otion by the
jerking of a stick (the picking peg) to which they were attached by
strings. The output of a weaver was enormously increased in consequence.
In 1760 John Kay's son Robert added the drop-box, by the use of which
many different kinds of weft could be worked into the same fabric
without difficulty. It was in fact a partitioned lift, any partition of
which could be brought to a level with the lathe and made for the time
continuous with it. The drop-box usefully supplemented the "draw-boy,"
or "draught-boy," which provided for the raising of warps in groups, and
thereby enabled figured goods to be produced. The "draw-boy" had been
well known in the industry for a long time; in 1687 a Joseph Mason
patented an invention for avoiding the expense of an assistant to work
it,[33] but there is no evidence to show that his invention was of
practical value. Looms with "draw-boys" affixed, which could sometimes
be worked by the weavers themselves, later became common under the name
of harness-looms, which have since been supplanted by Jacquard looms,
wherein the pattern is picked out mechanically.

The principle of the fly-shuttle was a first step towards the complete
mechanizing of the action required for working a loom. The second step
was the power-loom, the initial effort to design which was created by
the tardiness of weaving as contrasted with the rapidity of spinning by
power. After the general adoption of the jenny, supplies of yarn outran
the productive powers of the agencies that existed for converting them
into fabrics, and as a consequence, it would seem, some yarn was
directed into exports which might have been utilized for the manufacture
of cloth for export had the loom been more productive. The agitation for
the export tax on yarn at the end of the 18th, and in the first years of
the 19th century, is therefore comprehensible, but there was no
foundation for some of the allegations by which it was supported. For a
large proportion of the exported yarn, fabrics could not have been
substituted, since the former was required to feed the hand-looms in
continental homes and domestic workshops, against much of the product of
which there was no chance of competing. The hand-loom was securely
linked to the home of the peasant, and though he would buy yarn to feed
his loom he would not buy cloth and break it up.[34]

Cartwright's loom was not the first design adapted for weaving by power.
A highly rudimentary and p