ut
the same year witnessed the introduction of an invention which in a few
years completely revolutionized the spinning industry, and which
enabled one worker to spin hundreds of threads at once.

The year 1738, which witnessed the birth of Kay's invention, also saw
that of Lewis Paul, an artisan of Birmingham. This was a new method of
spinning by means of _Rollers_. It should be remembered that this was
thirty years before Arkwright attempted to obtain letters patent for his
system of spinning by rollers.

Most of the readers of this little book will have seen what is known in
_domestic parlance_ as a clothes-wringer. Here the wooden or rubber
rollers, by means of weights or screws, are made to squeeze out most of
the moisture which remains after the garment has left the washing-tub.
Now if two sets of such rollers could be put together, so that in
section the four centres would coincide with the four angular points of
a square, and the back pair could be made to have a greater surface
velocity than the front pair, this arrangement would give something like
the idea which Paul had in his mind at that time. Why make the back pair
revolve at a greater rate? For this reason, that as the cotton was
supplied to the front pair, and passed on to the second, remembering
that these are going at a greater rate, it follows that the cotton
_would be drawn out_ in passing from the first to the second pair. Had
the rollers been both going at the same speeds, the cotton would pass
out as it went in, unaffected. Now it was this idea which Paul
practically set out in his machine. From some reason or other, Paul's
right to this patent has been often called into question, and up to 1858
it was popularly supposed to have been the sole invention of John Wyatt
of Birmingham. In the year named, Mr. Cole, in a paper read before the
British Association, proved that Paul was the real patentee, and
established the validity of his claim without doubt.

The two distinguishing features of Paul's Spinning Machine were: (1) by
means of the rollers and flyers he performed the operations of
drawing-out and twisting, which had hitherto been done by the fingers
and thumbs of the spinners; and (2) he changed the position of the
spindle itself from the horizontal to the vertical.

A glance at the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of
Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, shows that this period (1760-1770) was
most prolific of inventions speci