his
could only have been a somewhat rough affair, but its originator
maintained reasonably that it would be of interest if some indication of
the daily movements could be obtained. For some time a memorandum of the
total of daily sales reported was posted on 'Change, but the
indifference of traders, together with the distrust that makes any
innovation difficult, caused the scheme to be abandoned.

It would be difficult in any attempt to estimate the volume of British
home trade to distinguish what may be called the effective movements of
goods. There is a considerable amount of re-selling both in yarn and
cloth, and, though the bulk of cotton goods finds the way through
regular and normal channels to the consumer, these channels are not
always direct. A good many transactions on the Manchester Exchange are
intermediate, without fulfilling any useful function, and could be
accomplished by the principals if they were brought together. Agents, of
whom there are many, sometimes occupy a precarious position, but they
are protected in some degree by law as well as by the custom of the
trade and the point of honour. Points of honour in the Manchester
business may seem to be arbitrarily selected, but they are an important
part of the scheme. An immense amount of business is done without any
apparent check against repudiation. It is, of course, the verbal bargain
that binds, and large transactions are commonly completed without
witnesses, though before the contract or memorandum of sale passes the
fluctuations of the market may have made the bargain, to one side or the
other, a very bad one. (A. N. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is related that in the year 1784 William Rathbone, an American
merchant resident in Liverpool, received from one of his
correspondents in the southern states a consignment of eight bags of
cotton, which on its arrival in Liverpool was seized by the
custom-house officers, on the allegation that it could not have been
grown in the United States, and that it was liable to seizure under
the Shipping Acts, as not being imported in a vessel belonging to the
country of its growth. When afterwards released, it lay for many
months unsold, in consequence of the spinners doubting whether it
could be profitably worked up.

[2] Taken with some modifications from the _Agricultural News_ (1907),
vi. p. 38.

[3] Cotton Production 1906, _U.S.A. Bureau of the Census_, Bul