At the time to which I allude, the town and county were burdened with
large detachments of the military; the police was in motion, the
magistrates assembled; yet all the movements, civil and military, had
led to--nothing. Not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension
of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there
existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. But the police,
however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents
had been detected,--men, liable to conviction, on the clearest
evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously
guilty of lawfully begetting several children, whom, thanks to the
times! they were unable to maintain. Considerable injury has been done
to the proprietors of the improved frames. These machines were to them
an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the necessity of employing a
number of workmen, who were left in consequence to starve. By the
adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed the
work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of
employment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was
inferior in quality; not marketable at home, and merely hurried over
with a view to exportation. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by
the name of "Spider-work." The rejected workmen, in the blindness of
their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so
beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to
improvements in mechanism.
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