"It's all very well," said one of the grumblers, "but what will all this rapid production of yarn lead to? Putting aside the ruin of the poor spinners, who will be starved because they haven't as many arms as these terrible machines, you'll find that it will end in a great deal more yarn being spun than can be woven into cloth, and in large quantities of yarn being exported to the Continent, where it will be worked up by foreign weavers, to the injury of our home manufacture. That will be the short and the long of it, mark my words." "Well, but, sir," remarked a grave, portly, middle-aged gentleman of clerical appearance, after a few minutes' reflection, "when you talk of the impossibility of the weaving keeping up with the spinning, you forget that machinery may yet be applied to the former as well as the latter. Why may there not be a loom contrived for working up yarn as fast as the spindle produces it. That long-headed fellow Arkwright must just set about inventing a weaving machine." "Stuff and nonsense," returned the "practical man" pettishly, as though it were hardly worth while noticing the remarks of such a dreamer. "You might as well bid Arkwright grow the cloth ready made. Weaving by machinery is utterly impossible. You must remember how much more complex a process it is than spinning, and what a variety of movements it involves. Weaving by machinery is a mere idle vision, my dear sir, and shows you know nothing about the operation." "Well, I must confess my ignorance on the subject of weaving," replied the clergyman; "but surely it can't be a more complex matter than moving the pieces in a game of chess. Now, there's an automaton figure now exhibiting in London, which handles the chess men, and places them on the proper squares of the board, and makes the most intricate moves, for all the world as if it were alive. If that can be done, I don't see why weaving should baffle a clever mechanist. A few years ago we should have laughed at the notion of doing what Arkwright has done; and I'm certain that before many years are over, we shall have 'weaving Johnnies,' as well as 'spinning Jennies.'"