John's College,
Cambridge. E.J.H.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY
* * * * *
EXEMPLARS ABRIDGED FROM MR. BABBAGE'S "ECONOMY OF MACHINERY AND
MANUFACTURES."
_Voyage of Manufacture._--The produce of our factories has preceded even
our most enterprising travellers. Captain Clapperton saw at the court of
the Sultan Bello, pewter dishes with the London stamp, and had at the
royal table a piece of meat served up on a white wash-hand basin of
English manufacture. The cotton of India is conveyed by British ships
round half our planet, to be woven by British skill in the factories of
Lancashire; it is again set in motion by British capital, and
transported to the very plains whereon it grew, is repurchased by the
lords of the soil which gave it birth, at a cheaper price than that at
which their coarser machinery enables them to manufacture it themselves.
At Calicut, in the East Indies (whence the cotton cloth called calico
derives its name) the price of labour is one-seventh of that in England,
yet the market is supplied from British looms.
_Additions to human power.
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