The Lancashire cotton towns owe their existence essentially to the magic touch of modern mechanical art. During all the long procession of centuries that had elapsed since the time of the "white-armed" daughter of Alcinous, her maidens, and their spinning-wheels, and of the swarthy weavers of ancient Egypt, the primeval modes of manufacture had been followed almost implicitly. The work of the Flemings themselves was little in advance of that of the Hebrews under Solomon. In comparison with that long period, the time covered by the change induced by machinery was but a moment, and the growth of the weaving communities, compared with that of previous times, like a lightning-flash. The movement commenced about 1760. Up till long after the time of Elizabeth, the staple manufacture of Lancashire, as we have seen, was woollen. Flax, in the sixteenth century, began to be imported largely, both from Ireland and the Continent, and when cotton at last arrived the two materials were combined. Flax was used for the "warp" or longitudinal threads, which in weaving require to be stronger than the "woof," while cotton was employed only for the latter--technically the "weft." Fabrics composed wholly of cotton do not appear to have been made in Lancashire before the time of George II., Bolton leading the way with cotton velvets about 1756. The cotton weft was spun by the people in their own cottages, chiefly by the women, literally the "spinsters" of the family, representative eighteen centuries afterwards, of the good housewife of the _Æneid_ and of the still older one in the Book of Proverbs, though as the years rolled on so greatly did the demand increase that every child had work of one kind or another. Thus began "infant labour," afterwards so much abused. The employment of children over thirteen in the modern factory is quite a different thing. Placed under legal restrictions, it is a blessing alike to themselves and to their parents, since if not there, the children now earning their bread would be idling, and probably in mischief. Those, it has been well said, who have to live by labour should early be trained to labour. Diligent as they were, the spinsters could not produce weft fast enough for the weavers. Sitting at their looms, which were also in the cottages, thoughtful men pondered the possibilities of quicker methods. Presently the dream took shape, and from the successive inventions of Whyatt, Kay, Highs, and Hargreaves, emerged the famous "spinning-jenny,"[16] a machine which did as much work in the same time as a dozen pair of hands. Abreast of it came the warping-mill, the carding-engine, and the roving-frame: the latter particularly opportune, since the difficulty had always been to disentangle the fibres of the cotton prior to twisting, and to lay them exactly parallel. Arkwright now came on the scene. He himself never invented anything; but he had marvellous powers of combination,