in which children were largely employed, and
factory villages grew up round them. From about 1790 steam-power began
gradually to take the place of water-power; the change was slow, and as
it went on the manufacture became increasingly centred in populous
towns.

Cotton weaving remained a domestic industry, for Cartwright's power-loom
did not come into general use until after 1800. The output of yarn was
enormous, and for a time the weavers' earnings were very large, but the
money which could be earned at the loom and the failure of domestic
spinning caused so many to take to weaving that by 1800 wages had begun
to decline, and gradually a period of distress set in. A machine for
calico-printing further increased the profits of the capitalist and had
a bad effect on labour, for it threw the calico-printer out of
employment. Wool spinning was far more generally carried on in rural
districts than cotton spinning, and more widely spread misery was caused
by changes in the manufacture. It came under the dominion of machinery
somewhat later. Machines for carding and combing took the place of
manual labour after 1790, and enabled one man and a few children to do
the work of many men. Spinning with the wheel lasted longer than in the
cotton manufacture. From 1785 jennies were used, and wool spinning was
gradually transferred to factories and became a separate business,
instead of a by-employment which helped the small farmer to pay his rent
and eked out the scanty wages of the labourer. The change was
accelerated by the scarcity of wool during the revolutionary war, for
by that time the trade had become largely dependent on importation from
Spain, and it was not until about 1800 that sheep began to be bred for
their wool in Australia. As in the cotton trade, the wages of weavers
were high during the war, but the scarcity of material prevented all but
the best workmen from finding employment and there was much distress
among the rest. The failure of domestic spinning deeply affected all the
rural districts of England.

[Sidenote: _AGRICULTURAL WAGES._]

It was specially disastrous because it was accompanied by times of
scarceness and by changes connected with a revolution in agriculture
which pressed heavily on many of the poorer classes. A rapid increase in
population during the latter part of the century was consequent on the
stimulus given to manufacture; in 1760 the population of England and
Wales is estimated at 6,479,70