It has been held that the factory is an episode, not an element, in modern sociological development, and in a strict sense this is true. But because the factory led to the growth of great manufacturing towns and caused the migration thither of a vast population from the agricultural districts, and because it was among this population that the social discontent, which for a long period had existed in the lower classes, first became articulate, the factory directly contributed to the development of modern democracy. The factory transformed not only craftsmen into operatives, but agricultural laborers as well, the latter becoming for the first time free to dispose of their own labor; for while serfdom had been declared illegal long before the establishment of the factory, yet the peasant remained dependent, in a large measure, upon the good will of his employer and he was bound by custom if not by law to the soil he tilled. The migration of this vast laboring population from the fields to the towns led to far-reaching social results. “Meanwhile, at social Industry’s command How quick and fast an increase! From the germ Of some poor hamlet, rapidly produced, Here a large town, continuous and compact, Hiding the face of earth for leagues—and there, Where not a habitation stood before, Abodes of men irregularly massed Like trees in forests—spread through spacious tracts, O’er which the smoke of unremitting fires Hangs permanent, and plentiful as wreaths Of vapor glittering in the morning sun.” Thus Wordsworth in _The Excursion_ describes the rise of the manufacturing towns. Our first concern is with the social conditions existing in these great manufacturing cities. The factory system was first applied to the spinning of yarn; but weaving continued, for a time, as a handicraft. This period was one of great prosperity to the hand-loom weavers. Before the invention of spinning-machinery, several spinners were required to furnish one loom with yarn; and one half of the weaver’s time was spent in waiting for work. This time was employed in farming. But with the establishment of the spinning-mills the situation was reversed, and the weaver, plentifully supplied with yarn, ceased to cultivate the soil and devoted his whole time to the loom, a far more profitable occupation. Villages of hand-loom weavers sprang up throughout the country adjacent to the manufacturing towns, and hither the master spinners sent their yarn and received back the finished cloth; while sometimes the weaving was done in “dandy” shops containing eight or ten and often as many as twenty looms. These little factories were usually owned by a single weaver who hired others to assist him in his work; but whatever the method, the profits from the business were always great.