mills here employing 300 hands each, and a still greater number which provide work for 200 and 100 hands each, but the largest number of all are various small concerns employing under 100 hands each. In 1833 three of the principal mills in Manchester employed about 1400 hands each, eight from 500 to 900 each, eight from 300 to 500 each, and 17 from 100 to 300 each. In Bolton there are numerous large mills, few concerns being under 200 hands each. In Stockport the manufactories vary greatly in extent, there being many large as well as small mills. In Ashton, Stalybridge, Dukinfield, and Hyde, most of the concerns employ from 300 to 800 hands each; there are some few above and below these numbers, but they are not many. In Rochdale, Bury, and Heywood, with the exception of a trifling number of large establishments, the mills are principally of moderate size. The aggregate num- ber of workers in the twelve mills of the chapelry of Oldham in 1778 did not probably exceed 360. The total population in the chapelry or parish at that pe- riod was about 8000 to 10,000. In 1846 the total number of cotton mills in the chapelry was 111, of concerns or firms 188, and of cotton mill workers 20,673. The population within the limits alluded to in 1841 was 60,448.

It is positively asserted by an aged inhabitant of the neighbourhood of Royton, that a small cotton mill, moved by water, was established at Thorp clough, near Royton, by Mr. Ralph Taylor, of Thorp, as early as 1764. If this was really the case, which I am inclined to doubt, Mr. Taylor's mill would be one of the earliest cotton mills erected in Lancashire, but he probably carried on the carding of cotton only under Mr. Paul's patent. There is no questioning the fact that there was a small cotton mill at Thorp clough a few years afterwards.

"In 1766 it is estimated that the value of the whole

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