To a brief consideration of certain other important changes that took place during the period, a classic passage written by William Radcliffe forms a useful introduction: “From the year 1770 to 1788 a complete change had gradually been effected in the spinning of yarns. That of wool had disappeared altogether, and that of linen was also nearly gone; cotton, cotton, cotton was become the almost universal material for employment. The hand wheels, with the exception of one establishment, were all thrown into lumber-rooms, the yarn was all spun on common jennies, the carding for all numbers up to 40 hanks in the pound was done on carding-engines; but the finer numbers of 60 to 80 were still carded by hand, it being a general opinion at that time that machine-carding would never answer for fine numbers. In weaving no great alteration had taken place during these eighteen years save the introduction of the fly-shuttle, a change in the woollen looms to fustians and calico, and the linen nearly gone, except the few fine fabrics in which there was a mixture of cotton. To the best of my recollection there was no increase of looms during this period--but rather a decrease.... But the mule-twist now coming into vogue, for the warp, as well as weft, added to the water-twist and common jenny yarns, with an increasing demand for every fabric the loom could produce, put all hands in request of every age and description. The fabrics made from wool or linen vanished, while the old loom-shops being insufficient, every lumber room, even old barns, cart-houses, and outbuildings of any description were repaired, windows broke through old blank walls and all fitted up for loom-shops. This source of making room being at length exhausted, new weavers’ cottages with loom-shops rose up in every direction; all immediately filled, and when in full work the weekly circulation of money, as the price of labour only, rose to five times the amount ever before experienced in this subdivision, every family bringing home weekly 40, 60, 80, 100, or even 120 shillings per week!!!”[414] [Footnote 414: _The Origin of Power-Loom Weaving_ (1828), pp. 61-62.] In this passage the transition from the use of the hand-wheel in spinning, and the manufacture of woollen, linen, and mixed goods, to the use of the inventions, and the manufacture of all kinds of cotton goods is vividly described. There is abundant evidence, in addition to that given by Radcliffe, of the prosperity of the weavers as a consequence of the changes,[415] but this is a matter which must be considered along with another, especially as much turns upon them in estimating the social consequences of the transition.