"As trade extended, the chapmen used to keep gangs of pack horses, and accompany them to the principal towns, with goods in packs, which they opened and sold to shopkeepers, lodging what was unsold in small stores at the inns. The masters attended the weekly market at Manchester, and sold their pieces in the grey to the merchants, who afterwards dyed and finished them. The workman generally earned wages which were sufficient not only to live comfortably upon, but which enabled him to rent a few acres of land, thus joining in his own person two classes that are now daily becoming more and more distinct. His farming being but a subordinate occupation, the land yielded only a small proportion of what, under a better system of culture, it was capable of producing. A garden was likewise an invariable adjunct to the cottage of the hand loom weaver ; and in no part of the kingdom were the floral tribes and edible roots more zealously or more successfully cultivated. Of simple habits and few wants, the diet of the manufacturing labourers consisted chiefly of oatmeal pottage and milk, bread, beef, cheese, &c., the uses of tea, coffee, and groceries in general being but little known. The amount of labour gone through was but small, for the operative worked by the rule of his strength and convenience.

"The domestic manufacturer possessed an extremely limited degree of information, an utter ignorance of printed books, beyond the thumbed Bible, and a few theological tracts; seeking his stimulus in home brewed ale, his amusements in bodily exercise, the chase, seasonable celebrations, &c. -- a sluggish mind in an active body; the labour was carried on under his own roof, or, if exchanged at intervals for farming occupation, this was going on under the eye and with the assistance of his family. The vices that were incident to this state of things were the result of man's natural propensities, and resulted from a want of sufficient check upon his passions, which were kept in a state of excitement by health and bodily vigour.

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