During the first century after the invention of the stocking-loom, few improvements were made upon it, and two men were usually employed to work one frame. But in the course of last century the machine was very greatly improved. The late ingenious Mr. Jedediah Strut, of Belper, Derbyshire, was the first individual who succeeded in adapting it to the manufacture of _ribbed_ stockings. Estimating the population of Great Britain, say sixteen millions, and the average annual expenditure of each individual upon stockings and knit gloves at five shillings, the total value of the manufacture will be £4,000,000, and we consider this rather to be under than over the mark. The effect of this invention was very late in making its appearance in Scotland. Till far on in the eighteenth century, the use of knitted stockings was universal. Mittens, or woollen gloves for the hands, and boot-hose, for drawing over the legs in riding, were also quite common, and all were wrought by the hand. The manufacture was carried on solely by women, the wives and daughters of farmers, generally, and the produce was sold as the means of bringing in a small revenue. The introduction of the stocking-loom to Hawick, in 1771, and the change of manners which took place about this period, soon put an end to this traffic; but still the greater part of the stockings worn by the country people on ordinary occasions are knitted at home. The art is also still in use in Shetland, where knitting forms the only amusement to relieve the tedium of a long winter, and where the articles produced are exceedingly fine in the texture: the Shetland hose bring the highest price of any woollen stocking. COACHES. Coach is said to be derived from _caroche_, Italian; a term first used in the eleventh century, and invented to designate a military machine, so called. We intend the word coaches to stand for the generic name of all those machines used for the carriage of persons, on business or pleasure, (except, indeed, those for the conveyance of the dead,) from the state carriage of the sovereign down to the humble gig. The original inventor of this species of carriage is said to have been an Athenian monarch, 1489 years before Christ, who being afflicted with lameness in his feet, first invented a coach for his convenience, and with a view to conceal his debility. This may be regarded as the first original, of the kind, of Grecian invention.