§ 8. THE DOMESTIC SYSTEM OF MANUFACTURE--But in the period we are now speaking of, the period before the great inventions, neither the agricultural labourer nor the manufacturing operative was quite divorced from the land. The weavers, for instance, often lived in the country, in a cottage with some land attached to it. There had certainly been changes in the industrial system before 1760. At first the weaver had furnished himself with warp and weft, worked it up, and brought it to the market himself; but by degrees this system grew too cumbersome, and the yarn was given out by merchants to the weaver, and at last the merchant got together a certain number of looms in a town or village, and worked them under his own supervision. But even yet the domestic system, as it is commonly called, retained in many if not in most cases the distinctive feature that the manufacturing industry was not the only industry in which the artisan was engaged, but that he generally combined with it a certain amount of agricultural work in the cultivation of his own small plot of land. This fact explains to some extent the comparative comfort of the operative in this cottage industry, for that they were fairly well off is the testimony of Adam Smith, in 1776. Commercial fluctuations were few; the home market was steady; {156} employer and employed were more closely knit together than at present; wealth was more equally distributed, and capital existed in smaller amounts but in a larger number of hands. The poet’s vision of “contentment spinning at the cottage door” was not altogether imaginary, for women and children shared in the common task brought home by the head of the family. Nor, after all, was trade so restricted and hampered as some writers have seemed to suppose. On the contrary, there was, in spite of bad roads, very frequent and considerable internal communication for manufacturing purposes, and this was facilitated by means of the local markets, the importance of which in those days cannot be easily overrated. Manufacturers would ride a long way to buy wool from the farmers or at the great fairs already mentioned, such as that of Stourbridge (p. 63), which was sufficiently considerable even a hundred years ago, or those of Lynn, Boston, Gainsborough, and Beverley, all four of which were celebrated for their wool-sales. This wool was then brought home and sorted; then sent out to the hand-combers, and on being returned combed was again sent out, often to long distances, to be spun. It was, for instance, sent from remote parts of Yorkshire to Lancashire, or even farther; or again from near London to Kendal and back. When spun, the tops, or fine wool, were entrusted to some shopkeeper to “put out” among the neighbours. Then the yarn was brought back and sorted by the manufacturer himself into hanks, according to the counts and twist. The hand-weavers would next come for their warp and weft, and in due time bring back the piece,