CHAPTER III

A Rhode Island mill-The Northrop automatic loom-A magnificent weaving-shed-134 weavers to 2,000 looms-' Halftimers' and child labour-Work and wages-The loom-shops at Hopedale The Queen City mill, Vermont.

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Y first introduction to the famous Northrop automatic loom was at a mill which stands a short distance outside Fall River, and just within the State of Rhode Island. True, I had seen a single specimen in a textile machinist's weave-room at Dobcross, near Saddleworth; but there I had gazed at it as one may gaze at a rare tropical butterfly in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and had been told and shown what it could do, as one might have the habits of the butterfly explained to one by an enthusiastic entomologist. Here, for the first time, I saw these gaudily painted machinesthey are all resplendent in vermilion and green-by_the thousand, fulfilling the purposes of their creation. Fed by 17,300 mule-spindles and 60,000 ring-spindles, here were 2,000 Northrop looms and 743 other looms, all 32 inches wide, or more, making twills and satteens, largely from 28's to 42's twist and 36's weft, spun from 'strict good middling' cotton of 1 inch to 1 inch staple. The mill is driven by steam-engines of 2,000 indicated horse-power; the annual consumption of coal is about 8,000 tons, and the cost of coal was then about 13s. 6d. per ton. In comparing these with English figures, your readers should always bear in mind that in America coal is sold by the 'short' ton of 2,000 pounds.

Although the Northrop loom has not yet been acclimatized in Lancashire,1 its principle is already so familiar as

1 Since this was written a company has been formed for making the Northrop loom in England.

to need but a very brief description here. The essential difference between it and a common, or any other automatic, loom is, that when the weft breaks or is exhausted the shuttle is automatically recharged with weft, and threaded without being itself removed from the sley. There is a cylindrical battery or magazine, like the magazine of a revolver, over the shuttle-box at the side of the loom, and this magazine can be filled with 'cartridges'-either bobbins of ring weft or cops of mule weft. Ring weft for the Northrop loom is spun on specially made bobbins, which are simply laid into the magazines; cops have to be skewered upon a steel spindle, with a wooden head similar to that of the ring bobbin. When the weft-changing mechanism is brought into play by the action of the weft-fork, a bobbin, or a cop on its skewer, is forced from the magazine into the shuttle, which is always then at the end of the sley immediately beneath the magazine; the spent bobbin, or skewered cop, is forced out through the shuttle and the bottom of the sley, and with the first impulse of the picking-stick the shuttle threads itself and the weaving continues without interruption. All that the weaver has to do, then, in regard to the weft, is to keep the magazine charged with weft, and as there is always a contrivance on these looms which stops them when a warp thread breaks, the weaver has no need to watch the warps; when he sees a loom standing, he goes and finds the broken end and ties it up and starts the loom again—that is all. The weft magazine may contain as many as thirty charges, enough to keep the loom running for a couple of hours. The Northrop loom is the invention of an Englishman, James Northrop, formerly of Keighley; but the Draper Company, of Hopedale, Massachusetts, who bought the patents, have spent very large sums of money in perfecting the machine and adapting it to the varying exigencies of industrial use.

The weaving-shed at this mill was a wonderful sight, Here on one floor were 2,743 looms, and one's first impression on entering the room was that one was looking at a room full of looms, and nothing else. Not a strap was visible, for the looms are all driven from shafting in the basement. The straps, led through holes cut in the

AUTOMATIC LOOMS AT WORK

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wooden floor, tend to hold the looms down instead of lifting them up. The human element in the work of weaving was so insignificant as to be hardly noticeable. In the centre of

the shed was a sort of raised platform or observatory, from which a bird's-eye view of the whole room could be gained, and, looking out from this point over the great wilderness of clanging machinery, one saw that it was not absolutely a solitude.

In one corner, as it were, were the 743 ordinary looms. These were mostly wide looms; all of them, as well as the Northrops, were provided with a warp stop-motion, and there were perhaps 100 weavers to the 743 looms. For the 2,000 Northrop looms, which covered the rest of the floor, there were 134 weavers- -a number which I verified by counting the names in the overseer's wage-book. Some of the weavers were running twenty 40-inch Northrop looms each, others sixteen, and a number of learners had twelve each, the average for the whole of the 2,000 looms being a fraction less than fifteen. The speed of the Northrop looms was 165 picks per minute, and of the other looms 180 picks. In every case the weavers had nothing to do but to weave; weft was brought to the_looms and the woven cuts were taken away by boys. In the case of the Northrop looms one cleaner (a boy) was employed for every 100 looms, whilst three oilers (men) did the oiling for the whole shed of 2,743 looms. There was one loomfixer or tackler, at a weekly wage of $13.90 (58s.), for every 100 Northrop looms. For the ordinary looms the tacklers were paid 55s. 6d. a week; they had charge of 136 looms each. I was told by the overseer that the production of the ordinary looms (with the warp stop-motion) was from 85 to 90 per cent. of the theoretical maximum, and that the percentage produced by the Northrop looms was not more; also that the proportion of imperfect cloth produced by the automatic looms in this mill was higher than in the case of the other looms. One of the cloths made here very largely in the 40-inch looms was 32 inches wide, and had 68 ends and 112 picks to the inch of 42's twist and 36's weft. It was woven in 62-yard cuts, and the price paid to the weavers was 27 cents per cut on the Northrop looms, and 56 cents per cut on the ordinary looms. The

latter is, I believe, 10 per cent. less than the rate paid in Lancashire, but the ordinary eight-loom weaver at this mill could earn $9 (37s. 6d.) a week, and the weaver with twenty Northrop looms $10.50 to $11 (43s. 9d. to 45s. 1od.) a week.

The wages paid to the boys who clean, sweep, and carry weft to the looms are 15s. a week. These boys, from twelve to fourteen years of age, are 'half-timers,' but in the State of Rhode Island a half-timer does not work half the day in school and the other half in the mill; he works full time in the mill for four months and full time at school for the next four months, and so on. In order to convey an absolutely faithful impression of what I saw of the Northrop loom in this mill, I ought to say that a number-perhaps a dozen -of young children were going about amongst the looms helping to keep the magazines full. When I questioned the overseer about this, he told me that these children were not employed by the mill, but came in to help their parents. 'You should be here when the school is loosed,' said he, ' and you would see far more of them.'

'How many will come in then?' I asked, and was told that there might be thirty.

At the neighbouring mills in Massachusetts this would not be permitted, since no child under fourteen years of age may legally work in a mill there, whether for its parents or otherwise. The overseer told me further that the weavers often gave the cleaners a 'nickel' (5 cents) to help them in filling their Northrop magazines.

The following were some of the wage rates in other departments of this mill:-Ring-spinning (36's weft): $1.16 per week per side of 128 spindles running at 9,400 revolutions a minute. Winding: A weekly wage of $7 (31s. 3d.) for minding 75 spindles. Warping: Each warper ran four mills with a drum speed of thirty-two revolutions and a take-up of 40 yards a minute, and was paid 64 cents for 24,000 yards and 450 ends. Slashing: $11 (45s. 10d.) per man for a week of fifty-four hours. Looming or twisting satteens: 18 cents per 1,000 ends. Drawingin satteens: 31 cents per 1,000 ends. This included the drawing of the ends through the wires of the stop-motion mechanism, and no reacher-in was employed.

THE QUEEN CITY MILL

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These figures, and particularly the weaving prices, will, I think, show my readers who are acquainted with the Lancashire industry that the adoption of self-acting machinery has enabled the American employer to reduce his labour cost materially and at the same time to give a better wage to his workpeople.

The works at which the Northrop loom is made in America employ from 1,700 to 1,900 men, and are now mainly occupied with the manufacture of these looms and their accessories. In their general design and equipment with labour-saving machine tools these Hopedale works are a model establishment, and the village which the company has built for its workpeople is a model likewise. Eighty-five thousand Northrop looms had already been turned out when I saw the works, and although the current output was something like sixty looms a day, the capacity of the plant was about to be increased.

When the Northrop loom was first put upon the market, the makers, in order to demonstrate its merits in the most practical manner, purchased or built a spinning and weaving mill at Burlington, Vermont, and fitted it out with the new self-acting looms. This mill, known as the Queen City Cotton Company's mill, contains 55,000 spindles and 1,297 Northrop looms, and makes ordinary plain cloth of medium. yarns-28's and 36's or thereabouts. For the following particulars of the work done in the mill I am indebted to Mr. G. A. Draper, of Hopedale.

The looms are of two sizes, 32-inch and 44-inch, and of the narrower looms three weavers run eighteen each, thirtynine weavers run sixteen each, one weaver runs fifteen, four weavers run fourteen each, seven learners run eleven each, and three learners run eight each-fifty-seven weavers and learners to 850 looms, or an average of very nearly fifteen looms each. Of the wider looms seventeen weavers run sixteen each, twelve weavers run twelve each (these on striped fabrics), three learners run eight each, and one learner runs three-thirty-three weavers and learners to 447 looms, or an average of thirteen and a half looms each. The cotton used is 'good middling,' about 1-inch staple, and Mr. Draper told me that a production equal to 95 per cent. of the theoretical maximum capacity of the looms had been