Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/325

 were drained for pasturage, and general activity brought an increase of wealth and prosperity to those engaged in agriculture. But great as was this progress, it was slight in comparison with the enormous industrial revolution, which, in the latter half of the century, raised England to a condition of wealth and power hitherto undreamt of.

The Indian calicoes, muslins, and chintzes have already been alluded to. They became more and more popular in England, and legislation failed to arrest their importation into the country. Cotton was shipped in ever increasing quantities from the West Indies to Manchester, then known as "the largest, most rich, populous, and busy village in England." Here some two thousand families quietly pursued their home industries of making fustians, tickings, and tapes from cotton yarn mixed with their native wool. All through the ages the spinning of thread had been done by young women, known as the spinsters of the family. In the middle of the eighteenth century these spinsters still sat with their distaffs round the weaver's hand-loom, spinning each single thread by hand, a slow and laborious method. But invention was in the air. A new flying