Increased speed in the spindles, however, brought increased breakage in the yarn, and although stop motion devices had been employed for several years, yet economy demanded ready means of piecing broken ends. This has been provided recently by mounting the stop clamp upon the roving rod well up near the first pair of drawing rolls, so that on pulling the stop wire into place the roving is at once fed between the drawing rolls and issues in front, over the spindle, to be easily pieced by one hand. Prior to this, the operative was required to reach over the machine, feed the roving to the rolls with one hand, hold the stop wire down with the other, and the broken end of yarn in his teeth. [Illustration: THE MODERN MULE.] Excessive ballooning was also incidental to the use of high speed spindles, and, while inventive skill has never mastered it, yet the injurious effects have been obviated by an ingenious mounting of separators, one between each two spindles. Aside from minor details perfecting the mechanical construction, such has been the evolution of the modern spinning frame. In 1830, it required the constant attention of one spinner to oversee twenty slow-running spindles, whereas, in 1896, the same attendant could, with less effort, “tend” seventy-five or more of the high speed type; and whereas, in 1790, when the first American cotton mill was established by Samuel Slater in Rhode Island, there were only seventy-five spindles on cotton fibre, in 1830, the number had increased to 1,246,703, and in 1890, to 14,188,103. Under such competition no wonder the spinning-wheel of our grandmothers has followed the economic law, that the fittest alone survive, and has been relegated to the wood-pile or garret, or, bedecked with ribbons, finds a resting-place in the chimney-corner as a decorated curiosity. Its mighty rival is here. Its attendants have been liberated to more ennobling pursuits. The homespun has been replaced by beautiful fabrics, and the monster spinning frames of to-day pour forth their hourly product in miles of spun fibre, where the wheels of our grandmothers were taxed to the utmost to produce a very small fraction of the amount. To appreciate the wonderful change, pause beside the domestic wheel used within the memory of the living, and compare its “whirr,” in slowly producing its single thread, to the “buzz” of the modern spinning frame turning out its product from a thousand spindles. [Illustration: HAND COMB OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]