dyed, glazed, packed, and sent off to Manchester by twelve o'clock; they reached Liverpool at three, were put on board, and the vessel sailed at five, just twentyfour hours after the order was given!" In a third instance, a Preston manufacturer purchased some raw cotton, which was despatched from Liverpool at three o'clock on a Friday morning. It was delivered at the Preston factory at eight minutes past nine o'clock; and before eleven o'clock part of it had passed through the several operations of mixing, scutching, carding, drawing, slubbing, roving, and spinning. At half-past eleven o'clock a portion of it was made into cloth by the power-loom; and at half-past four a portion of good shirting cloth was despatched by railway to Liverpool, where it reached by seven in the evening. Thus the same specimen of cotton went through all the stages of manufacture, from the raw fibre to the woven cloth, and travelled about eighty miles, all between three in the morning and seven in the evening! The Preston weaver wore a garment made of this cloth on the same evening. The line in the Oldham-road, separated from the other station by a mass of factories and houses. But the impossibility of thus maintaining a connection between Lancashire and Yorkshire by railway, and the desirability of transmitting cotton to Oldham and Rochdale without unpacking at Manchester, led to the project of connecting the two lines by a junction branch, and erecting a joint station for both companies midway between the former termini. This is the history of the fine 'Victoria Station,' in the north-west part of Manchester, on the banks of the Irwell: a station which is scarcely paralleled in the kingdom for its traffic, especially in goods. But why should Oldham and Rochdale alone be thus placed in connection with Liverpool, by such a junction at Manchester? The manufacturers of Bolton and Bury, of Chorley and Preston, asked this question; and an answer has been given by connecting the Manchester, Bolton, and Bury railway with the other two; though this connexion is not, perhaps, of so much importance, as Bolton has an outlet to Liverpool by another and an independent route. This principle of junction is being further carried out in other quarters. MANCHESTER THE CENTRE OF A SYSTEM. For instance, until recently, Ashton, Stalybridge, DuBut we are somewhat anticipating our subject. kinfield, and Hyde, were cut off from railway commureader is to suppose that bags of cotton wool are trans- nication with Liverpool; because the Manchester and ferred to Manchester by the railway from Liverpool; Sheffield line, which was best fitted to accommodate and he is then to follow the manufacturing history of them, was severed both from the Manchester and Leeds, this cotton. It is not that all the cotton which comes and from the Manchester and Liverpool; but by the to Manchester is woven up into cloth in that town; recent construction of a branch from Ashton into the but it is by keeping this busy centre constantly in the Leeds line, that town and its neighbours have a direct mind, that we can best appreciate the philosophy of artery to Liverpool, by way of the Victoria station. the whole system. Every year (with some few ex- Another example of the same kind is being furnished ceptions) adds to the number of cotton factories. Even by the Manchester and Birmingham line; which, nine years ago (and they have largely increased since though passing through Stockport, Cheadle, Macclesthen) there were two thousand such factories in Lan- field, and other important towns, has no direct comcashire, besides those in Cheshire and Yorkshire. Of munication with Liverpool; but a "South Junction," these two thousand, rather less than two hundred were is now being formed, intersecting the southern and contained within the town and parish of Manchester; densely-populated part of Manchester from the London the other eighteen hundred being distributed in and station on the one side to the Liverpool station on the around the towns of Bury, Wigan, Ashton, Bolton, other. Lastly, by the construction of the Birkenhead, Preston, Chorley, Blackburn, Oldham, Rochdale, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction Railway, now in Warrington, Prescott, Ormskirk, Lancaster, Eccles, progress, Manchester itself will obtain access to Birkand others of less note. The parish of Oldham alone enhead, without any reference to Liverpool. rather exceeded that of Manchester in the number of cotton factories; but the hands employed in those factories were only half as many. It is in transmitting the raw cotton from Manchester to these towns that the net-work of railways first strikes forcibly upon our attention. What may be the state of things when the Birkenhead and Lancashire, the Liverpool and Preston, the Liverpool and Bury, and other new railways are finished and brought into operation, time must show; but at present Manchester may be considered as the great centre from which cotton is distributed to all its neighbours; and the railways aid materially in this distribution. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway had its terminus originally in the western part of Manchester; while the Manchester and Leeds Company terminated their By the independent way in which four railway companies originally set to work, Manchester has a greater number of railway-stations, or termini, than any town in the kingdom, the metropolis alone excepted. The four lines to Liverpool, to Bolton, to Leeds, and to Birmingham, all had different spots selected for their termini. The Sheffield line makes use of the terminus belonging to the Manchester and Birmingham Company; the Bury and Rosendale line uses the Bolton terminus; and it seems probable that when the several junctions are completed, the effective and practicallyused stations will be fewer than they are now. Lest the reader should say that we promised to talk of cotton, but are really engaged with railways, we may here remind him that cotton and railways are the two main elements of Manchester greatness at the pre sent day, and must be viewed in their mutual bearings. | ment; and if these differences be borne in mind, the If cotton gave birth to railways, railways help to give relation in which the valley-factories stand to the townvigour and life-blood to cotton-the steam-engine is factories will be better understood. the handmaid to both. Wonderful, indeed, are these cotton towns! If we draw a circle of-say fifteen miles' radius round the centre of Manchester-we find within this circle a greater number of inhabitants than is contained within a circle of equal size having the heart of London as its centre. Vast as is our metropolis, yet when we do get into the open country (no easy matter now-a-days), no considerable town is met with for many miles; but in South Lancashire and North Cheshire, towns of twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants are thickly strewed within the circle whose limits we have named; and every one of these towns contains the factories in which the raw material, cotton, is wrought up into usable form. It is necessary here to point out a distinction between different varieties of factories, as connected with the cotton system. First, then, a 'cotton factory,' without any further distinction, is generally considered to mean a factory where cotton is spun into yarn, ready for the processes of the weaver. This yarn is not wrought into the thick and dense form necessary for sewing-thread, but is spun to that state which forms the warp and weft threads of the usual woven goods. Then another division is formed by the circumstance, that some factories are devoted wholly to the production of fine yarn, or high numbers' (denoting the number of yards to a pound, which is of course greater as the yarn is thinner), while others prepare only the twist' or stronger yarn. Many of the Manchester factories are 'twist factories' only. Establishments where yarn is further spun into the form of thread, are distinct from both of the other kinds. The yarn, brought to a proper state, is handed over to the weaver, whose business it is to interlace it into the endless varieties of cotton goods. If the poor hand-loom weaver, who is maintaining a battle, at fearful odds, against the steam-engine, is to do the work, then the yarn is transferred to the humble dwelling which serves to him the purpose both of workshop and of home; but if steam be called in to perform the work, then the order, the system, and the comprehensive arrangements of a large factory are necessary. Hence the weaving factories' with which the Manchester district is supplied, and in some of which as many as twelve or fourteen hundred power-looms are assembled. Even here the arrangements meet with further modification; for those manufacturers who make fustians, cotton velvets, or fancy goods, do not generally devote any part of their attention to plain calicoes and muslins. Lastly, all the subsidiary processes of bleaching, dyeing, and printing, are effected in buildings wholly distinct from those yet alluded to; sometimes all three combined, but very frequently conducted separately. It will hence be seen, that a Manchester Cotton Factory' is by no means a uniformly similar establish THE SPINNING FACTORIES. When a bag of the cotton wool is transferred to a spinning factory, the routine to which it is subjected is pretty much the same in all establishments. Let the rambler look around him in Manchester, in the belt of streets surrounding the centre of the town: there he will see the huge brick factories, pierced with windows in long ranges, tier after tier, and presenting as little that is elegant or picturesque as can well be conceived, Whether the attempt will ever be made to give architectural character to these monster buildings, remains to be seen; but certain it is, that a person of taste has little to gratify him in such localities. In whichever of the surrounding towns we look-Stockport, Ashton, Oldham, Bolton, &c.—the dark masses of brickwork present nearly the same features. (Cuts, No. 2 and 3.) One of the most celebrated cotton factories in the north is Orrell's, at Stockport; celebrated alike for its vast extent, and for the degree in which all modern improvements are brought to bear on its internal arrangements. There is scarcely anything of the kind more striking than the appearance of Stockport. The town stands at the junction of the rivers Tame and Mersey; the principal part of it being built on a steep and irregular hill, rising in some parts precipitously from the north bank of the Mersey. Across one of the valleys which bound Stockport, is one of the finest viaducts that engineering skill has ever produced. It crosses the Mersey at an elevation of no less than a hundred and eleven feet, measuring to the top of the parapet; or upwards of a hundred and twenty feet above the foundation of the viaduct. The work consists of twenty-six arches; the span of some of them being sixty-three feet. Eleven millions of bricks, and four hundred thousand cubic feet of stone, are said to have been employed in its construction! Probably in no other town in England is such an air of vastness imparted by a viaduct. (Cut, No. 1.) About four years ago, a description of Orrell's factory at Stockport, derived from personal observation, was published in the Penny Magazine;' and an extract from that description will be useful, in giving a general view of Manchester cotton factories; for all of them present nearly the same features, though not often in the same degree of completeness, as this one at Stockport. "When we come within sight of the factory, its arrangement cannot appear otherwise than striking to a stranger; for the lofty chimney is separated from the factory itself by a public road, and stands isolated on a kind of rocky mount. Being a well-formed structure, this chimney (which, but for the smoke, looks more like an honorary column than anything else) presents a fine appearance. The furnaces that supply heat to the boilers for four large steam-engines, are situated in a building at one end of the factory; and the smoke from these furnaces passes through a flue under the public road, into the chimney, which thus conveys it up into the atmosphere at a distance from the factory. When we come in front of the factory itself, we find it speckled over with windows to an enormous amount. The building extends, from end to end, nearly three hundred feet, having a centre and two projecting wings. There are six ranges of windows in height, each range giving light to one floor or story of workshops. There are nearly a hundred windows in each of these ranges on the four sides of the building; so that the whole amount to not much fewer than six hundred. The perfect regularity with which the windows of modern factories are arranged, constitutes one of their most conspicuous features. The ground-floor is two hundred feet in depth, from front to back; but the upper floors are much less than this. "Withinside the building, the extraordinary scene and deafening noise presented by the operations conducted on the ground-floor, are well calculated to bewilder a stranger; but of these, more anon: we will at present confine our attention to the upper floors. There are staircases conveniently situated for gaining access to the various floors; but, besides this, there is a very ingenious arrangement for mounting to any floor without the least exertion on the part of the person ascending. There is a kind of square well, open from top to bottom of the factory, and measuring a few feet square. We place ourselves on a platform within this space, and, by pulling a rope, place the platform in connexion with certain moving machinery, by which it is carried up, supporting its load, animate or inanimate, safely. When we desire it to stop, on the level of any one of the floors, we have only to let go the rope, and the platform will stop. When we wish to descend, we pull another rope, which enables the machinery to give a reverse movement to the platform. "When, having ascended either by this piece of mechanism or by the staircase, we reach any of the upper floors, we find them to consist of very long rooms, lighted on all sides by windows, and filled with machinery so complicated and extensive, that we may well wonder how all can receive their movement from steam-engines in a remote part of the building. Yet such is the case. There are two engines for the spinning machinery, of eighty horse-power each, and two for the weaving machines (this being both a spinning and a weaving factory), of forty horse-power each. These splendid engines are supplied from six boilers; the fires for which consume more than twenty tons of coal per day; and the main-shaft from each engine is so connected with other shafts, both vertical and horizontal, as to convey motive-power to every floor, and to every machine in every floor." If the reader will endeavour to picture such a building as this, and to remember that it presents on a large scale the same features as most of the Manchester factories present on a somewhat smaller scale, he will be able to carry with him a tolerably clear notion of the vast arrangements involved in the preparation of the delicate fibres of the cotton plant. Wonderful, indeed, are the steps whereby the cotton is wrought into the required form! When, in walking through the streets of Manchester, we see the large bags of cotton being conveyed to the various factories on low wagons or trucks, we have often the means of observing that the locks of wool are entangled and matted together in apparently inextricable confusion. Yet do the iron fingers of the spinning machinerymore delicate in their manipulations than even Hindoo fingers-unravel this mazy knot, and present every single fibre distinct and parallel. It is this attainment of separation and parallelism in the fibres, that forms the triumph of the cotton manufacture. First, when a bag of raw cotton is brought to such a factory as has just been described, it is (usually) hauled up to the upper floor of the building, and the bags emptied. Here the mass of fibres, clotted and tangled together, requires at the outset to be rent asunder into smaller masses: to effect which, it is placed within a 'willow,' or hollow box, in which it is tossed about in such a way as to come in contact with iron spikes or teeth, whereby it is torn fibre from fibre into a loose mass. The workmen, with an expressiveness that often marks technical phraseology, give the name of "devil" to this tearing, boisterous, racketty machine, which seems to know no obstacles. While the matted fibres are becoming loosened, the dust and dirt mixed up with them are allowed to fall through an open wire screen, so as to become separated from the cotton. Thus, then, the first stage presents us with the disentangled cotton, partially cleansed from dirt; and a further cleansing forms the object of the next process, that of scutching' or 'blowing.' Here the cotton is spread out on a flat surface, and beaten with flat bars, whereby the remaining dust is expelled from it; and this dust, by an admirably-planned blowing machine,' is blown completely out of the building, without coming in contact either with people or with machinery. Then come those beautiful and complicated processes, whose object is to lay the fibres parallel, or to arrange them in an endless ribbon or card. In nothing did Arkwright more advance the manufacture, than in his inventions relating to these processes. In nothing has the dexterity of the machine-maker come more aptly in aid of the inventions of the practised spinner: the head to plan, and the hand to execute, are, indeed, here seen in worthy co-operation. Let us picture to ourselves the loosened mass of cleansed fibres, crossing and re-crossing each other at every imaginable angle. Let us imagine it placed, by children, in a tolerably even layer on an endless apron, or belt of cloth; along which apron it travels till caught by a series of teeth inserted in the surfaces of two cylinders in the carding-machine:' one set of teeth pull the cotton in one direction; one in another: each one snatching little bits out of the mass, and combing them out straight; 6 operation of these complex productions which, commencing with the scutching-machine and ending with the spinning-machine, constitute the chief working members in a cotton factory. until at length the whole of the cotton becomes spread | spun thread or yarn-he will have some notion of the out into a soft, delicate, flattish ribbon, called a 'sliver the fibres being ranged pretty nearly parallel. It is impossible to view this process without being struck with the completeness of the arrangements involved in it. We look back to the day when the cottage matron employed her hand-cards to effect this process; and we can hardly fail to admire the ingenuity which could bring the garniture of wire teeth to work on the cylinders so uniformly. Even the making of these carding implements is one of the finest things in Manchester. The card-making machine of Mr. Dyer is truly an astonishing piece of mechanism: it arranges the slips of leather in which the wire teeth are inserted, pierces the holes with sharp needles, draws back the needles, unwinds the wire from a coil, cuts off a small piece, bends it into a staple shape, inserts the two ends in two holes, bends the wire to a determined degree of obliquity, and fixes it firmly in a hole. All this is done without the leather or the wire being touched by a workman: the same machine is cutting and fixing many teeth at once, and can complete three or four hundred in a minute; while a hundred of these machines are to be seen at work at one time, all set in motion by one small steam-engine; so that in one room there may be forty thousand card-teeth completed every minute! How strikingly does this illustrate the largeness of the manufacture involved in the minor details of the cotton system. These beautifully-formed cards, we have said, arrange the fibres of cotton into narrow bands or slivers. The slivers are brought into the state of 'drawings' by a machine in which several pairs of rollers in succession grasp the sliver between them, and elongate it the cotton is doubled and then drawn, doubled and then drawn, over and over again, until the fibres are ranged yet more parallel, and yet more equable in distribution, than before. Farther and farther is this delicate process carried in the 'roving-machine,' where the cotton-which from being a 'lap' on the 'scutching-machine,' becomes a 'sliver' on the cardingmachine,' and then a 'drawing' on the drawingmachine'-now becomes a 'roving' on the 'rovingmachine.' A roving is a kind of very soft and tender thread or cord, cylindrical in form, but twisted so slightly as only just to hold together. Lastly comes the exquisite 'spinning-machine:' that production on which Hargreaves and Arkwright and Crompton expended so much time and thought. How, by means of a combined process of stretching and twisting, the rovings are brought into the state of spun yarn; and how by the different action of the mechanism the throstle' of Arkwright is fitted to produce a different kind of yarn from the 'mule' of Crompton, are points which a close inspection of the machines themselves is necessary to make clear; but if the reader can represent to himself the fibres of cotton assuming successively the arrangement of a flat sheet, a broad thick ribbon, a narrow and more slender ribbon, a loose and slightly twisted cord, and a finely Commerce and industry love to express themselves in the shortest possible phraseology. Mule spinning' and 'throstle spinning' suffice to denote the kind of cotton factories where the yarn is made: according as the fine yarns are made by the mule-machine, or the stronger yarns by the throstle-machine. Some of the Manchester factories belong to one class: some to the other; while some again conduct both kinds of spinning under the same roof. Many of the manufacturers pride themselves on the fineness of the yarn produced by them: and well may they do so. The fineness of yarn is denoted by the number of hanks to a pound, each hank containing 840 yards. Before Crompton invented the 'mule'-machine, no yarn finer than No. 40 could be spun; but he astonished the spinners by producing yarn as fine as No. 80. In our own day, Mr. Houldsworth of Manchester has succeeded in producing so exquisite a degree of fineness as No. 460: that is, 460 times 840, or 386,400 yards, or 220 miles, of yarn from one single pound of cotton! Let us pause for a moment, to contemplate the astounding magnitude of this manufacture. Here we have, in Manchester and in almost all the towns within twelve or fifteen miles distance from it, huge factories in which nothing but the spinning of cotton yarn is carried on. Five or six hundred millions of pounds of cotton are yearly wrought up into such yarn; and this cotton may be wrought to the fineness of 200 miles per pound. Why, in six or seven hours we might spin enough to thread the Earth to the Sun with this delicate fibre; and in less than a fortnight we might make a fairy rope-ladder to Le Verrier's new planet! It is true that the average degree of fineness attained in spinning is far below the maximum above given; but the actual product is truly enormous. Over and above the vast quantity woven up into goods in England, the cotton yarn exported to foreign markets greatly exceeds a hundred millions of pounds weight annually, valued from seven to eight million sterling! And this, a mere tiny thread, to be used in the loom and the shuttle of the weaver! Of the whole quantity of raw cotton imported annually, the portion which is not spun into yarn is so small as to need no notice here. THE WEAVING FACTORIES. In Manchester, then, and in the Lancashire district generally, a large number of factories are devoted to the spinning of yarn. This yarn is made up into hanks, and the hanks into bales; and the bales are consigned either to English weavers, or are exported to be woven abroad. It appears, from the immense quantity of yarn exported, that foreigners are better able to equal us in weaving than in spinning. Should 2.-MANCHESTER, FROM THE ENTRANCE TO THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY. we follow the home-woven yarn to the cottage of the hand-loom weaver, we shall see more to pain than to interest us; for the weaver has now a sadly up-hill task of it. The steam-power loom strikes off such a quantity of woven cotton in a given time, that the price for weaving is regulated by the cost of this machine-process; and the hand-loom weaver must follow in the wake. With toilsome patience, he plies the shuttle from morn till night. In walking among the quieter villages near Manchester, the 'clack-clack' of the hand-loom may be heard in many a cottage. But the weaving factories work up more and more of the cotton yarn; and they are really astonishing places. In and near Ashton and Stalybridge, weaving factories are congregated to a very large extent. Some of the giant establishments contain both the spinning and the weaving machinery on an equally extensive scale. At Orrell's mill for example, at Stockport, the weaving strikes upon the mind of a stranger even more than the arrangements connected with spinning. The following, taken from the source before quoted, will convey some idea of this department of the Stockport mill, and will serve to illustrate the subject generally. dred machines, each consisting of a great number of distinct moving parts, and each producing, what would in an ordinary-sized shop be considered a pretty vigorous din, is so stunning and confounding, that a stranger finds it almost utterly impossible to hear a person speak to him, even close at his elbow, or even to hear himself speak; he walks along the avenues which separate the rows of looms, and arrives one after another at looms all exactly alike: he sees these clattering, hard-working machines on all sides of him, with the heads of the six hundred and fifty females just visible above them; and he may not unreasonably marvel that the persons exposed to this incessant uproar for ten or twelve hours a day can appear indifferent to it. Yet such is the case: habit smooths away the inconvenience, and the workpeople seem to think light of it. "In these power-looms steam power may be said to do every thing. It unwinds the warp from the warpbeam; it lifts and depresses the treddles, by which the warp-threads are placed in the proper position for receiving the weft-threads; it throws the shuttle from side to side, carrying the weft-thread with it; it moves the batten, or lay, by which the weft-thread is driven "Thirteen hundred looms, each one a distinct and up close; and finally, it winds the woven cloth on the complete piece of mechanism, are here arranged in cloth-beam which is to receive it. The female who parallel rows, over a space of ground measuring has to manage a pair of looms has merely to attend to probably two hundred and fifty feet by one hundred a few minor adjustments, which altogether about and fifty having passages between the rows. Each occupy her time: such as mending any of the threads loom is between three and four feet high, and perhaps which may have been broken, removing an empty five or six wide; and they are all so placed that one shuttle and replacing it with a full one, removing an female can attend to two looms. Every loom receives empty warp-beam, or a filled cloth-beam, and replacing its moving power from mechanism near the ceiling, them with others fitted for continuing the process," where shafts and wheels present almost as complex an assemblage as the looms beneath them. These shafts are connected with the main-shafts of the two smaller steam-engines, so as to receive their moving power from thence. . . . . . Six hundred and fifty females are here engaged in attending these looms, two to each, and these comprise almost the only occupants of the weaving-rooms. The noise created by thirteen hun Manchester contains a large number of factories in which yarn is woven into some one of the many varieties of pile or napped products, such as 'cotton velvet,'' velveteen,' 'fustian' or 'moleskin'; and here there are other arrangements besides the mere weaving machinery; for the mode of cutting the pile, or making a smooth-napped surface, requires the aid of very delicate and ingeniously-constructed instruments. In |