A common practice is to have the looms in a "shed" upon the surface of the ground. To be as near the earth as possible is a desire no less with the spinner, who, like the weaver, finds the lower atmospheric conditions much more favourable to his work than the upper. In any case, where the power-looms are, long lines of slender pillars support the roof, presenting an unbroken and almost endless perspective; and between the machinery and the ceiling, connected with the horizontal shafts which revolve just below it, are innumerable strong brown leather straps that quiver as they run their courses. According to the department we may be in, either threads or coils of cotton whiter than pearl, and of infinite number, give occupation to those thousand obedient and tireless slaves--not of the ring or the lamp, but of the mighty engine that invisibly is governing the whole; and in attendance are men and women, boys and girls, again beyond the counting. Their occupations are in no degree laborious: all the heavy work is done by the steam-engine; muscular power is not wanted so much as delicacy and readiness of hand and finger. Hence in the factory and the cotton-mill there is opportunity for those who are too weak for other vocations. Machinery in all cases has the merit of at once increasing the workman's wages and lessening his fatigue. The precision in the working of the machinery enforces upon those who attend to it a corresponding regularity of action. There is no re-twisting or re-weaving; everything, if done at all, must be done properly and at the proper moment. Apart from its being a place wherein to earn creditably the daily bread, if there be anything in the world which conduces pre-eminently to the acquisition of habits such as lie at the foundation of good morals,--order, care, cleanliness, punctuality, industry, early rising,--assuredly it is the wholesome discipline of the well-ordered cotton factory. Whatever may befall _outside_, there is nothing deleterious _inside_; the personal intercourse of the people employed is itself reduced to a minimum; if they corrupt one another, it is as people _not_ in factories do. In the rooms and "sheds" devoted to weaving, the rattle of the machinery forbids even conversation, except when the voice is adjusted to it. In the quieter parts the girls show their contentedness not infrequently by singing-- "The joyful token of a happy mind." [Illustration: IN A COTTON FACTORY]