The Cotton Factory Times. — 1887-07-29 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

CHINA.  The Shanghai mail advices, dated June 10, report a decidedly better feeling and a more general inquiry for piece goods in that market. Clearances had been satisfactory, on the whole, the goods being wanted chiefly for Tientsin, where demand had increased, though prices were said to be 3to 4 per cent below Shanghai rates. There had been a continued demand for heavy goods for Ningpo. Prices, however, had been rather irregular, both as regards private sales and at the auctions; in some instances a slight advance on the previous week's quotations had been secured. There had been considerable inquiry for American cloths, but not much business had resulted; the Chinese buyers were, however, gradually raising their offers. The sales of 81b. grey shirtings had amounted to 22,000 pieces. The market was firmer for the better qualities, while the prices of the inferior descrip. tions were weak in the absence of any Japan demand. About 12,090 pieces of heavy shirtings, 91b. to 121 b., and about 10,000 pieces 71b. T cloths had been sold. The rates of white sheetings had amounted to about 7,000 pieces. The sales of English drills had amounted to. 1,500 pieces. English . .  sheeting 3,000 pieces, and Arner'ican sheetings 2,000 pieces. The woollen market had been extremely dull.  SUICIDE wrrn LUCIFER MArcnrs.—An inquest was held at Sulby. near Ramsey, on Friday, on the body of Emily Dougherty. a servant girl employed at the Ginger Hall Inn, who died after a brief illness on Monday last. The evidence showed that the deceased being dissatisfied with her situation, had been in low spirits for several days, and traces of common lucifer matches soaked in water were found in her room. The jury returned a verdict to the effect that death resulted from the effects of an irritant poison, but whether administered by herself or not, there was no evidence to show. The ancient stirrup-cup was wine; the modern stir-up cup is whisky. It stirs up strife and other disagreeable things.  A Protest Azgast the Dominance of Machinery. Man, in his laboratory, has formed a creature that now has theornastery over him, that enslaves and uses him as a tyrant from which there is apparently no hope of escape. A machine is a working contrivance, with no insides neither heart, lungs, nor liver. They who have fallen well in with the spirit of the age even maintain that the whole creation is just such a contrivance, without an inside, without a contriver, without heart or soul—and apparently they are pleased with the thought. And there are other philosophies and forces than the economic asserting themselves in the unrest which characterises the times; and this may be due, in part, to the fact that "there is a spirit in man," a something that refuses to be absorbed in the economics of the machine, and which cries out for better privileges than mere wealth or material benefit. One of the forms of protest against this dominance of the machine ill Si revival of handicraft. The plea for the revival c,2 handicraft is a plea for the moral improvement of no inconsiderable portion of the people; for if We contrast the moral effect of work sweetened by a pleasurable exercise of inventive skill with labour that is simply a monotonous toil for wages, it is apparent that there must result therefrom a marked distinction in the character that is formed under the two systems. For work that affords pleasurable exercise to the faculties in its performance tends naturally to contentment, the very nature of the work is profitable In its mental and moral effects, and this constitutes no small part of the reward—perhaps the greater part. But work that is mere drudgery, an unending grind of toil in which mind and body are automatically engaged, is naturally productive of discontent, for there is no interest in it but the wage, and where money is the sole object of labour—notwithstanding its representative value as a commodity of exchanse—there can be no contentment; and this prevalent spirit of discontent may be said to be largely due to that system of labour which the machine has engendered. —Scribner's Magazine for August.