The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1860-03-24
Invenssrs, Cetssn. les

yNNs ~ NOAt0AAe - q
DishAsLf, The elder, wrote 4 book about the
calamiues Of authors. We wonder somebody
does not write ona about ne calamities Of il.
vsntors. There y fully as Iauch roou. FOL
spirited narrative aud - reflection = the
one ~ In the other. W. NV
This desideratnm is, ID some, deyrsss sup
piled by q writer In the London Quarterly. VINO
undertakes to give . history OF tie rise anu
progress Of the cotton manufacture In Ian
cashire, founding his remarks upon numoeF
Of works that have lately been Pn bllsneo An
connection with that subject. FROM THIS ar
ticle re learn that the man who hrst invented
the Spinning Jenny-or. rather. machine
answering to the description OF the Spinning
Jsnnv-was one LEWIS PAUL. He took out
patent A. early as lbs, and subsisted decent
~ by selling his machines, which, 1t is to be
pres umed, were very rude affairs, for they seem
never to have come into general use. The en-
tire spinning Of Lancashire was done by hand
until the year 1867, when one HARoREAvEs, a
weaver at Stand.hili, near Blackburn, was
led to conceive the first idea Of the Spinn ing
Jenny, as it now exists, from the accidental
overturning Of his wife's spinning Wheel
He saw that the spindle continued to turn af-
ter it had assumed perpendicular position
and 1t struck him at once that any number Of
spindles might be made to work in the same
way, by means of a single wheel. He had al
ready made several ingenious improvements
In the method Of carding, and he now
added machine for running a dozen
spindles at once to his other Inventions
He kept his discovery a secret for some time,
standing in deadly fear of his enlightened
neighbors, who all made a living by spinning
wool and cotton for the loom, and not one Of
whom, he very well knew, was at all too good
TO burn him aud his new-fangled machine up
together. 1t got out however, and what he
feared came to pass with vengeance. They
did not, it is true, burn his house, but they
broke his machines, and caused him to fly for
his life. He went to Nottingham, where he
assisted others to set up his own jennies, be-
ing driven to it by absolute want Here he
was again assaulted, and handled with such
severity by a brutal mob that his life was for
some time despaired of. He took out patent
in 1870, but it appeared that before doing so he
had sold jennies, and thus rendered his patent
Of no value. He died in 177s, in great poverty.
Within a few years, two Of his daughters were
living almost in the condition Of paupers.
Mr.. BRoTHERToN endeavored TO raise u small
sum for them by subscription among the man
ufacturers, many Of whom had made enor-
nous fortunes by his invention. He expert
enced great difficulty in obtaining barely
enough to preserve them from starvation
HARGREAyEs called his machine after one of
his daughters, JENNY and it goes by tina
name to this day.
Another unlucky genius was CIoMPToN
the inventor of the "mule," as it is called
This man was prosecuted by the manufactu
rers to such a degree that he gave them his
invention upon their signing a subscription
paper promising to pay him a certain sum
each. The largest sum thus promised was
one guinea, the smallest two.and-six. pence
The names of eighty five Of the subscribers
have been preserved. Several of them after.
wards amassed fortunes of several hundred
thousand pounds each, by the use of CROMP.
TONS machine; yet, when called upon for the
amount of their subscription. some of them
refused. CROMPToN got about sixty pounds
for his secret, and spent the rest of his life in
poverty. Parliament made him a grant OF
$4,000, but it did not pay the expenses he had
incurred.
AsKwElGHT, who made the largest fortune
of modern times by manufactures, seems to
have been a very different man from most oi
the inventors He WAS keen man of the
world, and great organizer Of labor He was
not only an inventor himself, but was quite
interruptions, apparently, in ap2ropriating
the inventions of others.
The inventions Of these men, and others
gave prodigious impulse 10 the cotton trade
and built up the town of Liverpool. This i'm.
pulse was quickly felt, but it increased with
n,,I
WATT brought his steam engine to bear. In
1858, the total imports of cotton wool into all
the ports Of England, from all parts of the
world, principally, however, from the Levant
and the West Indies, did not amount to more
than three million pounds weight (six thou
sand bales, } and this was used up for candle
wickes in 4 great measure. In loJs, one cen.
fury later, the quantity imported into Liver
pool alone exceeded one thousand millions o.
pounds weight, or two millions of bales. IL
I17O the entire receipt of cotton from tn,
whole United States was only three bags from
New York, four from Virginia and Maryland
and three barrels from North Carolina Four
fifths of that imported in ISIS came from tn,
United States. This startling fact puts tn,
Reviewer into q rejecting mood. He says 81
is obvious from these facts that the cotton
manufacture is not without its perils. Princi
pally depending, as it does, for the supply o
its raw material, upon the slave labor Of tn.
American republics country whose leading
public men have frequently sought Of lats
years to make political capital by trying &c
pick quarrel with England-looking also a
the concentration of a large mass of highly pait
artiZans upon branch of productive ind ustry
which has no root either in the soil of England
or in her own colOnies--we think it must b.
admitted that it contains elements Of danger
which, under certain circumstances, would
assume quite All appalling aspect! III thu
contingency again of a war with either Amer
lea or France, unless England could secure b,
means Of her maritime police the safe transi
to sea OF the raw cotton inwards, and the man
ufactured fabric outwards a state of thing:
would suddenly be developed throughout tn,
cotton manufacturing districts which thu
mind shudders TO contemplate"
Gan any man doubt that cotton is king afte,
this! How "the maritime police" Of Grea
Britain is to secure the transit of cotton from
New Orleans to Liverpool, when the United
States and England are at war, and not "a bal.
OF it can be shipped at the former port nobody
but an Englishman and a reviewer knows
and he won't tell. For our part, we give it up
The Quarterly then tells what Mr.. ASH
WORTH, man who has been writing CRoMP.
TONS Life, says upon the subject: 1.-THE en-.
tire failure OF a cotton CROP" says MIR. ASH
WORTH, SHOULD it ever occur, could utteri,
destroy, and perhaps fo,erer, all the manxtactpr.
ing prosperity ,ce possess; or should the growth
in any one year he only one million, instead OF
three millions of bales the manufacturing
and trading classes would find themselves in
volved in losses which, in many cases, would
amount to irretrievable ruin-millions OF
1nx aon nfrxmaa 1uouid hocoraa danri, od Of