HE publication in volume form of this imperfect study of the American Cotton Industry affords the Author a welcome opportunity publicly to thank those friends in England and in the United States who assisted him in his investigations. Nothing could exceed the liberality and courtesy with which American manufacturers and others admitted him to their mills and talked to him of their business, knowing, as they did, that everything they said and disclosed might be 'used against them.' This debt of gratitude he cannot himself hope to repay; but if any information in this book should prove to be of value to English manufacturers, he hopes that they will consider it. a gift from America, and return it in kind when American manufacturers come to England upon a similar errand. The Author can say without affectation that any merits which his book may have are due to these American and English friends, and that its many shortcomings are due to himself.