Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

COTTON AT PORT, IN MILL, AND ON ’CHANGE. 287 foundation of the cotton industry, for it was by close imitation of the Indian fabrics that the Lancashire manufacturers secured a market. Mechanical skill was concentrated on the production of machinery capable of making a yarn strong enough to be used as a warp, and invention has scarcely had an idle moment since. Kay, Wyatt, and Paul introduced fly shuttle, spinning by rollers, and carding; and Hargreaves, with his “spinning jenny,” and Arkwright, with his “ spinning frame,” or “ water frame,” revolu- tionised the cotton industry. From his Cromford Mill, in 1773, Arkwright sent out the first British-made piece of calico; but the operatives detested his patents and methods, and rioted against the use of the “ spinning jenny ” and the “ spinning frame.” Both these machines were in turn superseded by Crompton’s “ mule,” or “ muslin wheel,” and by Cartwright’s power loom, and many other improvements have since been made in spinning and weaving. English people who have read the story “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” have a tolerably good idea of an American cotton plantation ; but they seldom realise how vital the crop is to home industry and to national comfort. 1 he grim incident of the cotton famine has faded from memory, and only a plantation blight, or a war with the States, could reveal to us the misery and despair that steamships with- out cotton cargoes, silent mills, and idle hands would mean. Still, Great Britain has not to look to America alone for its cotton supply. Egypt sends thousands of bales; and its cotton, long of staple and brown in tint, is used for the making of the finer counts of yarn. India, too, is a cotton grower, and her produce, to some extent, is manipulated in England, though the great bulk of her crop is worked up 011 the Continent and in India. The Indian staple is, however, shorter, and only suitable for coarser counts, The modern liking is for finer counts, and consequently the American and the Egyptian crops have the readiest market. The American cotton crop is handled chiefly from September in one year to October in the next, but it arrives in the largest batches at English and Continental ports in November, December, January, and February. It is grown in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and 1 exas, and it is shipped from New York, Savannah,Brunswick» Charleston, New Orleans, Galveston, Phila- delphia, Baltimore, and Pensacola. The total bulk of American cotton from a season’s growth has been estimated by an expert Photo ; P. P> Carduett, Preston. A COTTON-MIXING- ROOM AT MESSRS. HORROCKSES, CREWDSON AND CO.’S WORKS, PRESTON.