The unexampled progression of the cotton trade in the latter part of the last century cannot, perhaps, be better exemplified than by the rapid increase of the population of the towns and villages in the manufacturing district. Such places as had become rather large villages by the prosperity of the domestic spinning and weaving concerns, were rapidly transformed by the factory system into great and increasing towns; and such places as were mere obscure hamlets during the period of the primitive era of the manufacture, speedily became, by the extreme prosperity of the early stages of the factory system, large and flourishing villages. The population of the village of Oldham in 1756 was about 400, but by 1788 the place was fast assuming, so far as respected the number of buildings, the appearance of a town. In 1789 the population of the town or village of Oldham was about 1600. In the same year the number of the families in the township of Oldham was ascertained to be 2003, and the total population of the township would then be at least 8012. In 1778 the population of the entire parish was from 8000 to 10,000, but in 1789 the aggregate of inhabitants had increased to about 13,916. The population of the town of Ashton-under-Lyne in 1755 was about 1000, but in 1790 it had increased to 3000 or 4000. The population of the town of Rochdale in 1755 was about 2000, and in 1790 it was 5000; of Great and Little Bolton in 1773, 5604, and in 1790, 10,000, and of Stalybridge in 1763, 500, and in 1794, 1100. Notwithstanding the effect of the first rapid development of the factory system on the the amount of the population, Oldham has much more rapidly increased in the number of its inhabitants during the last twenty-six years than during the latter part of the last century, or the first twenty years ofthe present century. Within nine years subsequent to the period when cotton mills were first erected at Oldham, namely in 1787, the number of cotton mills in England, Wales,

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