The manufacture of cotton goods in one of the greatest of the English industries.
Over a million men, women, and children are employed in Great Britain and Ireland, and nearly five million people are dependent for their daily bread on the wages earned in the factories.
The centre of this great industry is the city of Manchester. Here the greatest number of factories are built, and all matters concerning the cotton market are discussed and settled. Manchester—dirty, smoky Manchester, with its forest of tall chimneys pouring forth volumes of black, sulphurous smoke, holds the fate of the cotton trade in its hands.
It is quite a sight to see the Manchester factory hands rushing out of the mills, hundreds strong, at the noon hour.
Our own factory hands are, as you well know, neat, tidy, and well dressed girls. As soon as they turn off from the stream of their fellow-workers, as they leave the mills, it is hardly possible to tell whether they are factory girls, shop girls, servants, or young ladies.
The English mill girls are quite different.
They have a distinct dress which points out their occupation wherever they may be.
To begin with, they never by any chance wear hats. Winter and summer they go bareheaded.
They one and all wear short skirts which reach to the tops of their boots; these skirts are always made of cotton goods, and their boots are thick, clumpy, laced affairs, heavier than those worn by the workmen in this country—very often they have wooden soles. As you may imagine, the appearance of these girls' feet is something appalling.
The factory girl's costume is completed by an apron and a small square shawl of bright plaid, which is worn over the shoulders, or shifted to cover the head in wet weather.