Great Britain -- Description and travel; Railroad travel -- Great Britain; Railroads -- Great Britain
When cotton has reached Manchester from the United States, which supplies 75
per cent. of the raw material; from Egypt, which supplies a good article in
limited quantity; from India, which sends us an inferior, uncertain, but
increasing, quantity, but which with railroads will send us an improved
increasing quantity; or from any of the other miscellaneous countries which
contribute a trifling quota--it is stowed in warehouses, arranged according to
the countries from which it has come. It is then "passed through the willow,
the scuthing machine, and the spreading machine, in order to be opened,
cleaned, and evenly spread. By the carding engine the fibres are combed out,
and laid parallel to each other, and the fleece is compressed into sliver.
The sliver is repeatedly drawn and doubled in the drawing frame, more
perfectly to strengthen the fibres and to equalize the grist. The roving
frame, by rollers and spindles, produces a coarse loose thread, which the
mule or throstle spins into yarn. To make the warp, the twist is transferred
from cops to bobbins by the winding machine, and from the bobbins at the
warping machine to a cylindrical beam. This being taken to the dressing
machine, the warp is sized, dressed, and wound upon the weaving beam. The
weaving beam is then placed in the power loom, by which machine, the shuttle
being provided with cops with weft, the cloth is woven."
Sometimes the yarn only is exported, in other cases the cloth is bleached, or
dyed, or printed, all of which operations can be carried on in Manchester or
the surrounding auxiliary towns.
The best mode of obtaining a general idea of the trade carried on in
Manchester will be to visit two or three of the leading warehouses in which
buyers from all parts of the world supply their respective wants. For
instance, Messrs. J. N. Phillips and Co., of Church Street; Messrs.
Bannermans and Sons, York Street; Messrs. J. and J. Watts and Co., of Spring
Gardens; and Messrs. Wood and Westhead, of Piccadilly. Next, to go over one
of the leading Cotton Mills, say Briley's or Houldsworth's; then Messrs.
Lockett's establishment for engraving the plates used in calico-printing, and
Messrs. Thomas Hoyle and Son's print works. This work completed, the
traveller will have some idea of Manchester, not without.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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