It appears that in Ashton-under-Lyne, Dunkinfield, and Moseley, there are fifty-three mills in the hands of ninety-five partners; Blackburn, and its immediate neighbourhood, has fifty-seven mills and eighty partners; Bolton, forty-two mills and fifty-seven partners; Barnley, twenty-five spinning manufactories and forty-six proprietors; at Heywood there are twenty-eight mills in the hands of forty-six masters. Manchester, it would appear, is not so much the seat of manufacture as of merchandise. Though it abounds in warehouses for the sale of cotton goods, there are no more than seventy-eight cotton factories, having one hundred and thirty-nine masters. Oldham has the greatest number of mills; namely, one hundred and fifty-eight, with two hundred and fifty-two proprietors; Preston, thirty-eight mills, sixty-two partners; Stalybridge, twenty cotton concerns and forty-one proprietors; Stockport, forty-seven mills and seventy-six masters; while Warrington has no more than four mills, owned by ten gentlemen. The total number of cotton manufactories in these districts is five hundred and fifty, which belong to nine hundred and four “Cotton Lords.” Mr. Baker’s “case” is that a proper moral supervision is exercised over the tens of thousands of operatives employed in these factories; and that such supervision is not delegated from principals to subordinates. It would seem, from his showing, that of the nine hundred and four proprietors, no more than twenty-nine do not reside where their concerns are situated; and that of the entire aggregate of mills, there are only four in or near to which no proprietor resides. Lancashire and Cheshire cotton factories, therefore, are as regards absenteeism, the direct antithesis of Irish estates. The consequence is, that while the former are in a state of average, though intermittent prosperity, the latter have gone to ruin. COMIC LEAVES FROM THE STATUTE BOOK. The most manifest absurdities while remaining in fashion receive the greatest respect; for it is not till Time affords a retrospect that the full force of the absurdity is revealed. When men and women went about dressed like the characters in the farce of Tom Thumb, we of the present day wonder that they excited no mirth; nor can we now believe that Betterton drew tears as _Cato_ in a full-bottomed wig. A beauty who a dozen years ago excited admiration in the balloon-like costume of that day, would now, if presenting herself in full-blown leg-of-mutton sleeves, excite a smile. The more intelligent natives of Mexico are now more disposed to grin than to shudder, as they once did, at their comical idols. Everybody has heard of the monkey-god of India. In our day, those who once adored and dreaded him, would as readily worship _Punch_, and receive his squeakings for oracles, as to bow down before the Great Monkey.