* Since These Words Were Written President Felton Has Died - I, As I
Returned On My Way Homeward, Had The Melancholy Privilege Of Being
Present At His Funeral.
I feel bound to record here the great
kindness with which Mr. Felton assisted me in obtaining such
information as I needed respecting the institution over which he
presided.
I am not at all aware whether the nature of the manufacturing
corporation of Lowell is generally understood by Englishmen. I
confess that until I made personal acquaintance with the plan, I
was absolutely ignorant on the subject. I knew that Lowell was a
manufacturing town at which cotton is made into calico, and at
which calico is printed - as is the case at Manchester; but I
conceived this was done at Lowell, as it is done at Manchester, by
individual enterprise - that I or any one else could open a mill at
Lowell, and that the manufacturers there were ordinary traders, as
they are at other manufacturing towns. But this is by no means the
case.
That which most surprises an English visitor on going through the
mills at Lowell is the personal appearance of the men and women who
work at them. As there are twice as many women as there are men,
it is to them that the attention is chiefly called. They are not
only better dressed, cleaner, and better mounted in every respect
than the girls employed at manufactories in England, but they are
so infinitely superior as to make a stranger immediately perceive
that some very strong cause must have created the difference.
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