1.When cotton was first spun and woven in this country,all the work was done by hand,and was done very slowly.But many wonderful machines have been invented to save labour,and get the work more quickly done,such as the spinning-frame you see in the picture.
2.It is due to the invention of these machines that the cotton manufacture has grown to such a very great extent in England.Manchester,Liverpool,and other towns in Lancashire,have become vast hives of busy workers,and the population of the country is five tithes what it was at the beginning of the century .
3.The cotton spinners and weavers were at first very much against the new machines.They thought that if the work was done by machinery there would be fewer workmen needed.There were often great riots ,and angry mobs broke the machines to pieces,and even tried to take the lives of some of the owners or inventors.
4.One of the inventors who was treated in this way was Samuel Crompton,who was born at an old country house called Hall-in-the-Wood,near Bolton.When he was only five years old his father die.His mother was left with three children to struggle through the world as best she could.She was a hard-working,God-fearing woman,who did with all her might whatever she took in hand.
5.Her husband had been both a farmer and a weaver,and she filled his place so well that her webs were the best woven,her butter the richest,her honey the purest in the whole district.She gave Samuel the best education that could be got in Bolton,first at a day-school,and afterwards at a night-school,when he was old enough to spin cotton during the day.
6.Every day Sam had to spin a certain amount of cotton.He did not dare to look his mother in the face unless each evening saw it done,and well done too.But Sam was fond of fiddle-making and fiddle-playing,and wished to have his work done early,so as to get time for these amusements.The threads often broke,and,as he said,he was "plagued to death with mending them."
He began to consider whether a better spinning-machine could not be made.
7.In 1774 he began to make a machine which he hoped would do the work better.Every minute he could spare from his spinning was spent at his machine.His mind was so much taken up with it that he was often busy all night over it,and some times the dawn found him still at work.After five years of labour he finished the machine,and called it the "Mule."
8.Just at that time the weavers and spinners of Blackburn were marching through the country with the cry,"Men,not machines,"and were breaking every machine they could lay hands on.To save his "Mule,"Crompton took it to pieces and hid it in the roof of the house.When all was quiet again he brought it out,put it together,and began to use it in his own work.
9.The thread it made was so fine that people came from all quarters to see the "Mule."When he refused to let them in they got ladders,and climbed up to the window of the room where it stood.Sam lost patience "Why can't folk let me enjoy the machine by myself ?"he said.
10.As soon as it became known,the "Mule"was seen to be far better than the cotton-spinning machines then in use,and millions of them were made and sold.New life was put into the cotton trade,and the country became richer and richer.But poor Crompton did not become rich.He was cheated by the manufacturers.
Workmen he had taught to make the "Mule"left him to work for other masters.Large factories took away all his customers.
11.In despair he broke his spinning-machines,and hacked to pieces with an axe a carding-machine he had invented,saying bitterly,"They shall not have this too."He toiled away at weaving,farming,and cow-keeping,and found it no easy matter to support his family,while the nation was growing rich by the help of his invention.
12.In 1812 Parliament gave him a grant of five thousand pounds,which was all needed for the payment of his debts,and for meeting the losses of his business.His last days were spent in poverty.He died in 1827.
