Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-07-25
l.ahOr.SaNing MACHINERY.

When George Stephenson, in spite of
every obstacle, demonstrated to an adj
verse parliament the immense advan-
tages or the locomotive and the railway
over the stage coach and the turnpike
and when the paddle-wheels of our own
Fulton's Clermont,n smote to shamed
silence the jeering lips of his ignorant
detractors, the dawn of modern material
civilization began. But neither of these
men, however great his imagination,
could see the full vision of the future
and the wonders that would be-" They
never dreamed that their inventions
would cause the vast changes, in 80
many directions, which have since taken
place or, that they would lie at the
foundation Of an era of Capitalization.
Yet our improved methods Of transpor-
tation, the result of their inventions,
have made possible the utilization of the
infinite variety of labor-saving machin-
cry, the infinite divisions and sub-divi-
sions Of labor, and the concentration of
industry in the large cities. This, in its
4 turn, has caused the concentration of
population in the cities, and of wealth
In fewer hands it has caused the in
crease In the number of large farms and
the decrease in the number of small ones,
and even lies at the foundation of the
concentration Of political power in the
hands of the central government at the
expense of the reserved rights of the
states, and of the concentration of many
states under one government.
Under the old system of trans portation,
In wagons over bad roads, the modern
factory would of course have been i'm
possible. Its products must be dis.
tributed among many thousands and
even millions Of consumers, and this
under the old system would have been
80 costly that it would overcome many
Z times the advantage gained by eXpen-
& siye labor-saving machinery, by the sub
division of labor and by the production
OF great quantities in one factory. Thus
It was cheaper for each community to
manufacture, even in the most primitive
manner, its own goods us each did only
half century ago. What an immense
Industrial revolution, therefore, have
the inventions Of Stephenson and Fulton
brought about
Hon. Albert $. Bolles, chief of the
bureau OF statistics, presents us with a
4 few striking examples of the advan-
tages derived by modern society from
laborsaving machinery. "One per
! SON in cotton mill,p he says, "wnl
annually spin and weave cotton cloth
enough for two hundred and fifty per
sons, and in WOODEN mill for fifty more
One person with hand-loom coult
weave from forty-two TO forty-eigh
yards daily with six power looms hi,
product Is increased TO fifteen hundred
One person in mans boot factory vii
annually make sixteen hundred pairs o
boots or shoes, and in woman's sho,
factory, three thousand pairs. One mar
with a cotton gin can do the work o
nine hundred and ninety-nine men b,
hand IN removing seed from cotton
One man iii Dakota can annually pro
duce fifty-fiye hundred bushels of whea
and retaining one thousand bushels 70
seed, the remainder, by labor equivalen
to that OF one man for one year, can b
manufactured into -four and put int
barrels. The forty-five hundred bushel
will make a thousand barrels, which ca
be transported TO New York by rail b
3 Two men during the same period. More
over, the four thus engaged would hav