and spinning for the old firm formed a considerable part of
the business of the new one. Then came a crisis. The old firm took away
their work: they sent the wool to be spun and the yarn to be dyed
elsewhere. This was a great blow; but eventually it was got over by
extra diligence, energy, and thrift,--Mrs. Crossley herself taking a
full share in the labours and responsibility of her husband.

"In addition to the carpet making," she says in the Manuscript Memoir of
her life, "we carried on the manufacture of shalloons and plainbacks,
the whole of which I managed myself, so far as putting out the warps and
weft, and taking in from the weavers. We had at one time as many as a
hundred and sixty hand weavers on these goods. We sold the principal
part of them in London. We had also about four looms making brace webs
and body belts. The produce of these looms I sold principally to the
Irish, who made them up into braces and hawked them about the country. I
also made and stitched, with assistance, all the carpets that we sold
retail. I used to get up to work by four o'clock in the morning, and
being very diligent, I have usually earned two shillings before
breakfast, by the time that my neighbours were coming downstairs."

The partnership of Crossley, Travers, and Crossley, lasted for twenty
years. When the term had expired, the partners shared their savings;
they amounted to L4,200, or fourteen hundred pounds to each. This was
not a very large sum to make during twenty years' hard work; but Dean
Clough Mill was then but a small concern, and each partner did his own
share of handiwork in spinning, dyeing, and weaving. Mrs. Crossley says
that "the fourteen hundred pounds came in very useful." In fact, it was
only a beginning. John Crossley eventually bought the Dean Clough Mills
out and out. He had a family of eight children to provide for; and he
put his sons for the most part into his business. They followed the
example of their parents, and became thrifty, useful, and honourable
men.

John Crossley, the founder of the firm, has observed, that in the course
of his life he was a keen observer of men and things. He says he noticed
many of the failures of his neighbours in bringing up their children.
Some fathers were so strict with their children, keeping them so
constantly at home, and letting them see so little of the world in which
they lived, that when the fathers died and the children were removed
from all restraint, the