CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY, HISTORY, STATISTICS, COTTON AND COTTON SPINNING, MANUFACTURING.

In the general acceptance of the term, manufacturing is understood to refer to the whole range of processes which convert a raw material into the finished article, but whatever that word may usually signify, in the Cotton Trade it is technical for that department only, which comprises the conversion of cotton yarn into woven fabric, and as such is understood in the ensuing pages.

This department is frequently worked apart from spinning, and the gradual and marked severance of the cotton industry into the two great departments of spinning and manufacturing is a striking feature of this great trade, although the reason of cotton spinning finding so fertile a soil in South Lancashire is no more apparent than the cause of North Lancashire being so favourable to the prosperity of cotton weaving. Probably accidental causes in the early days of the trade had much to do with its future division—the fixing upon a South Lancashire town for the establishment of the first spinning machinist’s works, the fact that the factory system was firmly established in the spinning department before the working of looms in one building was possible, or at any rate advisable, and the existence of large warehouses in North Lancashire for distributing to the hand-loom weavers their materials for use, were probably some of these causes.

The fact of the trade being carried on in two divisions, each in different districts, has its disadvantages, the greatest being that of additional carriage—an extra cost of no inconsiderable amount. To remove this and other disadvantages, many attempts have been made to introduce the lacking department both in the North and South of Lancashire, but such attempts have generally failed to a greater or less extent, mainly in consequence of the incompetence of the hands, or rather the insufficient number of competent ones. Where the majority may excel in weaving, the number of good spinners is generally very small, and vice versÂ. Another objection is the disadvantage at which the one party is placed should the production of one part of the industry exceed that of the other, the margin which might serve to provide remunerative occupation for both being at present often unequally distributed, the over-producer taking the lower position. On the contrary, there is no doubt that the skill of the operative is more greatly developed where one district takes up a specific branch of the sub-divided labour, and conducts it in a more fully equipped style, than would be the case were it to be attempted on a small scale.

The known pre-eminence of Manchester as the market town is attributed in part to the necessity for some common centre where a meeting of the representatives of each of these industries could take place to transact the business of the trade. The Exchange of Cottonopolis is that centre. Here, every day of the week, but more especially on the Tuesday and Friday market days from all parts where the cotton trade is conducted, the spinner goes to meet the manufacturer, the manufacturer to meet the merchant, who in turn represents all countries to which our manufactures are exported; and thus the Exchange has become, as it were, the heart of the trade, for on it depends the prosperity of the whole industry, and a stoppage or diminution of the business there paralyses the trade.

The movement of the cotton trade, like that of civilisation, has ever been westward. India is recognised as having been from time immemorial its home, and although there cotton has probably been in use for ages as clothing, there is no evidence to show that the substance was even known in Europe till the tenth, or that its manufacture was commenced in England till the end of the sixteenth, century. At that time the weavers used yarn made from “cotton wool,” as it was called, but which yarn was furnished by the Levant and only used for weft, linen forming the warp. However, the invention of simple hand-spinning apparatus rendered it possible for the ever-increasing demand for cotton yarn to be adequately supplied for a time by English spinsters, and it is chronicled that, in 1701, 1,900,000lb. of raw cotton were imported, although it is improbable that the whole of it was required for conversion into cloth. At the beginning of the eighteenth century such inventions as that of Kay’s fly shuttle so increased the output of the hand loom as to cause for some years a dearth of yarn. This had a good effect in inducing the great era of invention in cotton-spinning machinery, from 1760 to 1780; during which time Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and many lesser lights brought before the world the results of their labour. These inventions, the importance of which it is not necessary to refer to—their details and the story of their invention having been so frequently dilated upon—these created the cotton manufacture.

The cause which influenced the development of spinning machinery was antithetical to that which now caused an extension of the weaving, which was an excess of the supply of yarn, and for which the only consumers were the loomshops attached to scattered houses on the country side, containing one or two ponderous hand-looms.

It is rather more than a century since the Rev. E. Cartwright, a Kentish minister, first gave his attention to the invention of a power loom, and although his first patent in 1785 was not satisfactory, yet it is to this clergyman’s efforts that the world is indebted for the first power loom. In 1787, he patented such a machine, fitted with spring motion, batten or slay, temples, etc., with the addition of a protector and weft stop motion in an imperfect form. Nine years afterwards Robert Millar, of Glasgow, applied to it the means of picking by plates and shedding by tappets or wipers.

Here all the principles of the modern loom were present, although in very different form, and it is only in details that the loom of a century later presents a different aspect. In 1834 the weft stop motion was patented by Messrs. Ramsbottom and Holt, which was perfected seven years later and patented in its present form by Messrs. J. Bullough and Kenworthy, of Blackburn. To these gentlemen is due the invention of an improved dressing machine called a “tape,” the forerunner of slashing; also the take-up motion for cloth. They, too, patented the loose reed loom and the roller temple; but from records of the time and tales told by the older section of the community in Blackburn to-day, apparently, it is to John Osbaldeston "that the honour is due of breaking the concussion of the loom and inventing an improved temple. He also originated many of those inventive appliances so essential to adapt the power loom for weaving fancy goods, but was not successful in securing any pecuniary advantage to himself, thus illustrating the fact that not every benefactor of his species meets with the reward due to his merits."[1] The creative spirit which carried cotton-spinning machinery to so high a degree of perfection, was directed also to the improvement of the preparatory machinery of the weaving department.

In the hand-loom days each weaver stiffened or dressed his own warp whilst it was in the loom, applying the size with a flat brush. A length of about two yards was sized in this manner, and dried by means of hot irons being passed over the surface of the warp, paper being first laid over the damp twist, or by means of a fan; grease afterwards being applied. In the face of our modern systems this old-fashioned method hardly appears credible. The paste used was a mixture of flour and water, boiled over the fire, and stored in a stone vessel not unlike a swine trough. Probably from this reason the term “sow box,” indicating in our modern “slashers” the size vessel, arose; and etymologists may find some connection between it and the word "sowlin’"—a common expression in Lancashire for a mixture of the nature referred to—of its intended use or application. The necessity for this was removed by the invention of the dressing machine by William Ratcliffe and Thomas Johnston, his assistant, of Stockport, in the year 1803, by which warps were sized before putting them in the loom. This dressing machine consisted of little more than a frame with rollers to carry the warp from two back beams, one at each end, to the centre where the weaver’s beam was fixed, whilst between were arranged brushes traversing to and fro by means of rods actuated from a crank in the so-called crank dressing machine, to apply the “sow” or size. In addition there was a wooden fan to dry the warp, which passed through the healds and reed also.

Dressing was in vogue until 1830 without any competitive system, but soon after this the tape frame, producing five times more work than the dressing machine, was invented, and continued in use until in an improved form—delivering the yarn direct to the weaver’s beam, and with still further capacity for large turnout of work—it under the name of the “slasher” takes the lead among all sizing systems now current, which important position is attributable to a great extent to the speed and to the good quality of the turn off.

To James Bullough, a native of Westhoughton (though from early life a resident of Blackburn), may be credited this last invention, which brought in its train the beam-warping frame, and found increased employment for the winding frame invented early in the century by the senior Robert Railton.

The factory system was deeply rooted in the spinning department before we hear of any attempt at gathering a large number of looms under one roof. Arkwright had a spinning mill as early as 1771, but the first successful weaving shed was built in Glasgow in 1801 by Mr. Monteith, and contained 200 looms; previously, in 1790, Messrs. Grimshaw partially erected one at Knot Mills, near Manchester, which was burnt to the ground by a mob of hand-loom weavers. In 1813, we learn of 2400 power looms being in use in the United Kingdom. Since then the number of factories has rapidly increased, and excepting for the effects of occasional deterrent influences, such as war and famine, the cotton manufacture has steadily prospered and extended. 250,000 hand-loom weavers, and 30,000 power-loom weavers were engaged in all weaving trades of all materials in 1833. Now, in 1887, 250,000 power-loom weavers are engaged in the cotton industry alone; while in most districts a hand loom is a curiosity as a relic of the past. The contrast is great, more especially so when it is remembered that during the same period the trade has been established in many foreign countries where nothing but handicraft skill was available at the early part of the period, but where now the number of mules and looms has grown, and is growing, so rapidly as to create out of former consumers important competitors in the export trade.

The recent history of cotton manufacturing has been marked by little which has caused extensive alterations in its methods.

The extensive and well-organised association of the operatives for the protection of their position in relation to the masters, has become a power, as shown by the great strike of 1878, when the operatives were able to resist the masters for a period of nine weeks, and by the increasing influence of the employÉs in all trade questions. The more important Parliamentary proceedings relating to the cotton trade during the time of its being conducted on the factory system are, of course, the Factory Acts. The first important legislative enactment was the Factory Act of 1833. By this no young person under 18 was allowed to work before 5.30 a.m. or later than 8.30 p.m., nor more than 12 hours per day, although 3 hours extra might be worked per week to make up for lost time. Children had to be 9 years old, and had not to work more than 48 hours per week till 11 years of age, having 2 hours’ schooling per day to be provided by the employer. In 1844, females over 18 were granted the same privileges as young persons, and children were allowed to work 6-1/2 hours per day if only 8 years old. Work had to cease at 4.30 on Saturday. In 1846, the hours of labour were reduced to 11 per day, and 63 per week for children, young persons, and females. Only minor alterations were made till 1874, when the Ten Hours’ Bill was passed, limiting work to 10 hours per day, and 6-1/2 on Saturday. In 1878, all the previous Acts were repealed and a new one made which is still in force, and requires that for young persons and females the hours be limited to 10 per day, and 56-1/2 per week; that no child be employed at all under 10 years of age, or under the Second Educational Standard; and only half-time below 13 unless the Fourth Standard of Elementary Education shall have been passed, failing which the limit is 14 years of age. Males and females under 18 are deemed young persons, and all young persons and females possess certain advantages over the male workers, which rights are protected by Government inspectors. The Bill was a lengthy one, and contains many restrictions as to holidays, painting and cleaning, reports of accidents, fencing machinery, and school attendance, for the benefit of the employÉ.

The Limited Liability Act of 1862 gave great facilities for conducting business by companies of more than seven members, whose liability in case of a collapse does not exceed the amount promised on formation—a scheme inaugurated for the benefit of the working classes, but which has been misapplied in many instances.

The Employers’ Liability Act of 1880 gives facilities for recompense to the workmen for accident or injury sustained by the negligence of the employer or his deputies, such liability being incurred under certain conditions only, and being restricted to the amount of three years’ salary.

The Merchandise Marks Act of 1887 has caused a reaction in the tendency towards short lengths and false description, by making it a penal offence to falsely mark goods either in respect to dimension, quality, counts, or place of manufacture.

In addition to these, the variation of tariff charges, notably the reduction of Indian tariffs, the returns and reports to Parliament of statistical information, the Inquiry Commissions, and some few small enactments, all have their influence in a greater or lesser degree on the industry.

The cotton goods of a standard make at the commencement of this century comprised printer, muslins, corduroys, fustians, sheetings, shirtings, twills, ginghams. In 1830, records give madapollams, tanjibs, domestics, jacconets, gauze leno, figured muslin, splits, and velveteens. Later, in 1846, there are chronicled lawns, books, nainsooks, figured counterpanes; and, in 1864, brilliante, chambrey, blue mottle, satin checks, in addition to previously mentioned goods, from which list the absence of dhooties, Turkey reds, Turkish towels, and cloths of later origin will be noted.

A comparison of the position of the cotton trade to-day with what it was some thirty years ago shows a decided change in one respect—i.e., in the firms conducting the business. Many of the old private firms have disappeared and their places been taken by companies, while, for many years back, the tendency has appeared to be in favour of carrying on the trade by the co-operation of small capitalists. Some of these companies are not limited, being formed by a few speculative operatives who invest the savings of a frugal lifetime in the mill concern, to which they also devote their labour, being satisfied at the year’s end if they have drawn an ordinary wage, week by week, while the capital has been added to, and increased. Manufacturing, in consequence of the comparatively smaller amount of capital required, is generally selected for the above system.

To these establishments many of the wealthy manufacturers of North Lancashire can trace the beginning of their prosperity. By far the greater number of these companies, however, especially in spinning, are on the limited liability principle, and their increasing number shows how valued, as an investment, such companies are; so much so that it appears not unlikely, what with the narrowing margins and increased competition, that the trade will, at no very distant period, cease to be a means of making the wealthy cotton lord, and, as the trade falls into the hands of gigantic companies, become merely a bank, with a small rate of interest, in which the wealth of the smaller Lancashire capitalists will be locked up.

This carries our thoughts to another branch of the subject—the importance of the trade with regard to the capital invested in it, a sum which cannot fall short of seventy-five million pounds even in Great Britain alone, without taking the allied industries of machine-making, dyeing, calico printing, lace and hosiery manufacturing into account. By dipping into calculation, taking the spindles at the figure of 17s. 6d. each, and the looms at £16, the amount invested in plant will touch £45,000,000, and adding to this a floating capital of £30,000,000, fully which will be necessary to the trade in importing the raw material, converting it into fabric and distributing the same to the world, a total sum is obtained which indicates what is at stake in this mighty industry.

Statistics.

A perusal of the subjoined list will indicate in figures the extent of the trade, and from it will be observed the comparative importance of our trade with each country. Taking the value of the exports of piece goods only as the standard of comparison, the list of countries will be found as follows:—

Exports of Cotton Manufactures—Piece goods of all kinds.

In 1886, according to the estimate of Messrs. Ellison, of Liverpool, the number of spinning spindles in various parts of the world was as follows:—

In a recent estimate published by Messrs. Worral & Co., of Oldham, the spindles and looms engaged on cotton in Lancashire and its borders are given as 40,946,709 spindles, and 582,504 looms. This does not include other parts of the kingdom, nor a number of looms just now starting; therefore we may without erring take the number of cotton looms in the kingdom at about 615,000. In India there are 18,536 power looms.

The number of persons employed is:

of which 465,654 are in England and Wales, 37,167 in Scotland, and 1248 in Ireland.

Cotton Districts.

Taking into consideration the various districts of Lancashire, Blackburn is the most northern of those which take an important part in the industry, and this town also takes the lead in Lancashire, if not in the whole world, with regard to its importance as an exclusively cotton manufacturing town. The class of goods made are of a plain character, principally shirting, mulls, and jacconetts, while a large number of looms are engaged on dhooties, grey and coloured, which goods were introduced from Glasgow. A large quantity of dobby dhooties are manufactured in this district—this class of cloth, of comparatively recent origin, having been first made in Blackburn. The local spinning industries are now very important, most of the spindles being run by those who are also manufacturers.

Darwen weaving trade is of a similar character, and there is a fair trade in yarn by several sale-spinning mills.

The neighbouring towns of Preston and Chorley have a connection with goods of a distinctly finer and more “fancy” character, such as leno, velveteen, damasks, embroidery, and brocades, while the plain trade, including the well-known home trade shirting, is important. Here also the spinning trade is comparatively small, the yarns spun being 40/80’s T and 40/90’s W.

Burnley is remarkable for the recent increase of cotton manufacturing within its borough, and has a most extensive trade in Burnley printers and shirtings, with a few heavy twills—ranking second to Blackburn in quantity produced.

Accrington, Harwood and district have a plain trade, but in yarns the goods are of a much finer character than other plain districts. A large business is done in the better classes of printers for the supply of the local print and dyeworks.

The spinning of medium fine yarns, 40/200’s, from Egyptian cotton, seems to be centred in Bolton, as is also the manufacture of heavy fancy goods, especially Alhambra, Marseilles, and other counterpanes and towels, with some finer fancies—leno, damasks, and velvets; although many mills are to be found engaged in Blackburn goods.

Haslingden, Bacup, Rawtenstall, and many smaller districts in East Lancashire are engaged on manufactures of coarse and heavily-sized goods, shirtings, T-cloths, Wigans, and domestics.

Manchester, while being pre-eminently the English market of the manufactured cotton goods, is also known as the locality where the finest yarns known to commerce are spun—i.e., yarns from Egypt, and Sea Island cottons, 80/200’s in twists, and 80/350’s in weft. The finer numbers, however, are not used for the ordinary purposes of manufacturing, their consumption being divided between the lace curtain manufactories of Nottingham and the great sewing thread factories. The weaving trade of Manchester consists of checks, ginghams, Harvard and Oxford shirtings.

Oldham is, it is needless to state, the spinning town. Here the coarsest yarns, 4/24’s, made out of the waste from finer mills, have their spinning centre, and here the spinning of medium yarns from American cotton has made the name of the town familiar wherever English cotton yarn is known.

Rochdale depends mainly on the coarse trade, 12/24 warps (water T) made from Indian cotton, together with some mule spinning up to 30/40’s. The weaving of the heaviest cotton goods from waste, twills, sheets, T-cloths, velveteens, fustian and cords, is here carried on.

Mossley, 30/50’s, warp yarn; Shaw Lees, Royton, Dukinfield, Ashton, Heywood and Hyde, may be placed in the same category as Oldham, minus the waste trade.

Stalybridge spins 30/150’s.

Stockport has good trade in spinning, as high as 150’s gassed and doubled yarns with varied weaving, including the well-known Turkish towels.

Nor must the other parts of the United Kingdom be forgotten. Cotton weaving extends no further into Yorkshire than Todmorden, and about 2,000,000 spinning and doubling spindles are in use about Halifax, Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge and district, these being employed on yarns for dress fabrics made of a mixture of cotton and worsted, as well as for curtains and hosiery in the Nottingham and Leicester districts. In Scotland, the cotton trade is confined to the counties of Lanark, Renfrew and Ayr. The spinning trade is here going down rapidly, there only being about one third the number of spinning spindles running this year (1888), as compared with 1857. The doubling spindles are on the increase, especially for the Paisley thread trade. The weaving department is also increasing, there being in the three counties 28,853 looms as compared with 20,963 in 1856. The superior classes of cloth are made for the home trade—fine reeds, fine muslin, plain and figured, and the manufacture of Turkey reds is also extensive. In Ireland there are three cotton-spinning firms, three cotton-weaving firms, and one both spinning and weaving, with a total of 70,900 spindles, and 2501 power looms.

Summarising the different classes of work into which the industry is divided, we may allot to the coarse plain trade the Rossendale Valley and Rochdale, locating the medium plain trade in Blackburn, Burnley and Darwen, with the finest plain goods in Accrington and Preston, the light fancy trade in Preston, Chorley, and Ashton, and the heavy fancy in Bolton and Bury.

Cotton.

Even in a manual treating of the weaving processes it is not foreign to refer succinctly to the cotton and the treatment it has undergone to fit it for use in a weaving shed. The manufacturer who has had experience in a spinning mill often finds the knowledge acquired there to stand him in good stead in the selection and use of the yarn. Our chief supplies of cotton are drawn from the United States of North America; next in importance, although far removed in quantity from the first-named, is East India, then Egypt, and lastly Brazil. Cotton is a fibrous vegetable substance, being the fruit of the cotton plant, a shrub of the MalvaceÆ, genus Gossypium. There are several varieties of this plant, but the development of the raw material is the same in each. The plant attains its full height about June (this being about two months subsequent to sowing), and the bolls or seed pods are found to be ripening about the middle of July. These bolls, about 1in. diameter, are divided by membranous walls into three parts, containing three or four seeds each, covered with the thin transparent cylindrical fibres attached by one end to the seed.

As the fruit approaches maturity, these fibres lose their cylindrical form, becoming ribbon-shaped through the collapse of their walls, and at the same time each fibre twists on its axis, thus causing a sufficient pressure on the interior of the boll to burst it at the junction of the compartments in the outer casing.

After being left on the trees for some days, during which time the ripening influences are at work, increasing the convolutions and maturing the fibre—or exposed perhaps in the case of unfavourable weather to the damaging influence of rain, which stains the cotton, or intense heat which renders it brittle, or wind which fills the boll with sand or leaf—the cotton is picked. It is then passed through a gin, a machine which has for its object the separation of the fibre from the seed. This latter, which in medium-stapled cotton exists in the proportion of 2lb. seed to 1lb. fibre, is used up at the oil-mills—while the cotton is packed in bales of 4cwt. and forwarded to the sea-coast for export. The foregoing may be taken as a condensed description of the cultivation of cotton on an American plantation. In Brazil and Egypt the season is about a fortnight later; in India planting generally commences in July, or immediately after the dry season.

The raw fibre then is a ribbon-shaped filament with corded edges twisted with 300 to 800 convolutions to the inch; thus, although to the naked eye appearing quite smooth, under the microscope it has somewhat of a resemblance to the shape of a joiner’s auger.

Fig. 1 represents a typical cotton fibre about 400 times the actual size, and Fig. 2 represents its section. Fig. 3 represents an immature or imperfect fibre, one which is more transparent, brittle, and weak than the ordinary fibre, with no tendency to take dye. The convolutions also are few and irregular. Fig. 4 represents its section.

The longest fibre is the Sea Island cotton grown off the coast of the States, averaging 1-5/8 inches in length, and chiefly spun into 150’s to 400’s yarn, although for experimental purposes 2150’s have been produced from it. Egypt gives three varieties—brown, white, and Gallini. The first-named is commonest and is used for 50’s to 150’s wefts and twists.

The American States yield a comparatively clean and even-running cotton, the best variety being Orleans, of a mean length of 1-1/16 inches, used for 30/40’s T and 30/60’s wefts. Texas, though shorter, is from its strength used for warp yarn, while the numerous varieties classed as uplands or boweds are suitable for weft on account of their usual good colour and cleanliness. The difference between the white 60’s and 70’s wefts and brown ditto is that the latter is from brown Egyptian cotton.

Brazilian is a very harsh fibre about average length, and used for twists either alone or mixed with American.

The East Indian varieties are extremely variable in length, and also in relation to the quantity of weak fibres; the properties common to almost the whole being brown colour, and dirty and rough character of the cotton. It is chiefly used in Rossendale, Bury and Oldham for coarse counts.

In the medium trade the fibre is subjected to no fewer than nine processes (each different, and sometimes duplicated or triplicated) before it arrives at the form of even thread known as yarn. In the fine trade two or three additional processes are added.

The spinning department, to describe it briefly, consists of:—

1. Mixing the cotton in stacks to secure thorough blending of various qualities, and elimination of the unevenness present in different bales or parts of one bale. Then commence processes for cleansing, viz.:—

2. Opening or passing the matted pieces of the bales through a series of armed beaters having the functions of both separating the material into small flakes and removing the heavier impurities contained in it, such as sand and seeds.

3. Scutching.—In this process a wing beater, revolving at a speed of 11/1500 revolutions per minute, removes the remainder of the heavy dirt, delivering the material in the form of a lap or roll of cotton. This process is repeated.

4. Carding.—Here, by means of revolving cylinders covered with fine wire teeth, and combing the cotton against other cylinders or plates similarly covered, the light impurities—leaf, dust, short and weak fibres—are extracted, and the lap attenuated into a thin sliver, in which the fibres are laid in such a position as to be easily drawn parallel at the drawing process. These four kinds of cleaning machinery remove impurities and other matter foreign to the nature of cotton, to the extent of about 10 per cent., taking middling American cotton.

5. Combing.—The long fibres are here separated from the short, thus enabling a portion of the cotton to be used for spinning finer yarns than the bulk would spin. It is only in the mills spinning yarns above, say 80’s, that this process is found; in ordinary, the custom is to go direct from carding to

6. Drawing.—A simple process repeated for yarn up to 30’s, used three times up to 60’s, and four processes are used above this. The machine has for its object the levelling of the slivers, six of which are placed together and drawn six times the original length. When this has been repeated once or twice, the sliver becomes very even and silky in consequence of all the fibres having had the curl taken out and been laid parallel to each other.

7. Slubbing; 8. Intermediate; and 9. Roving.—These frames are all constructed on one principle, and have for their object the gradual diminution of the thickness of the sliver, which at these processes is attenuated so much as to require twisting to keep it from breaking at the succeeding process. An additional jack roving frame is used at mills making over 100’s yarn.

10. Spinning completes the object of all the former machines—i.e., to produce a level clean thread, free from unevenness in every respect.

Four sorts of machines are used for completing the attenuation—the self-actor mule, ring frame, hand mule, and throstle frame. The two latter are fast disappearing in consequence of the great improvements over the hand mule recently made in the self-actor mule, so as to spin fine counts up to 300’s, and in the increased output of the ring over the throstle frame. The mule is automatic in all its movements for spinning the yarn and winding it on the spindle in the form of a cop—i.e., a cylindrical coil of yarn, cone-shaped at each end. In this machine the spinning is intermittent—i.e., for a few seconds the different portions of the machines are engaged in drawing out the roving to the required fineness until about 64 inches have been spun, the slack being taken up by a moving carriage bearing the spindles, then a few seconds are employed in drawing back the carriage and winding the yarn on the spindles. The ring frame is a constant spinner, and as fast as the yarn is spun it is wound on a bobbin, while the necessary twist is put in by a traveller shaped [C] revolving round a ring. It will thus be seen that the ring frame is only suited for warp yarns, mainly in consequence of having to use a bobbin, which of course requires modifications in the shuttle and box of the loom, and even then is disadvantageous. The ring frame is suitable and preferable for warp yarn up to 40’s, where the spinner also reels, warps or weaves his own spinning. The mule spins both weft and twist. Throstle twist (or, as it is called when reeled or warped by the spinner, water twist) is generally admitted to be the evenest and roundest thread, ring twist being next best, and mule yarn inferior to both. Mule yarn, however, possesses an elasticity which neither of these can boast of.

From a consideration of spinning we arrive at a definition of the manufacturing processes.

Unlike the spinning which is carried on in a building five or six storeys high, the manufacture of cotton goods takes place in a “shed,” as much of the work as is possible being carried on on the ground floor. The weft yarn, or that which is laid transversely in the cloth, leaves the mule in the condition in which it is required at the loom, but the twist or warp yarn passes through several “preparatory” processes to fit it for the operation in the weaving:—

1. Winding—to take the yarn from the cop and place it on the warper’s bobbin.

2. Warping or beaming to wind the yarn from 400 or 500 bobbins to one large beam.

3. Sizing—i.e., covering the warp with an adhesive preparation to fit it for standing the strains in weaving.

4. Attaching the healds and reeds to the warp, called looming or drawing-in.

5. Weaving.

Each of these will be described more fully in succeeding chapters, and as in different districts different methods are employed, more especially in the sizing and beaming systems, the one chosen for most minute description will be the one used most commonly, although the other systems will be referred to.

The weaving mill—or, as it is termed, shed—requires description next. The general details of such a building will be more easily understood by referring to the annexed plan.

The most important point to remember in the arrangement of the rooms for the different processes, is to place each so as to require as little transit of material as possible. The engine, a condensing one of 110 indicated H.P., horizontal, is driven by the steam generated in a 30ft. by 7ft. two-flued steel boiler working at 120lb. pressure.

In the flue is fixed a set of economisers heated by the hot air and gases generated in the furnace, and through the pipes of which passes the feed water.

In the winding room are two 200 spindle machines (100 each side), keeping 12 winders employed. There are 3 beaming frames, 504 ends each. In the sizing department are found the usual becks and cisterns for mixing purposes, and one slasher sizing machine. It will be noted that the weaving shop has direct communication with the looming room where the beams are stored, and with the warehouse whence the weavers obtain the yarn, at the same time returning the manufactured material. There is also an outlet into the mill yard without passing through any other department.

In case of a new shed having to be built, many important questions present themselves for consideration. In fixing upon the site, the essentials for a suitable position are a foundation sufficiently damp and of such a nature as not to easily part with moisture, even in hot weather, so as to preserve that humid atmosphere so essential to good weaving, more especially where heavy sizing is resorted to; yet there must be no yielding, for it is of vital importance that vibration be reduced to a minimum, both in weaving, winding and warping, to avoid breakages of yarn.

As many readers will be aware, it is partially in consequence of this disadvantage being removed in mills entirely on the ground floor, and partially in consequence of the increased dampness thereby obtained, that such mills can obtain good results out of inferior yarns. A position in the neighbourhood of good workpeople is most important; such an advantage more than compensates for the increased rents, rates and other dues of a town as compared with a country district, for with inferior employÉs, inferior work, and therefore less advantageous prices and fewer orders, are a consequence, while the cost of production is increased. Good coal and water supplies are of importance, and are best obtainable in the vicinity of a canal, and if the district under consideration be a hilly one, it will be worth while considering how to be sheltered from that bÊte noir of a weaver, the east wind.

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