otton from India; and the son of
the late Mr. John Fielden, a great manufacturer, has embarked a considerable
sum at Natal in the cultivation of cotton. The dependence on the United
States for such a staple has begun to render our Manchester men
uncomfortable. They have not, however, displayed the spirit and energy that
might have been expected either from their usual political vigour or from the
tone of their advice to the farmers in distress.

The successive improvements in weaving by machinery we shall not attempt to
trace. To use the phrase of a Nottingham mechanic, "there are machines now
that will weave anything, from a piece of sacking to a spider's web." But
fine muslins and fancy goods are chiefly woven by hand.

The power-loom has recently been adapted, under Bright's patent, to weaving
carpets, which are afterwards printed.

With respect to spinning; fine yarns which cost twenty guineas a pound have
been reduced to four shillings by improved machinery, and in the Great
Exhibition of Industry Messrs. Houldsworth exhibited as a curiosity, a pound
of cotton spun 2,000 miles in length.

Arkwright, among the early improvers, was the only one who realized a large
fortune, which his patience, his energy, his skill, his judgment, his
perseverance well deserved, whether he was an original inventor or not.

The large supplies of cheap coals by canal soon made Lancashire the principal
seat of the manufacture.

Among the many who realized great wealth by the new manufacture, was the
first Sir Robert Peel, who began life near Bolton as a labouring man, by
frugality accumulated enough money to commence first with a donkey a small
coal trade, and then to enter on a cotton mill, which eventually placed him
in a position to become a Member of Parliament and a baronet, and to give his
son that starting place in education and society of which he availed himself
so wisely and so patriotically, to his own honour and the permanent benefit
of his country.

There are several mills and factories in Manchester in which the most perfect
productions of mechanical skill may be seen in operation; but it is a trade
which will be seen under much more favourable circumstances in some of those
valleys near Manchester, where the masters of the mill provide the cottages
of their "hands," or where the cottages are held in freehold by the more
frugal workmen themselves, with little gardens attached, in pure air in open
situations.

Th