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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
The mode of spinning , when the Egyptian prince A golden distaff gave that beauteous nymph , Too beauteous Helen : no uncourtly gift Then , when each gay diversion of the fair Led to ingenious use . But patient art , That on experience works , from hour to hour , Sagacious , has a spiral engine form'd , Which on an hundred spoles , an hundred threads , With one huge wheel , by lapse of water , twines ; Few hands requiring ; easy-tended work , That copiously supplies the greedy loom . ' The spinning-jenny , thus described by Dyer , produced , by the
labour of one man and a child , but much more expeditiously , the same number of threads which could be spun with the most improved wheel by fifty women ; the machine now used for the same purpose , and which is called the mule , contains 300 spindles , and saves the labour of 300 women who formerly turned the wheel .
Machines upon the same principle are introduced into the cotton , linen , and silk manufactures , but upon a more extended scale : they spin about double the number of threads * A table was submitted to the Committee of the House of Commons ,
stating the number used at Stockport alone . One mule has 548 spindles ; the number of machines in that town are 1661 , and they carry 416 , 053 spindles , making in Stockport alone a saving of labour , which was chiefly done by women , of 414 , 392 hands ! and from this some idea may be formed of the immense saving by the multitude of machines now in use throughout the United Kingdom .
A question here naturally arises ; what becomes of the population which was formerly employed in spinning ? and to what purpose can the produce of such a multiplicity of looms be applied ? The next process of manufacture is weaving ; and though machinery has done much to improve the cloth , to make a more compact and a more even article , it has not done much to save labour . It is stated in evidence , that a man with a boy looks after four power-looms ; consequently , whilst one spinning-mule will save the labour of 500 spinners , the same machine gives labour ( taking into account the accelerated motion ) to as many
weavers as 500 women would have supplied ; and as the exportation of yarn and thread is carried on to a very large extent , it is evident that either the labour of weaving is cheaper in other countries , or that the increase of looms , whether worked by hand or power , has not kept pace with the increase of spindles ; so true it is ,
more is wrou g ht , the more is still required / The ingenuity of Axkwri ^ ht , and the mechanism of Watt , have
Untitled Article
150 On the Factory Sgttem .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 150, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/6/
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