production, became objects of ordinary supply and demand; and objects of great artistic beauty, the designs of which were supplied by the best artists, were placed within reach of persons of moderate means. The quality of the articles manufactured at his works became so proverbial, that one day when Pickford's carrier rudely delivered a package from his cart at the hall-door of an exhibition of ceramic manufactures, and the officer in waiting expostulated with the man on his incautious handling of the package, his ready answer was, "Oh, never fear, Sir; it's Minton's; it won't break." 10. 'It is not a little remarkable that Mr. Minton, by his unaided energy and enterprise, and at his own risk, was enabled successfully to compete with the Sèvres manufactures of France, which are produced by the cooperation of a large number of talented men, and the assistance of almost unlimited state funds. In many of the articles exhibited at Paris in 1855, Mr. Minton's even excelled those of similar character produced at the imperial manufactory. In hard porcelain, also, he outvied the best specimens of Meissen and Berlin ware; in Parian, he was only approached by Copeland; whilst in the manufacture of encaustic tiles he stood without a rival. In perfecting these several branches, Mr. Minton had many difficulties to encounter and failures to surmount, but with true English energy and determination to succeed, he surmounted them all, and at length left even the best of the ancient tiles far behind. Like Wedgwood, he elevated the public taste, introduced beautiful objects of art into the homes of the people, and by founding new branches of industry, mainly by his energy and ability, he nobly earned the claim to be regarded as a great national benefactor. 11. Men such as these are fairly entitled to rank among the heroes of England. Their patient self-reliance amidst trials and difficulties, their courage and perseverance in the pursuit of worthy aims and purposes, are no less heroic of their kind than the bravery and devotion of the soldier and the sailor, whose duty and whose pride it is heroically to defend what these valiant leaders of industry have as roically achieved.' THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 1. England had been for four or five centuries a manufacturing country before cottons were included among the staples of its national industry. The manufacture of cotton goods was introduced into Italy about the close of the 15th century, but did not extend its fructifying influence to England for nearly two hundred years later. It took firm root at once, and as early as 1641 our Manchester cottons were sent into foreign parts, and there exchanged for the raw material. 2. It did not make its way, however, without considerable opposition. The wool-combers were wroth that their monopoly should be invaded, and the cry, so dangerous in England, of 'vested rights,' rang loudly through the land. To bring cotton into disrepute, the weavers caused the malefactors hung at the gallows to be attired for their death-garb in the obnoxious fabric, and one of these unhappy wretches, who, in the course of his illspent life had been a weaver, took occasion to address the crowd assembled round his scaffold thus :-' Consider, good Christians,' said this model protectionist, 'consider that if you go on to suppress your own goods by wearing such cottons as I am now clothed in, you will bring your country into misery, which will consequently swarm with such unhappy malefactors as your present object is, and the blood of every miserable felon that will hang after this warning from the gallows, will lie at your doors!' In the face of an hostility so ignorant, the cotton manufacture in England, nevertheless, continued to prosper, the produce being mostly consumed at home. The weft of cotton, however, was only used in English cottons, the warp being made of linen, because it was supposed to be impossible to spin a cotton-twist sufficiently durable for the latter purpose. The chief seat of the manufacture was Lancashire, where had settled some Flemish emigrants, driven from their own busy country by political persecution; but it also flourished in Essex, and from Essex came the first great impetus of its prosperity. 58 INVENTION OF THE POWER LOOM. 3. Up to so late a date as 1733, the only process known to the English weavers was that of spinning between the finger and thumb, one thread at a time; and weaving up the yarn in a loom, whose shuttle was flung from right to left, and left to right, by both hands alternately. It occurred to one John Kay, a loom-maker, of Colchester, that this method was susceptible of being simplified, and after much laborious thought, and several years of fruitless experiment, he invented the 'fly-shuttle,' which, by means of a handle and spring, could be easily worked with one hand. Alas, for the folly of inventors! Kay was immediately beset by a host of enemies. The workmen inveighed against his machine because they thought it would curtail their profits; the masters employed every imaginable artifice to copy it without paying Kay his legitimate reward. He attempted to establish his rights, and appealed to the courts of law, but speedily found that litigation was a luxury reserved for the rich. Anxious to retrieve himself, he enlarged his ideas of mechanism, and constructed a power-loom of rude design. When tidings of this new invention got abroad, the mob surrounded Kay's house, forced an entrance, destroyed the machine, and all else upon which they could lay their hands. It was with difficulty that Kay himself escaped from their fury, and contrived to make his way to Paris, where he died in extreme poverty a few months later. 4. Kay's invention, by degrees, was everywhere adopted, and it so far facilitated the process of weaving, that the loom soon got ahead of the spinning-wheel. The weavers complained that their time was wasted in searching for materials with which to work. The supply of yarn was utterly insufficient for the daily operations of the loom. So invention now was busy with improvements in the spinning wheel, and amongst other active speculators, James Hargreaves, of Standhill, near Blackburn, hit upon a most ingenious device. It is said that he was sitting in his cottage one day, idle for want of yarn, and meditating on the best method for supplying the deficiencies of the hand-wheel, when his wife overturned the rude and THE SPINNING JENNY. 59 rough apparatus at which she was working. Lying on its side, the wheel still continued its rotatory motion, the spindle from a horizontal being cast into a perpendicular position. Hargreaves at once conceived that the problem would be solved if he could contrive to place a number of spindles side by side, and work them by one agency. There were many obstacles in the way of his carrying out his idea, but he resolutely persevered, and after three years of labour and experience, succeeded in constructing a machine, where one horizontal wheel set in motion eight spindles, which, in honour of his wife, he christened the 'Spinning Jenny.' As soon as the weavers of Blackburn obtained intelligence of this new machine—this accursed invention that was to throw, as they imagined, seven out of every eight artisans out of employment—they broke into open riot, surrounded the inventor's cottage, shattered his ingenious contrivance into fragments, and constrained him to fly for his life to Nottingham. He took out a patent, but was then beset by the avaricious enmity of the manufacturers, who were willing enough to make use of the invention, but indisposed to compensate the inventor. Baffled, dispirited, and poverty-stricken, he finally abandoned the hopeless struggle, and a decade after he had given to the Lancashire magnates the wealthmultiplying resources of Spinning Jenny, died in obscurity and extreme indigence. His invention did not die with him. The good that men do lives after them, and a great idea fructifies for centuries when the thinker who conceived it has passed away. SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 1. One of the most illustrious of the founders of the commercial greatness of the British empire was undoubtedly Richard Arkwright, born at Preston, in Lancashire, on the 23rd of December, 1732. Like most of our English heroes of labour-our members of the noble chivalry of work-Arkwright was the son of pauper parents, and his 60 THE SUBTERRANEOUS BARBER. success in life was wholly due to the energy and perseverance with which he concentrated his powers on the attainment of one cherished object. Indeed, we may premise, at the outset of our narrative, that Arkwright was not a man of genius. He possessed, it is true, a certain faculty of invention, and an innate aptitude for mechanics; but the fame he won, and the fortune he amassed, were rather the spolia opima of unremitting industry and undaunted resolution, than the prizes of a bold and daring intellect. 2. Arkwright received but a scanty education, for he was the youngest of thirteen children, and probably a very limited amount of reading and writing was considered sufficient for one whose lot in life was marked out to be that of a barber. When he commenced his labours in that important trade is uncertain; but we know that he prosecuted them with varying success until he was about thirty years of age. His shop was situated in a cellar in one of the obscurest alleys of Bolton, and his occupation was indicated by a blue and white pole, to which was affixed an engraved tin-plate, inviting the passing stranger to step downstairs, and have his hair cut or his chin 'reaped' in admirable style. Neither the pole nor the plate attracted many patrons, until, at last, the felicitous idea occurred to Arkwright of compelling the attention of the crowd by a brilliant placard, which bore, in Brobdignagian letters, the following inscription: · 'COME TO THE SUBTERRANEOUS BARBER ! 3. Now, Preston rejoiced in many barbers, but in only one subterraneous barber: the legitimate charge, moreover, for a clean shave,' was invariably twopence. Hence, the twofold attraction of a reduced rate and a polysyllabic epithet proved too much for the great unshaved' of Preston. They flocked in crowds to Arkwright's cellar, and so large was the business which he now enjoyed, that his indignant rivals, in order to retain but a tithe of their former customers, were also compelled to reduce their prices. Arkwright, in the true spirit of modern business, |