f that period to produce fine
cotton goods to compete with those at that time largely imported from
India, led to a great demand for fine yarns, and these the comparatively
clumsy fingers of English spinners could not produce in a manner at all
equal to the delicate filaments produced by the Hindoos.

Kay's invention of the fly shuttle, and the introduction by his son of
the drop-box in the loom, had vastly increased the output of the loom,
thus increasing the demand for weft and warp to feed it.

The inventions of Arkwright, Paul and others had certainly done much
toward supplying this demand, but in Crompton's youth and early manhood
the need of suitable weft was greater than ever. Mrs. Crompton was not
long in hearing about the Jenny of Hargreaves, and determined she would
get one for her son to work upon. This she did, and Crompton very soon
became familiar with it and produced upon it sufficient weft for their
own use. This he continued to do for seven or eight years, although he
constantly had the truth forced upon him, that the yarn he was producing
was neither as suitable for warps as that from Arkwright's water frame,
nor at all adapted for the fine muslins then very much in requisition
for ladies' dresses.

The manufacture of these muslins and of cotton quiltings was commenced
in Bolton, Lancashire, by Joseph Shaw, when Crompton was about ten years
of age; and from that time up to the present, no town in the world
enjoys the same reputation for this class of goods as does Bolton.

With so contemplative and reflective a mind as Crompton's, and the many
years of constant and, to a great extent, solitary occupation on
Hargreaves' Jenny, it is not to be wondered at that Crompton's ingenious
brain led him to devise some mechanism for improving the jenny on which
he worked.

In 1774, therefore, he began those experiments which, after five years
labour, resulted in the invention of the "New Wheel," or "Muslin Wheel,"
or "Hall ith Wood Wheel," as it was variously designated. The term
"Mule" was of later application, owing to its comprising the essential
features of both Arkwright's and Hargreaves' inventions. Because it was
a cross or combination of the two it received the name of Mule, by which
it is known to-day.

At the very time Crompton perfected his machine sufficiently to give it
a practical test, the Blackburn spinners and weavers were going
riotously about, smashing to pieces every jenny with more than