of England, where the factory system is but partially established, with that of the population in the cotton districts where it is fully developed. In the former exist much of the comforts and feelings of domestic life; the habits and manners of the manufacturing classes are sober, decent and regular; they seem to have an interest and a delight in keeping up the respectability of their character, in setting a good example to their children, and in bringing them up in the paths of piety and virtue. Even before a traveller has time or opportunity to ascertain these facts, he is struck with the cleanliness and neatness of their dress and persons, with the healthiness of their looks, and with their steady and cheerful

manners.

Let the same individual pass into the cotton district, and he will find the case most miserably reversed. The manufacturing classes are dirty, squalid and unhealthy, having an appearance of debauchery and poverty strongly marked in their persons. Nor will this appearance be found on inquiry to be erroneous. The utmost ignorance and dissoluteness of manners prevail. There is, generally speaking, none of that laudable feeling of independence, none of that prospective prudence, above all, none of that religious principle, without which the working classes must always be sunk in poverty and vice.

The causes of this remarkable difference do not lie deep; but I can at present merely hint at them. They are all comprised in the extension of the factory system, without a corresponding extension of the means of religious instruction; or, rather, with a tendency in the system itself to preclude all the ordinary means of mental improvement. The early introduction of children into crowded factories, where confinement injures their health, and intercourse with depraved characters contaminates their morals, while the wholesome education of the school is thrown aside; and the inequality of the rate of wages among workmen, occasioned by the fluctuations of commerce, which sometimes afford them a

profuse supply, and at other times reduce them to a state of starvation (circumstances by which the cotton is distinguished from the woollen trade, in the latter of which the demand is more steady, and children are not useful to the same extent in their childish years), are themselves fruitful causes of ignorance and depravity, and are, at the same time, indirectly productive of accumulating evils by causing the neglect of those moral influences, on which so much of the happiness of the community depends. But these are not necessary concomitants of manufacturing operations; and my dependance on the great over-ruling principle of good is such, that I do not doubt the mischief will eventually correct itself; or, rather, will be corrected by what is usually called the natural progress of society; but is, in reality, no other than a fuller development of the plans of a beneficent Providence. The depraving effects of the factory system are already begun to be felt as an intolerable evil. It has attracted the attention of the legislature, and some steps have been taken to discover a remedy. But it does not yet appear to have reached that point in its downward progress where it is destined to stop. Some further dissoluteness of morals will probably take place before the public attention shall be thoroughly and effectually roused. The day, however, I confidently anticipate, will come; and then, by arrangements founded on Christian principle, in which the system has hitherto been most lamentably deficient, a revolution will be effected, which shall exhibit a truth proved in a thousand other instances in the moral as well as in the natural world, that an unseen hand is constantly at work,

From seeming evil still educing good,

And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression.

EIGHTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

CLOTHING.THE ART OF BLEACHING.

THERE is nothing so peculiar in the modern history of the linen manufacture, or in the nature of the process, as to require a detailed account. The machinery used in weaving is nearly the same as that described in the other manufactures already mentioned; and I have elsewhere given a sufficient description of the flax-plant itself, of the mode of its cultivation, and of the early history of the manufacture. I shall therefore pass at once to a process which flax undergoes, in common with the other vegetable substances used in manufacture ;—I allude to the art of bleaching.

Such substances are naturally combined in a greater or less degree with resinous matter, which communicates colour to the fibre, and diminishes its brilliancy. Bleaching is the art by which this matter, or any accidental stain, is removed, and the pure vegetable fibre is left to reflect the different rays of light in due proportion, so as to appear white.

In regard to the origin of this art, it would soon be observed, that the action of water, together with that of the sun and air, rendered the rude cloths whiter than at their first formation; and, since the earliest step towards refinement is to add beauty to utility, as the state of society improved, a desire to give them a pure and spotless white would naturally arise. An idea which, however introduced, seems to have been very early entertained, that white raiment was an emblem of innocence, may probably have given a stimulus to the experiments which led to the discovery of the bleaching process. Accident, too, would assist the discovery; for it would be found that a certain degree of putrid fermentation carried off colouring matters from vegetable fibres. The practice

of macerating cloth in water mixed with putrescent animal matter, has been continued from the earliest times to the present day.

From the most ancient accounts handed down to us of India, Egypt, and Syria, it appears that these enlightened nations knew the efficacy of natron (the nitre of Scripture), an impure mineral alkali found in these countries, for combining with, and carrying off the colouring matter with which cloth is stained; and, being still found in great abundance by the present inhabitants, it is used by them for the same purpose. We are also informed by Pliny,* that the ancient Gauls were acquainted with the use of a lixivium, extracted from the ashes of burnt vegetables, as a detergent, and knew how to combine this lixivium with animal oil, to form soap.

But, though these nations appear to have early acquired some knowledge of the art of bleaching, the progress which they made in its improvement, when compared with the advantages which some of them enjoyed, was very inconsiderable. The same practices appear to have been handed down from one generation to another, without any material alteration. In India, the art of bleaching, as well as that of staining cloths of various colours, does not seem to be in greater perfection at present, than it is described to have been in the days of Herodotus. Even in Europe, where the arts, after they have been introduced have generally made rapid progress, the art of bleaching advanced very slowly till towards the end of the eighteenth century, when chemistry first began to be extensively applied to the improvement of the arts.

In the middle of that century, the process occupied from six to eight months. It consisted in steeping the cloth in alkaline leys for several days, washing it clean, and spreading it on the grass for some weeks. The process of alternate steeping in a ley, and bleaching on the grass, was repeated for five or six times. The cloth was * Book xviii. chap. 21.

then steeped for some days in sour milk, washed clean, and once more exposed on the grass.

This tedious process was at once curtailed to that of a single day, by the application of the oxymuriatic acid or chlorine, the properties of which were discovered by the justly celebrated Mr Scheele. While employed in making experiments on manganese, about the year 1774, this philosopher first noticed the powers of that agent in rendering vegetable substances colourless, and stated the fact, in 1786, to M. Berthollet, more as a matter of curiosity than of use. This intelligent Frenchman lost no time in employing the properties of the curious and interesting substance for the most important practical purposes. His application of it to the bleaching of cotton and linen cloth proving successful, he published the result of his experiments in the year 1789. The new method of bleaching was quickly and successfully introduced into the manufactories of Rouen, Valenciennes, and Courtray, and soon after into those of Manchester and Glasgow ; and it has since been generally adopted in Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Germany. The advantages which result from this rapid method of bleaching, can be best appreciated by commercial people, who experience its beneficial effects in many ways, but particularly in the quick circulation of their capitals.

Great difficulties at first impeded the progress of this improvement, arising chiefly from prejudice, as well as from the ignorance of the bleachers in the chemical proThese obstacles, however, were soon removed, by the assistance of several eminent chemists, particularly Messrs Watt, Henry, and Cooper.

cesses.

From the volatility of the oxygen as united with the muriatic acid, when simply diffused in water, with which it has a very slight affinity, and, consequently, its unequal action on the goods immersed in it, as well as from its suffocating effects on the workmen employed, it soon became evident, that the application of it, to any extensive degree, would be impracticable if these inconveni