We will conclude with a few facts drawn from the report of Messrs. Whitworth and Wallis on the Industry of the United States in 1850. “The energetic character of the American people,” say these gentlemen, “is nowhere more strikingly displayed than in the young manufacturing settlements that are so rapidly springing up in the northern states. A retired valley and its stream of water become in a few months the seat of manufactures; and the dam and water-wheel are the means of giving employment to busy thousands, where before nothing more than a solitary farm-house was found.
“Great facilities are afforded in many of these states for the formation of manufacturing companies. The liabilities of partners not actively engaged in the management are limited to the proportion of the capital subscribed by each, and its amount is published in the official statement of the company. In the case of the introduction of a new invention, or a new manufacture, the principle of limited liability produces most beneficial results.
“The cost of obtaining an act of incorporation is very trifling. In one case, where the capital of the company amounted to 600,000 dollars (£120,000), the total cost of obtaining an incorporation was fifty cents—two shillings and one penny!
“In America, where labour is more expensive than with us, great ingenuity has been used in the making of labour-saving machines. Timber is sawn up for all kinds of purposes in building, laths are cut, boards for flooring prepared and planed, doors, window-frames, or staircases made, planed, tenoned, mortised and joined by machinery, at a much cheaper rate than by hand-labour. Wood is sawn up at railroad stations, and other places where a great consumption of fuel is required, by sawing-machines, driven by horse-power. Boxes are made by the same means, being tongued and grooved properly and put together by machinery. These labour-saving machines are applied also to the making of furniture and agricultural implements, mowing and reaping machines, and self-acting churns, in the making of all of which labour-saving tools are again used. Among machines of this class must not be omitted the sewing-machine, the use of which is carried to great extent in the New England states. One large manufactory at Waterbury is occupied exclusively in the manufacture of under-vests and drawers, the cloth waistbands of the latter being stitched by the sewing-machine at the rate of 430 stitches per minute. In a shirt manufactory of New Haven, entire shirts, excepting only the gussets, are made by sewing-machines. By the aid of these machines one woman can do as much work as from twelve to twenty hand-sewers. The workwomen work by the piece, and are frequently able to finish their estimated day’s work by two o’clock, and when busy work overtime. When will the older countries be able to give sufficient remunerative employment to their women, so as, like these happier New England states, to dispense with the starvation-drudgery of the poor needlewoman, and make the “Song of the Shirt” applicable no longer?
“The railroads of America are constructed on a much less expensive scale than with us. Economy and speedy completion are the points which are especially considered in that country. A single line of rails nailed down to transverse logs, and a train at rare intervals, are deemed to be sufficient as a commencement, and as traffic increases additional improvements are made.
“As regards either a railroad or a telegraphic line, if a company or a private individual should propose or construct them, or could show that they would be beneficial to the public, an act may be obtained authorising him to proceed, as a matter of course; no private interests can oppose the passage of the line through any property; there are no committees, no counsel, no long array of witnesses and expensive hearings; compensation is made simply for damage done, the amount being assessed by a jury, and generally on a most moderate estimate. With a celerity that is surprising a company is incorporated, the line is built, and operations are commenced.
“As may be well conceived, the advantages derivable from the Electric Telegraph were at once appreciated by the United States, and that wonderful discovery, which opened a system of communication annihilating distance, received immediate encouragement both from the federal government in Washington and the governments of the different states. In 1844 congress made a liberal grant to put in operation the first telegraphic line that was erected in the states—that between Washington and Baltimore; and before seven years had elapsed, the committee on Post-offices and Post-roads presented to the senate their report on the route which they had selected for a gigantic telegraph line, nearly 2,500 miles in length, connecting San Francisco with Natchez on the Mississippi, and thence with the vast network of lines that by that time had covered the Atlantic states. Such was the rapid development of this system of communication, supported by the federal government and fostered by that of the states, which passed general laws authorising the immediate construction of telegraph lines whenever they could be conducive to the public interest, and affording every facility for companies for that purpose.
“The aggregate length of the telegraphic lines in the United States exceeded, in 1852, 15,000 miles, and this number is continually increasing. The average cost of constructing a line is estimated at £37 per mile. So moderate is the scale of charges by the telegraphic wires, that the electric telegraph is used by all classes of society as an ordinary means of transmitting intelligence; government dispatches and communications taking the precedence. Newspapers make great use of it, as well as commercial houses.
“The most distant points connected by electric telegraph are Quebec and New Orleans, which are 3,000 miles apart; while a network of lines extends to the west as far as Missouri, about 500 towns and villages in those remote wildernesses being provided with stations.
“The cotton manufactures of the United States are principally centralized in New England and Pennsylvania, but out of the thirty-one states of the Union there are seven only in which the spinning or manufacture of cotton is not carried on, viz., Louisiana, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and California. The census of 1850 returns 1,054 establishments for the manufacture of cotton goods, consuming 641,240 bales of cotton, and manufacturing goods to the value of £1,000,000 sterling. The number of persons employed in these mills are 33,150 males and 59,136 females. In Alabama slave labour is said to be largely employed, with whites as overseers and instructors. The mills at Lowell, in Massachusetts, on the falls of Powtucket on the Merrimack river, are the most celebrated in the United States, as having been the first where advantage was taken of great natural advantages, with a large and well directed capital, resulting in extensive and systematic operations for the realisation of a legitimate profit; whilst the social position of the operative classes was sedulously cared for, and their moral and intellectual elevation promoted and secured. These works at Lowell were commenced about thirty years ago, and the town now contains 35,000 inhabitants. The example of the Lowell manufacturers has been followed throughout the Union, and in every case with the same favourable results. The number of operatives in the Lowell mills is 6,920 females and 2,378 males.