vented in 1825 by Richard Roberts, of the firm of Sharp, Roberts
& Co., machinists, of Manchester. In 1830 Roberts improved his invention
and brought out the complete self-actor. Self-actors had been put forward
by others besides Roberts--for instance by William Strutt, F.R.S. (son of
Arkwright's partner), before 1790; William Kelly, formerly of Lanark
mills, in 1792; William Eaton of Wiln in Derbyshire; Peter Ewart of
Manchester; de Jongh of Warrington; Buchanan, of Catrine works, Scotland;
Knowles of Manchester; and Dr Brewster of America[30]--but none had
succeeded. And Roberts's machines did not immediately win popularity. For
a long time the winding done by them was defective, and they suffered
from other imperfections. Broadly speaking, until the American Civil War
the number of hand-mules in use remained high. It was for the fine
"counts" in particular that many employers preferred them.[31] About the
end of the 'sixties, however, and in the early 'seventies, great
improvements were effected in machinery, partly under the stimulus of a
desire to elevate its fitness for dealing with short-staple cotton, and
it became evident that hand-mules were doomed. Here we may suitably refer
to the scutching machine for opening and cleaning cotton, invented by Mr
Snodgrass of Glasgow in 1797, and introduced by Kennedy[32] to Manchester
in 1808 or 1809; the cylinder carder invented by Lewis Paul and improved
by Arkwright; and the lap-machine first constructed by Arkwright's son.

Weaving machinery.

We now transfer our attention to that accumulation of improvements in
manufacturing (as weaving is technically termed) which, taken in
conjunction with the inventions already described, presaged the large
factory system which covers Lancashire to-day. Gradually, for many
years, the loom had been gathering complexities, though no fundamental
alteration was introduced into its structure until 1738, when John Kay
of Bury excited the wrath of his fellow-weavers by designing and
employing the device of the fly-shuttle. For some unfathomable
reason--for the opposition of the weavers hardly explains it, though
they expressed their views forcibly and acted upon them violently--this
invention was not much applied in the cotton industry until about a
quarter of a century after its appearance. The plan was merely to
substitute for human hands hammers at the ends of a lengthened lathe
along which the shuttle ran, the hammers being set in m