n 1835 was 347, employing 33,000 workers, of which one-half were in the
South of Scotland, more than 60 in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Leeds,
and its environs, 25 in Belfast, Ireland, and the rest in Dorset and
Lancashire. Weaving is carried on in the South of Scotland, here and
there in England, but principally in Ireland.

With like success did the English turn their attention to the manufacture
of silk. Raw material was imported from Southern Europe and Asia ready
spun, and the chief labour lay in the twisting of fine threads. Until
1824 the heavy import duty, four shillings per pound on raw material,
greatly retarded the development of the English silk industry, while only
the markets of England and the Colonies were protected for it. In that
year the duty was reduced to one penny, and the number of mills at once
largely increased. In a single year the number of throwing spindles rose
from 780,000 to 1,180,000; and, although the commercial crisis of 1825
crippled this branch of industry for the moment, yet in 1827 more was
produced than ever, the mechanical skill and experience of the English
having secured their twisting machinery the supremacy over the awkward
devices of their competitors. In 1835 the British Empire possessed 263
twisting mills, employing 30,000 workers, located chiefly in Cheshire, in
Macclesfield, Congleton, and the surrounding districts, and in Manchester
and Somersetshire. Besides these, there are numerous mills for working
up waste, from which a peculiar article known as spun silk is
manufactured, with which the English supply even the Paris and Lyons
weavers. The weaving of the silk so twisted and spun is carried on in
Paisley and elsewhere in Scotland, and in Spitalfields, London, but also
in Manchester and elsewhere. Nor is the gigantic advance achieved in
English manufacture since 1760 restricted to the production of clothing
materials. The impulse, once given, was communicated to all branches of
industrial activity, and a multitude of inventions wholly unrelated to
those here cited, received double importance from the fact that they were
made in the midst of the universal movement. But as soon as the
immeasurable importance of mechanical power was practically demonstrated,
every energy was concentrated in the effort to exploit this power in all
directions, and to exploit it in the interest of individual inventors and
manufacturers; and the demand for machinery, fuel, and mater