tended, being no longer dependent on foreign countries for a supply of the prepared material. The silk manu facture was indeed extended, but it appears that the im portation of Italian organized silk was indispensibly ne cessary for the warp in the manufacture. An act of Par liament was therefore passed in the year 1779, to permit the importation of it in the most free • and unrestricted manner; and this act was reinforced in 1783. The silk trade of this country may justly be deemed to have been at its acme about this period, since very shortly after wards cotton, in a great measure, superseded silk for ladies gowns. III 1783, an estimate (to which we have already referred) was published of the annual produce and condition of the principal manufactures in this king dom ; according to which, the silk manufacture was rated at 3,360,0001. : most probably an overcharged es timate. It is curious to observe the estimate which this author puts on the value of the cotton trade at this time— only 960,0001.: How different are the two manufactures -at present ! So rapid and general was the change of fashion, which substituted cotton for silk, that in the year 1793, in the neighbourhood of Spittalfields alone, 4500 looms were shut up : these looms, when in full work, gave employment to 10,000 people, of whom more than a half were women and children. A short time before this, the East India Company, in order to encourage the British manufacture of silk, introduced into Bengal the Italian method of winding it; and they were able to ren der this country in a great measure independent of Italy, Ste. for raw and thrown silk ; besides, it was ascertained, that the throw mills in England, on the whole, threw only about 50,000 pounds of silk in the year, which was not equal to an eighth part of the thrown silk imported. But, unfortunately, the revolution in fashion took place just about the time when the East India Company had matured their plans.