They are fortunate men these provincial Crœsuses, and don’t let the grass grow under their feet. In the art of money-making they need learn nothing of Cockneys or Americans, but perhaps might teach them something as to the way to get on in the world. One of the most successful of this class was Sir Richard Arkwright, the famous inventor and the improver of cotton-spinning machinery. Sir Richard was born in 1732, and married, first, Patience Holt, of Lancaster, and second, Margaret Biggins, of Pennington. He was the son of poor parents, and the youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school; and what little he did learn was without aid. He was apprenticed to a barber; and after learning that wretched business, set up for himself as a barber in Bolton, in an underground cellar, over which he put up the sign-board with the curious wording, “Come to the Subterraneous Barber—he shaves for a Penny,” painted upon it. Carrying away, by his low prices, the trade from the other barbers in the place, they reduced their prices to his level. Arkwright then, not to be outdone, and to keep the lead in the number of customers, put up the announcement of, “A Clean Shave for a Halfpenny,” which, no doubt, he found answer well. After a time he quitted his cellar, and took to tramping from place to place as a dealer in hair. For this purpose he attended statute fairs, and other resorts of the people, and bought their crops of hair from girls, bargaining for and cutting off their curls and tresses, and selling them again to the wig-makers. He also dealt in hair-dye, and tried to find out the secret of perpetual motion. This led to mechanical pursuits; he neglected his business, lost what little money he had saved, and was reduced to great poverty. Having become acquainted with a watchmaker named Kay, at Warrington, and had assistance from him in constructing his model, he first, it is said, received from him the idea of spinning by rollers—but only the idea, for Kay could not practically tell how it was to be accomplished. Having once got the idea, Arkwright set to work, and neglected everything else for its accomplishment; and, in desperation and poverty, his poor neglected wife, who could only see waste of time and neglect of business in the present state of affairs, and ruin and starvation in the future, as the consequence, broke up his models, in hope of bringing him hack to his trade and his duties to his family. And who can blame the young wife? The unforgiving husband, however, separated from her in consequence, and never forgave her. His poverty, indeed, was so great at this time, that, having to vote as a burgess, he could not go to the polling-place until, by means of a subscription, some clothes had been bought for him to put on. Having re-made and pretty well completed his model, but fearful of having it destroyed, as Hargreave’s spinning-jenny had been by a mob, Arkwright removed to Nottingham, taking his model with him.